Thomas,
The logistical difficulty in stocking distributors with spare parts is a very large uncertainity. The fundamental problem is having a spare parts usage model. or consumption model. That is, a model, an estimate, of how many parts to spare. This comes with time and experience. In the beginning people always guess wrong. It also requires estimates of repair costs which no one has. If I had to guess, based on my experience with other products, I would say that the cost of shipping, parts,and repair would exceed the replacement costs in a substantial number of cases. But onto your specifics: 1. Batteries. We will have a Battery replacement that you can purchase without coming back to us or our disty. The replacements will be standard parts. 2. Stylus. again, we are going the open route. Nothing proprietary about our stylus. 3. Front and back covers? I would no clue whatsoever how many to sell to disty. and what would he do with the unsold ones? I suppose I could offer bags of plastic parts for sale on the web, but its a huge amount of trouble for very little benefit. 4. Headsets. Its a standard part. 5. Pouches: there are plenty of third party suppliers of these. 6. Charger. I have also pushed for a standard charger. basically so guys can use stock USB chargers. If I put Spare parts at the Hub, The cost of shipping them back and forth and the uncertainty in demand would force me to price a spare screen, for example, at the cost of phone. Why, because a spare screen in the hub does no good if it goes unsold. How long do I keep it there? in the factory, I turn it into a phone. Sitting in the hub, its a doorstop. Who pays to keep it there? Do I spare 10%, what if only 5% get used. Who owns the leftover screens? do I pass those costs on everyone? Steve _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of thomasg Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:17 PM To: List for Openmoko community discussion Subject: Re: Price of the Freerunner spare parts I think spare parts are things that should be available via the distributors. 1. What: there are some parts everybody needs to replace or restock at some point: battery (very important), stylus (not really important), front/back-cover (moderately important), headsets, pouches, cables/chargers (reasonably important) 2. How many: see importance (1.) for relative numbers 3. Bigger stocks for distributors, no direct selling in small numbers 4. Make it cheap :P 5. Same as (3.) I guess there are many people who need at least spare batteries and some who'd like to have extra pouches (me! :), so this are things that should be offered to the customers. The effort and prices can be reasonable by only selling larger numbers. Additional spare parts like displays, antennas and so on could be available in smaller number at the local hubs, so resellers can get it for their customers if really needed. On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:00 AM, steve <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I thought about spare parts a while back. The Issue is this. 1. WHAT do I stock ( which parts) 2. How Many do I stock? 3. How do I sell them to you? 4. What will it cost? 5. how do you get them? I suppose I could Offer component kits for sale. That would be the quickest thing for me to do. Sell the whole bag of parts; fix it your self. or build a business around this service. Let me think about it. Throw rotten fruit at this idea if you like. Steve -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joerg Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 8:44 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; List for Openmoko community discussion Subject: Price of the Freerunner spare parts Am So 23. März 2008 schrieb Sean Moss-Pultz: > We will have our own hub in the EU. Neos will move directly from our > factory to that hub. What's about availability and pricing of spare parts like LCM, battery, housing? Will there be any repair service? cheers jOERG _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
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