--- crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 6:23 PM, Paul Boddie paul@boddie.org.uk wrote:
On Friday 9. September 2016 18.47.15 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
i'm thinking about it (as in, it's a really good question) that i'm wrestling with. there's 800 EOMA68-A20 computer cards pledged for, for example, in this first batch. should i order 200 more, make it 1,000, because the cost of 1,000 will be even lower cost than ordering 800?
Are there any differences in the way the product must be represented (and is regulated by laws/contracts) between the fulfilment of pledges/pre-orders and with regard to the matter of selling off excess stock?
quite probably! certainly, pledges are "gifts" - there's no warranty, there's no contract of sale, they're *definitely* not "orders". that's very very important even in light of the fact that i'm here on a 90-day visa waiver! customs declaration *specifically* asked, "are you bringing in product for the solicitation of orders" and the *only* reason i was able to say *NO* to that was precisely because this is a gift-economy-based crowd-funding campaign.
I follow another crowd-funding campaign where manufacturing may have been done at levels to fulfil both pledges and orders from retailers, but then I start to wonder about things like warranties (and such): a "pledger" is getting a reward, but a customer through a retailer is getting a purchase that is presumably regulated rather differently.
yeahyeah. the moment that for example chris, my sponsor, starts *selling* through *his* web site (which he can now do as the contract period with crowdsupply is over), that *definitely* qualifies as "sales"
Maybe excess units are required to cover a small proportion of units that might fail for unforeseen reasons, where you might offer to replace units at your discretion.
good point.
[...]
huge number of questions and at some point in the very near future i'll just have to make a decision and go with it.
Maybe another update or two to indicate some kind of deadline might solve this dilemma for you.
... or i could just wing it :) no, can't do that - too much involved (and it would jeapordise / risk the goal of reaching mass-volume levels).
i'll start to put in costs / quotes as they come in, and then all this can be assessed properly.
l.