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I don't actually own one, so I can't say, but it seems like the EDP has a pretty functional faceplate. If you're looking to cut corners, I wouldn't worry about that. You can do a lot with a cool silk screen design and a nice Logo. Figure about $3-5K would more than cover it. Screw it, for loop kind, I'd do it for free. Mark (also a graphic designer) On Saturday, October 13, 2001, at 06:18 PM, Kim Flint wrote: > At 01:12 PM 10/13/2001, Doug Miller wrote: >> Any $ put into design ALWAYS pays off big time on the bottom line. >> >>> If Gibson cares about selling EDPs, they'd get an industrial designer >>> to redesign the face plate. Graphic designer to redo the logo. Do >>> any of these things make the EDP a better product? No, but extra >>> sales would sure influence someone into throwing cash at an EDP 2 >>> project. >> __________________________ >> Doug Miller >> Graphic Designer > > I guess it makes sense that a graphic designer would think so. I tend > to agree. but again, let's look at numbers to do such a project. How > much would it cost to for this design work, and how many more sales > would it generate? Would the additional sales even be enough to cover > the additional cost? I'll make some wild guess estimates. Since you > want to redesign the faceplate, in addition to industrial designers and > graphic designers that requires new engineering work to do the > mechanical redesign of the metal, and then the electrical engineering > and PCB layout of the front panel PCB that holds the parts. Then of > course, the NRE charges for retooling the metal and PCB fabrication, > and silkscreens for the paint, etc. Probably you need to redesign and > reprint any marketing literature also. I guess you have to redesign the > footpedal too, but I won't count that. So I'll estimate: > > Industrial design: $20,000 (that's much cheaper than ID estimates > I've gotten for other things, but we'll find some cheap guy to do it..) > Graphic design of new logo: $5000 (? not sure what that costs.) > mechanical engineer for 1 week: $5000 > electrical engineer for 1 week: $5000 > PCB layout designer for 1 week: $5000 > NRE charges on PCB and metal tooling: $5,000 > prototype build and testing: $7500 > redesign, reprint marketing lit: $2500 > = $55,000 > > > How many extra units do we need to sell to break even on that? > if list price is $1150, wholesale is probably half, $575. > Probably 50% of wholesale price is COGS, so that leaves $287.50/unit > after manufacturing costs. > we have a corporate requirement to maintain 30% margin, which is not > even that much for a low volume product, but .3 x 575 = 172.50, so that > leaves us with $115. presumably the division has overhead costs > to pay for office rent, salaries, etc., let's say that's 10% of income > which is probably too low, or $57.50/unit, leaving us with $57.50. But > let's say we tighten our belts somewhere and manage to devote $75/unit > to pay for this redesign. > > $55,000 / $75 = 733 units needed to be sold just to pay off the cost of > this redesign and break even. I guess these should be counted as > additional sales beyond current figures to make it worthwhile. There > have been very few years in the echoplex's history where that kind of > volume was done, so we are talking about something on the order of > doubling sales or more. Even if that is the wrong way to look at it, > maybe we are optimistically talking about only a 50% increase in sales > needed to cover the cost and take the rest out of existing sales. We > will say that is 1/2 our number above, or 367 additional units sold. > > Now, is a new faceplate design for this product going to generate 367 - > 733 more sales? is this project realistic? How many people base their > decisions on buying rack mounted musical instrument gear on how it > looks? My guess is, somewhere near 0. Even if just attracting more > attention is all we hope to do, will we attract that much more > attention just by changing the faceplate, and convert it into 367 more > sales? I doubt it. You might even lose sales because people already > recognize it as it is, and you will need to spend a lot of effort to > reeducate the market. > > If you ever tried to design a 1U 19" rack faceplate, you would know > that there just isn't a whole lot of room to do anything interesting in > that space, with the constraints of the hardware mounting room behind > it. You mostly attract attention just by looking different from other > stuff, and the echoplex accomplishes that already just by being > NotBlack. If you look at a rack with an EDP in it, you spot it > instantly because of the contrast with all the surrounding stuff. Even > if you thought it was ugly, you still saw it first. > > Right now, the echoplex faceplate is fairly low cost to make, just > stamped sheet metal, painted and silk-screened. We don't want to > increase the cost by doing this redesign, which would raise the list > price. That would reduce sales, countering whatever effect our redesign > gives. So we have to limit our poor designer to avoid any fancy molding > or extrusions, custom knobs and buttons, etc. unless we are willing to > raise the price. He can only work with stamped sheet metal and paint.... > > If you ask me, that $55,000 is far better spent on advertising, > in-store demos, endorsers, etc. That will bring a lot more sales than a > different faceplate. Or you could spend it on new product development, > etc. > > kim > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > Kim Flint | Looper's Delight > kflint@loopers-delight.com | http://www.loopers-delight.com >