Price of the Freerunner spare parts

steve steve at openmoko.com
Wed Mar 26 02:58:56 CET 2008


Thomas,

 

  The logistical difficulty in stocking distributors with spare parts is a
very large uncertainity.  The fundamental problem

is having a spare parts usage model. or consumption model.  That is, a
model, an estimate, of how many parts to spare. This comes with time

and experience. In the beginning people always guess wrong. It also requires
estimates of repair costs which no one has.

If I had to guess, based on my experience with other products, I would say
that the cost of  shipping, parts,and repair would exceed the

replacement costs in a substantial number of cases. 

 

But onto your specifics:

 

1. Batteries. We will have a Battery replacement that you can purchase
without coming back to us or our disty.  The replacements

    will be standard parts.  

2. Stylus. again, we are going the open route. Nothing proprietary about our
stylus. 

3. Front and back covers?  I would no clue whatsoever how many to sell to
disty. and what would he do with the unsold ones?

    I suppose I could offer  bags of plastic parts for sale on the web, but
it’s a huge amount of trouble for very little benefit.

   

4. Headsets. It’s a standard part.  

5. Pouches: there are plenty of third party suppliers of these.

6. Charger. I have also pushed for a “standard” charger. basically so guys
can use stock USB chargers.

 

 

If I put Spare parts at the Hub, The cost of shipping them back and forth
and the uncertainty in demand would force me to

price a spare screen, for example, at the cost of phone.  Why, because a
spare screen in the hub does no good if it goes unsold. How long

do I keep it there? in the factory, I turn it into a phone. Sitting in the
hub, it’s a doorstop. Who pays to keep it there?

Do I spare 10%, what if only 5% get used. Who owns the leftover screens? do
I pass those costs on everyone?

 

Steve

 

 

 

  _____  

From: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org
[mailto:community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org] On Behalf Of thomasg
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:17 PM
To: List for Openmoko community discussion
Subject: Re: Price of the Freerunner spare parts

 

I think spare parts are things that should be available via the
distributors.

1. What: there are some parts everybody needs to replace or restock at some
point: battery (very important), stylus (not really important),
front/back-cover (moderately important), headsets, pouches, cables/chargers
(reasonably important)
2. How many: see importance (1.) for relative numbers
3. Bigger stocks for distributors, no direct selling in small numbers
4. Make it cheap :P
5. Same as (3.)

I guess there are many people who need at least spare batteries and some
who'd like to have extra pouches (me! :), so this are things that should be
offered to the customers. The effort and prices can be reasonable by only
selling larger numbers.
Additional spare parts like displays, antennas and so on could be available
in smaller number at the local hubs, so resellers can get it for their
customers if really needed.

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:00 AM, steve <steve at openmoko.com> wrote:

I thought about spare parts a while back. The Issue is this.

1. WHAT do I stock ( which parts)
2. How Many do I stock?
3. How do I sell them to you?
4. What will it cost?
5. how do you get them?

I suppose I could Offer component kits for sale. That would be the quickest
thing for me to do. Sell the whole bag of parts; fix it your self.
or build a business around this service.


Let me think about it. Throw rotten fruit at this idea if you like.

Steve





-----Original Message-----
From: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org
[mailto:community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org] On Behalf Of joerg
Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 8:44 AM
To: sean at openmoko.com; List for Openmoko community discussion
Subject: Price of the Freerunner spare parts

Am So  23. März 2008 schrieb Sean Moss-Pultz:
> We will have our own hub in the EU. Neos will move directly from our
> factory to that hub.

What's about availability and pricing of spare parts like LCM, battery,
housing?
Will there be any repair service?

cheers
jOERG

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