Originally posted by knoxploration One could easily turn that statement around 180 degrees:
The truth of the matter is that it's a crapshoot, and what you get may save you money, or it may cost you money. One thing's for sure - it's completely unfair to compare the price of a product that a manufacturer had to pay to research, develop, and make to comply with the laws of the countries in which it is sold with one where the counterfeiter piggybacked off the development efforts of another company, and quite likely didn't take any efforts to comply with local laws either.
That is only partly truth. There is always a break-even point. Of course the developers make costs developing a product and have to make a profit on each item to break even.
But let me tell you a story about the first electric iron that Philips Netherlands marketed way in the past.
They tried to sell it with a normal profit per item, but almost no one would bye it, it was to expensive.
After a while one of the salesmen at Philips suggested to make only 1,5 guilders (something like a halve dollar at the present exchange value) per iron.
Everyone started laughing and called him crazy. But after a while, the stock was piling up, they decided to go for it.
Till the present day, it still is the most single solled item in the long history of Philips, and they made a huge profit at the and of the line.
Pentax could easely do the same with it's grip. I am sure that regarding production costs they make al least some 400% profit per grip, and i am convinced that the develouping costs wil be very low. Lets be honest, it is nothing more than a box with some connectors, some switches and some wiring, every idiot could develoup it and draw the blueprints of it on a empty corner of yesterdays paper.
If they would reduce the profits per single item and would sell there grip for lets say $50, i am sure that almost anyone would buy a grip for there cam. The problem with a dedicated accu in a cam like the K7 is the point that it may runs empty in the middle of lets say you're holliday.
With a grip you can run to the local drugsstore and buy a handfull of AA battery's and continue shooting.
At the present policy of Pentax regarding its grip price, a lot of people (including me) will buy an extra accu for there cam. Pentax won't make any profit of all that extra accu's that all the pentax owners buy.
If Pentax would sell there grip for something about the same price as an extra accu, i am convinced almost no one would buy an accu, but would buy a grip.