[Elecraft] Price increase in mid Sept.

[Oliver Dröse]

Thanks a lot Wayne.

That is the major explanation I was looking for. With Elecraft it's easy to 
follow sales figures as everybody's proud and posts them (me too ;-)). That 
is more difficult with the other big manufacturers. But my assumption is 
they do sell lots lots more radios (take alone all those HT's although they 
get some big competitors fro China nowadays). Heard rumors once (not sure if 
that's true but could imagine) that Yaesu sold > 100.000 FT-817's in the 
first 8 years alone. Then they have all their other products, too. So that 
certainly is another volume also for buying components etc. and using their 
market share to literally "dictate" prices at some semi-conductors, too. 
Keeping fingers crossed that Elecraft will grow further and further (keeping 
up your good support structures, etc.) and increase their market share. 
Would be interesting to see an "official" market share diagram concerning 
amateur radio manufacturers one day.

To all of you "drifting" into a value discussion: I did not question if 
Elecraft products are worth their prices (some might have misinterpreted my 
original mail - judging from a few responses here on the reflector and quite 
a number of privat mails). They are, that's why I spent quite some 
Dollars/Euros with them, too, and intend to buy even more. ;-)

73, Olli - DH8BQA
K3 #4546, KPA500 #431,
KX3 # 602, KAT500 #???




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wayne Burdick" <n6kr at elecraft.com>
To: "Oliver Dröse" <droese at necg.de>
Cc: "Eric Swartz WA6HHQ - Elecraft" <eric at elecraft.com>; "Elecraft 
Reflector" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 12:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Price increase in mid Sept.


Our volume is certainly less than that of the "big three." That means
we can't order in quantities as large as they do, and we have less
leverage at times when prices go up. And they have been going up --
almost everything gets more expensive year to year.

73,
Wayne
N6KR

Oliver Dröse wrote:

> What I have already been wondering when the last price increase was
> announced 2 years ago (I believe it was) is why are prices  increasing for
> Elecraft gear (even if only slightly) while prices of all other
> manufacturers are falling after products a certain time on the market?
>
> I understood that Kenwood, Yaesu, Icom start with an a bit higher  price 
> (but
> still acceptable otherwise they would not sell their radios) and after
> "earning" all the development costs (and "milking" the early  adaptors who
> always need the newest and "best") they can and do decrease the  product
> prices as they only have the production costs then (including  margin, 
> etc.).
> Typical mass-production mechanisms.
>
> So what is different at Elecraft? No mass-production (compared to  the 
> "big
> ones")? Or is that lower prices right away and thus always only 
> production
> costs + margin + only small uplift for development (which might  level out
> that of the others seen over a complete product life-cycle)? At  least 
> those
> others have to fight the same cost increases for components, etc.




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