As mentioned before, RAIL
NSCALE was not consulted, however we have given our opinion about the proposed pricing strategy.
Our opinion is that SW should not simply recalculate retail prices by keeping the mark-ups the same. The way you sell products (or at least miniatures) is not by adding a fixed margin to your design and hope your products will sell. You have to think in customer prices.
Therefore SW should do the same as they do with the cast metal repricing:
"If the price of your model is going
down and it is for sale in the marketplace, the retail price will not change. Instead, the reduction in price will be used to increase your markup. From there, you can determine if you would like to make more on each sale or offer more competitive pricing.
If the price of your model is going
up, your price to shoppers will increase correspondingly and your markup will remain the same."
By this you can adjust your new price setting in all ease. This is important because retail price setting is a sensitive thing. Customers do typically not like if they discover that suddenly products become a lot cheaper.
Appearently SW thinks that many shop owners are not clever (or to lazy) and forget to alter/lower the prices if possible. It seems that SW is thinking that lowering prices equals more sales. Although lower prices would be welcomed by everyone, I do not believe that 3D printed miniatures are sold because they have a competitive price setting. No our miniatures are sold by customers because they want a specific design or are looking for better detailing. As FUD/FXD parts normally need to be post processed by the customer you will not attract the 'average customer'.
Given the fact that we sell quite some miniature car models that need to be cleaned and painted by the customers for a price twice to over ten times more expensive than mass produced injection moulded car models that do not need any post processing proofs this. You can by coloured 1/160 car models for less than 1 euro! No way SW or RAIL
NSCALE will compete with those products.
This means that there is another mechanism that makes people by 3D printed models. These Unique Selling Points are:
- unique designs
- high degree of details
- specialized products
SW should in our opinion try to keep these USPs on a high level. This means that SW should provide a proper platform that can be trusted by the designers. It would be a lot better if SW would provide a more consistent printing quality that matches with the higher price setting.
We need: consistency in print orientation. SW should not promote (via pricing mechanism) to choose the wrong print orientation. SW should provide better information on how to clean and post process FUD/FXD. In other words: we want more value. FXD for example often does not meet the customer's expectation due to poor printing orientation and horrible packaging. Many of our customers know that SW is often not delivering the quality level they were used.
SW should not promote to add sprues everywhere to lower prices. Sprues are sometimes handy, but often adding sprues is a source of rejections and broken items.
SW should not suddenly change pricings without informing the shop owners. SW should promote that shop owners do the best job. The sudden drastic price changes does not allow the shop owners to keep their shops properly. It is rather time consuming to rework your shop.
That SW is not even able to implement the price change as they themselves have defined is outrageous and displays a great lack of professionalism.
It look likes SW has a big pricing problem and anticipates that most shop owners do not care. By this SW hopes that their pricing structure becomes more sound and that somewhat lower prices will help selling more. That is a big mistake.
If you want to sell more you have to invest in your shop owners by providing them tools (tips, suggestions, easy-to-maintain-your-shop-tools, proper information). By this you create a bond. By this shop owners will play the role of an ambassador.
In all honesty, the current pricing changes fit in the long line of ignorant modifications, which wll not help us (RAIL
NSCALE) to promote SW to forums. Unfortunately we have to accept that SW is that flip-flop company that happens to run some nice 3D printers.
SW please invest in your designers, stop changing stuff without properly testing, become reliable, add a multi-language platform and stop your rejection-methods. Soon people will choose alternatives. SW should be on the forefront to promote the USPs of 3D printing.
Kind regards,
Maurice