I prefer the expensive ones. but on the other hand we aren't buying much packet flux now that we have scaled back canopy and your not producing a switch product On Aug 3, 2015 5:00 PM, "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]> wrote:
> I would include the temperature and current specs prominently in your > marketing literature / spec sheets. Let the other guys lack of such specs > speak for itself. > > > *From:* Forrest Christian (List Account) <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Monday, August 03, 2015 6:37 PM > *To:* af <[email protected]> > *Subject:* [AFMUG] Competitor parts quality. > > This is somewhat of a vent/rant, but also I will also take suggestions on > how to handle this issue. > > Since I've been shipping gigabit injector products, I've struggled with > the pricing of the magnetics which are used to inject the power on the cat5 > cable. After a lot of time searching, I ended up using a Pulse branded > HX6096NL. This is a extended temperature range part (-40C to +85C), and > is rated for 720mA@57V per pair, continuous. This is the least > expensive part I've found so far which meets decent current rating and > temperature rating standards. If you're interested, the datasheet is > at: > > http://productfinder.pulseeng.com/products/datasheets/HX6096FNL.pdf > > Unfortunately, cheap is not cheap. These parts cost me around $4.25 in > quantity, EACH. (See http://www.findchips.com/search/hx6096fnl ). I > could buy non-temperature rated parts for a bit less, but I don't want to > not ship an extended temperature-rated product. This means on a 4 port > injector, the parts costs alone to add gigabit are $21.00. For a 12 port > injector, this ends up being $61.00. > > As a general rule of thumb, you need to multiply production costs by about > 2 or 2.5 to get the final sale price (and even at that I'm not getting > rich) (see > http://www.eevblog.com/2014/05/28/the-economics-of-selling-your-hardware-project/ > to understand why*)* - so using these parts effectively adds $42 to the > price of a 4 port injector, and $122 to a 12 port injector, when compared > to a non-injected version. > > The frustrating part of all of this is that I see competitors which are > selling products which are amazingly inexpensive. For instance, I > recently bought a 6 port gigabit injector for $37.95, hoping that once I > tore it apart, I'd find a source for an expensive magnetics. I should note > that just the magnetic costs for 6 of the magnetics that I use are $25.50, > leaving only $12.95 for everything else and profit. > > So, what did I find inside? They're using a cheap cheap > questionable-quality knockoff of a set of magnetics which (even if they > were genuine) are not only not industrial temperature range (in fairness > they didn't claim this) but worse, they're not rated for PoE at all - > signal only, no DC. I would never in a million years consider shipping a > product with this set of magnetics in it, and I sure wouldn't use this in > my network. Yet somehow I have to compete with this. > > I guess where I'm going with this is: I am starting to get pushback about > my pricing when compared to these low-cost options, and I'm sure that > they're making an impact into my bottom line - it's definitely difficult to > sell against a product which is so much less expensive, as long as the > perception is that the cheaper product isn't in any material way less > functional or meaningfully lower quality. Unfortunately, the other option > seems to be to start badmouthing the competition, which isn't something I > would ever stoop to. > > I'm not quite sure how to address this. Any suggestions? > > -- > *Forrest Christian* *CEO**, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc.* > Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road, Helena, MT 59602 > [email protected] | http://www.packetflux.com > <http://www.linkedin.com/in/fwchristian> <http://facebook.com/packetflux> > <http://twitter.com/@packetflux> > >
