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Another Red Flag On The Ampeg PF-500.....
- Thread starter shoot-r
- Start date
Like what?
They can't be paying some build house in China over $50 per.
Wanna talk shipping?...cool. Last I checked, which admittedly has been a little while, it cost about $2500 to send one shipping container from China to the US. How many tens of thousands of those little circuit boards will fit in one? Or how much space will they take up in a container full of other amps and cabs?
Fat Steve
The poodle bites, the poodle chews it.
Ended up getting the PF 350 and an Eden 4X10 cab. Works beautifully for my DB. Plenty of volume and a great punchy tone, actually pretty close to the DB's unplugged tone. Wanted to get the PF 500, but this thread swayed me from that decision.
I'm not at liberty to discuss exact numbers, but $50 is a nice ballpark. A bit more, but in the ballpark. But at that point it's getting nit-picky. We've got plenty of business people in here. Come on folks, what is a justifiable mark-up? 100%? 300%? 935%?
Fat Steve
The poodle bites, the poodle chews it.
I'm sure the same folks can tell you an acceptable fail rate. I just hope they don't run customer service.
+1
We're still dealing with a company that repeatedly denies the problems even exist, but then blames their own customers for the problems, which according to them don't exist, but it's the users fault, for a problem that doesn't exist.
You looking for an education in manufacturing costs or trying to draw out the actual cost of this piece?
I will say I don't think anyone will sell for actual cost, that is not how business works. A 400% markup would be WAY out of line. The lowest markup over cost I have ever seen personally was 80% for an employee. Most I have seen from a manufacturing environment was 200% (and THAT is very rare).
Remember cost includes all costs from the first call to order assemblies, to raw parts, to manufacture, to testing,to shipping, to stocking including floor tax for units at the end of the year as well as equipment cost/depreciation and non-direct employee costs.
You looking for an education in manufacturing costs or trying to draw out the actual cost of this piece?
I will say I don't think anyone will sell for actual cost, that is not how business works. A 400% markup would be WAY out of line. The lowest markup over cost I have ever seen personally was 80% for an employee. Most I have seen from a manufacturing environment was 200% (and THAT is very rare).
Well...."ballpark $50" to the $204 quoted to the OP from Ampeg would fit right in that 400% bracket.
to replace a 2 year old out of warranty or two week old 2nd owner's disaster the markup should be Zero% and free shipping if you ask me.
Granted, I'm not in the business, but a few things I have found the inside scoop on, like instruments, auto parts, etc. usually run around 100% or slightly more, which is reasonable. You can't just make a small margin on the item, you gotta make enough to cover everything it takes to get the item. Labor, wages, insurance, taxes, building leases, etc. and then make a profit on top of that. 100% may not be enough in some cases but 400% = highway robbery.
Well...."ballpark $50" to the $204 quoted to the OP from Ampeg would fit right in that 400% bracket.
But a ballpark is a big place, you can hit a home run or strike out at home plate. I sure don't want to see hodgy on the unemployment line for "talking out of class".
In order to do that they would have to admit to an obvious known problem, which they won't admit to. They instead blame the users for turning the amps up.
Down here, that's called, " screwin' 'em comin' and goin' ".
Yes, around fifty, each, depending on volume. You probably have more upper level business experience than I, but to be fair, we should acknowledge that what they pay the supplier directly for the board, and what they can sell it for includes a lot of costs that must be taken into account. The operation that I mentioned where I last worked, and could see the mark-up of almost 300% did not really mean that we made money doing so. They had to pay me my pittance, and the best I could determine, the CEO, (son of the deceased founder), was paid 7.5 million in direct cash salary, (not to mention other non-direct cash compensation, equal to almost that amount), and all the other mucky-mucks had to get their millions, so we could easily lose money on the books, while making a killing on our markup. Loud has to mark up those boards to be able to cover the million-plus a year they pay Hodgy to run the operation you know.
But a ballpark is a big place, you can hit a home run or strike out at home plate. I sure don't want to see hodgy on the unemployment line for "talking out of class".
I don't want hodgy to get himself in any trouble at all, hell no. Just my own musings here.
Although he did chime in responding to Munji's $50 estimate saying there is a way it cost more. All I did is ask how. Munji's an international businessman, he knows a bit about contracting with other countries and what all is involved.
That is funny, I'm sure hodgy would love to see 1/10 of that
. You do bring up the valid point of "back office" cost vs "front office" cost though. You can find "back office" cost on reports in a company. The inclusive "front office" cost is not usually discussed.If Hodgy's getting a cool million, I want some answers, man. And a board for standard 10% markup.
Hodgy I hope will not see any trouble for defending the company he works for, which was likely his intent.
Maybe 400% is an acceptable consumer grade markup? I always dealt with end users (broadcasting industry). Our manufactured goods spare parts never exceeded 200%. Raw parts a different story, you would have to pay $0.05 for a 1/2 watt resistor we purchased for $0.001 on average. But handling costs were harder to pin down? Still better than $0.20 from a place like "radio shack".
I understand. We're all typing at the same time here. See my post #231 re: markup. That is pointed towards the complete board, rather than individual resistors that cost far less to make than they do to get to their destination.
