AO,
I am getting shreaded to bits over this whole box thing so I might as well consolidate them all here.
First of all we are aware of the fact our boxes do not stand out in a crowd. My comeback to that is neither does Worr Games and most guns are sold off the rack not in a stack of boxes on the shelf. By the time the customer sees the box it's over.
Having said that I can also see the other side of the coin and say "thank God they are compairing us to Angels". We have taken a lot of heat over the SFL packages and been found lacking in comparison to WDP. I will take a moment and defend myself here by saying that the SFL's were a pre production run done in the shortest amount of time possible. This was for World Cup at the request of Shocktech. It's not really fair to compare that position with WDP's in which they obviously planned and developed their introduction for a very long time.
To fill you in we have looked at various packaging solutions over the years. The problem has always been the variety of body styles and the larger things we put in the package such as the video and Vieloader. By the time we get everything in it's own little pocket the box gets huge and expensive. Custom boxes have to be ordered in the thousands and ones like WDP is providing with the IR3 cost about 10 bucks. Do the math and the investment is significant. We would take over a year to use up that many boxes so we would have to charge 2-3x more for it to get the cash back out of the inventory. We don't sell nearly asa many high end guns as WDP does so we have to take these things into account.
To support your point of view I will agree that our boxes as well as our marketing sucks. The first day the IR3 shipped I got calls from my OWN TECHS telling me they have a great box and we should do one too. They made a point that it made the product worth 150 bucks more. The next week England called and asked about having AO do a box contest so we can have one as nice as WDP's. Now multiple threads here are commenting about the "box" and I am folding from the pressure.
We are frantically working on this Level 10 project and maybe erroneously thinking we can go into production once we get this solved. If we did this it would leave us lacking in the box and instruction department. I don't think I can bear any more abuse over this issue since believe it or not I really do get emotionally wrapped up over things said here on the forum.
With all that said we are taking a hard look at "the box" and figuring out what we can do. This also includes the instructions and the video. Just starting on this would have to be after everything is finalized for production because you don't want "out dated videos" etc.
One concept we are considering is to only produce C&C, big money, nicely packaged Extremes. The few hundred extra for the "shiney" goes a long way toward covering costs. The exact opposite option is to offer a no frills, no options 90 day warrantee ONLY version that you can upgrade later, white box at no extra charge.
In any case we are no longer looking at Extreme production getting close to reality any time soon. We see this as a cornerstone product for the company and rather than screw it up we would just not put it out at all.
After this lengthy discourse I am looking to the collective brain power of AO to come up with a brilliant solution to our delema. Got box?
Humbled,
AGD
I am getting shreaded to bits over this whole box thing so I might as well consolidate them all here.
First of all we are aware of the fact our boxes do not stand out in a crowd. My comeback to that is neither does Worr Games and most guns are sold off the rack not in a stack of boxes on the shelf. By the time the customer sees the box it's over.
Having said that I can also see the other side of the coin and say "thank God they are compairing us to Angels". We have taken a lot of heat over the SFL packages and been found lacking in comparison to WDP. I will take a moment and defend myself here by saying that the SFL's were a pre production run done in the shortest amount of time possible. This was for World Cup at the request of Shocktech. It's not really fair to compare that position with WDP's in which they obviously planned and developed their introduction for a very long time.
To fill you in we have looked at various packaging solutions over the years. The problem has always been the variety of body styles and the larger things we put in the package such as the video and Vieloader. By the time we get everything in it's own little pocket the box gets huge and expensive. Custom boxes have to be ordered in the thousands and ones like WDP is providing with the IR3 cost about 10 bucks. Do the math and the investment is significant. We would take over a year to use up that many boxes so we would have to charge 2-3x more for it to get the cash back out of the inventory. We don't sell nearly asa many high end guns as WDP does so we have to take these things into account.
To support your point of view I will agree that our boxes as well as our marketing sucks. The first day the IR3 shipped I got calls from my OWN TECHS telling me they have a great box and we should do one too. They made a point that it made the product worth 150 bucks more. The next week England called and asked about having AO do a box contest so we can have one as nice as WDP's. Now multiple threads here are commenting about the "box" and I am folding from the pressure.
We are frantically working on this Level 10 project and maybe erroneously thinking we can go into production once we get this solved. If we did this it would leave us lacking in the box and instruction department. I don't think I can bear any more abuse over this issue since believe it or not I really do get emotionally wrapped up over things said here on the forum.
With all that said we are taking a hard look at "the box" and figuring out what we can do. This also includes the instructions and the video. Just starting on this would have to be after everything is finalized for production because you don't want "out dated videos" etc.
One concept we are considering is to only produce C&C, big money, nicely packaged Extremes. The few hundred extra for the "shiney" goes a long way toward covering costs. The exact opposite option is to offer a no frills, no options 90 day warrantee ONLY version that you can upgrade later, white box at no extra charge.
In any case we are no longer looking at Extreme production getting close to reality any time soon. We see this as a cornerstone product for the company and rather than screw it up we would just not put it out at all.
After this lengthy discourse I am looking to the collective brain power of AO to come up with a brilliant solution to our delema. Got box?
Humbled,
AGD
This box issue should be the least of your worries Tom.
[/sarcasm]
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