Roy Lewallen wrote:
Jim Lux wrote:
Bob John wrote:
Is Tarheel pricing their products out of the market? I had
consideration purchasing a little Tarheel II during our local Hamfest
last weekend in Aurora, IL. The dealer informed me the price had once
again gone up and they are now $289.99.

Seems a reasonable price for a retail thing. Someone has to buy the
parts, someone has to pay someone to assemble it, someone has to store
it in a warehouse, someone has to sit in a store to sell it, etc.
All those steps add up.

When I worked in product design, we used to figure that retail selling
price (w/o discounts) would be 5-10 times the raw parts (Bill of
Materials, BOM) cost.

So, based on that, the parts cost for that antenna would be somewhere
between $25-50. . .

It makes absolutely no sense to apply one rule of thumb for pricing to
all industries and situations. First, most rules of thumb are based on
what it takes for a given business to make a profit on an item, and this
varies tremendously on the volume, amount of R&D required for
development, and a large number of other factors. What do you think the
price of EZNEC is as a multiple of the cost of the CD -- or a printer
ink cartridge based on its parts cost? How about a $3.00 calculator? But
this doesn't have anything to do with what a product is worth, anyway.
What a product is worth is what people are willing to pay for it, no
more, no less. It's senseless to spend time figuring out what a vendor
*should* charge based on some contrived rule based on only one of many
factors determining its manufacturing cost. Vote with your pocketbook.
If people find that the value of the item is worth the price, they'll
pay it. Otherwise, they won't. And anyone thinking an item is overpriced
should jump at the opportunity -- use the time you would have spent
grousing and make it yourself and sell it for less. You'll be on your
way to your first million. . . or, more likely, on your way to learning
a few basic rules about business.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

A number of years ago a friend of mine worked for a company that made
oem patch antenna's for GPS receivers. His company sold them for $10
each. The retail sales price for these antenna's was $100.00. This is
quite in line with the above mentioned markup.

Dave WD9BDZ

BTW: I bought two and still have them somewhere.