If ION's were SUPER cheap how would that change things?

[Skittle]

Paintball would get worse in the eyes of the public. Youve already got jerks that go out and shoot people on the street or cars... you know, all the junk in the news.

When you put that with the fact that anytime you mention your gun to a non p-baller the first thing you hear is, "Is it full auto?". Considering ramping is virtually automatic (dont flame me, its true) you'll have those same jerks rasing hell with their new electro.

I miss the days when you would buy a spyder, learn the game, build the skills and then upgrade. Im only 19, I started pb when I was like 15 and my first gun was a Vulcan 5000 pump, then a stingray. Don't get me wrong, I'd never wish a stingray on anyone. It was fun an exiting though, moving from pump to semi, then semi to electro. I mean, when you start low and move up you appreciate stuff, you learn the game, most of all you learn respect for your marker.

Thats part of the reason many people see the sport as going downhill and destroying itself, noone wants to "play" paintball anymore they want to shoot paint, win, and be AGG. Thats cool, but everyone needs a good beginning. If you start small then I think its better for the sport and the player in the end.

[Arstron]

The same reason we and others spend considerably more money on ule mags and mech cockers and such with no ramping and no eyes - we like them, and we appreciate the quality over faster plastic guns

edit: but yes I do see your point as it pertains to the average kid just getting into the game

Yes I was just talking about the average beginer. The ION is a good deal at $20 for what you get, but why would SP want to take a cut like that on the product they are selling? Why sell a $300-$400 gun for $200, it only cuts back the money you and your stores make. IF they did cut the ION down to be a $100 gun I think there will be a lot of stores that will stop carrying them. It would make there store look bad when you have a ION and a new Freestyle FS-8 sitting side by side, the ION having a $100 price tag and the FS-8 having a $650 price tag. For that matter, having a new $200 electronic spyder with no eyes sitting next to it. If the store owner can make more off the other guns, then why have a cheap gun that you cant make much off of?

[Jackel411]

Ive noticed and odd trend.

Let me first say Im and indoor field air tech, and repair many things during the course of a busy day but recently since the decline in price with Ions ive seen a steady increase of ions that I have to repair... This has made me hate the damn things.. On a busy night I probally have to tear down and replace , relube or rebuild atleast 6-7 ions.. Previously before the price drop it used to be around 1 on a busy night...

The sad part with this is that stupid freakin' smartparts made these guns a royal pain in the but to tear down.

[Arstron]

The sad part with this is that stupid freakin' smartparts made these guns a royal pain in the but to tear down.

Amen!

[Aeronautica86]

Yes I was just talking about the average beginer. The ION is a good deal at $20 for what you get, but why would SP want to take a cut like that on the product they are selling? Why sell a $300-$400 gun for $200, it only cuts back the money you and your stores make. IF they did cut the ION down to be a $100 gun I think there will be a lot of stores that will stop carrying them. It would make there store look bad when you have a ION and a new Freestyle FS-8 sitting side by side, the ION having a $100 price tag and the FS-8 having a $650 price tag. For that matter, having a new $200 electronic spyder with no eyes sitting next to it. If the store owner can make more off the other guns, then why have a cheap gun that you cant make much off of?

stores won't make less on the ion if the price drops; if SP drops the price of the ion, retail stores will drop their price too, but the profit will not decrease - for example, lets just say that SP sells Ions to Store X for $160 a pop, and Store X sells them for $200, this yields a $40 profit (well not really, but lets just leave it at that to keep this simple). If SP dropped the price that they distribute the Ion at to $100, Store X would still charge $140 for the gun and make the same profit (actually more cause they would sell more). This would still translate to a $60 price drop to the consumer. Of course the price of the Ion is likely to never decrease to that level; I'm sure SP has some very smart economists in their marketing team that know exactly how many Ions have sold and at what price they have sold and used these numbers to create rather complex aggregate supply and demand curves that allow them to determine the optimal price to sell the Ion at - in other words, even if SP lowers the price of the Ion, SP isn't going to lose profit because they will only lower the price to a level at which they will sell enough guns to increase their total profit.

[BigEvil]

If the retail proce of IONS dropped radically I would think that either sales have plateaued or they have something new coming out and they want to clear out the existing stock. (Or both)

I have seen people buy them simply because they are so cheap and for no other reason. Not because they 'wanted' them or because they particularly liked them. They got them just out of curiosity.

If it were to go "WAY CHEAPER", then anything without eyes or a ramping feature would be almost impossible to sell. re-sale values would also plumet even further.

[BigEvil]

if SP drops the price of the ion, retail stores will drop their price too,

May not be true - paintball manufacturers are notorious for undercutting their wholesale buyers -by selling the products at retail themselves for less then they sell them to their dealers for wholesale.

[Arstron]

stores won't make less on the ion if the price drops; if SP drops the price of the ion, retail stores will drop their price too, but the profit will not decrease.

This doesnt take into consideration all the ions that stores have before the price drop. I dont see SP taking a bigger loss in their product so that a retail store can make the same amount of money, the stores will take a loss on their as well.

[topazpaintball]

nope they can use c02, and if hyou havent noticed, they HAVE been mass marketed, almost everyone has one as a main/backup!

They require AS CO2, which places like Dicks and Walmart do not sell.

I meant mass market like Wal-mart guns; anyone can pick up a brass eagle from walmart, but you still have to go to a proshop or the like for an Ion.

[Pyroboy597]

The question really is... if the E-mag where really cheap how would it change the paintball world?

[NukeGoose]

May not be true - paintball manufacturers are notorious for undercutting their wholesale buyers -by selling the products at retail themselves for less then they sell them to their dealers for wholesale.

Smart Parts is one of the industry's most reliable companies at enforcing MAP pricing. With the old pricing struction (when Ions were selling for 285 MAP), companies were selling Ions for about 140% of what they paid for them (I'm not going to disclose the new dealer pricing, but I figure the old stuff is more or less common knowledge by now since it can be found on PBNation). That's a margin that you don't usually see in paintball guns, and without the support of MAP pricing the market price would have no doubt been much lower than it was before the price drop. The Ion sells well because it's a low-price, high performance gun that dealers still make a decent profit on.

If you want to buy a product directly from Smart Parts, you have to buy it at MSRP, and unlike another large manufacturer/distributor Smart Parts does not run their own factory direct outlet / store.

[NukeGoose]

If you want to buy a product directly from Smart Parts, you have to buy it at MSRP

I meant a store designed to compete directly with other dealers. Sorry for the confusion.

It's hard to say that selling Ions at 225 (and all other items at MSRP) is designed to take sales away from any company selling them for 200.

[68magOwner]

id buy one as a back up. Do i honestly believe i would perform as well with an ion than with my ripper or viking? Absolutley, but, the reason why i own the markers i do, is not only the performance, but, the nastalgia(sp) factor of having top of the line, hard (relativley) to attain markers.

[atm743]

[RoamingStorm]

the low end market would be killed, every noob would be getting an ion instead of tippmann, spyder pirahna, and mechanical guns would be outdated.

the market for paint would probably triple