Originally posted by blind-bat I agree somewhat, but and as I wrote before in this same thread.
There are cost associated with designing, engineering, developing molds, prototyping, testing, designing packaging and marketing. If you factor in the cost of keeping employees on the job to do all of this it's got to be costly.
Designing and engineering a grip is so extremely simple, every idiot could do it on an empty corner of yesterday's paper.
So those cost, well, lets make I very expensive, lets say half an hour work, makes some $50.- . Third-party grip creators also have to design en engineer there grip.
Creating the mold, well, that's not more than putting a block of metal in the machine, pressing the [enter] key on you're computer and the mold will be created. That's no different for Pentax or for the third-party grip creators.
Marketing costs are next to nothing, a picture of it in the folders of the camera itself will do the trick. Third party grip creators will even have more difficulty in marketing because they can't let it lift along with the camera folders.
Prototype testing is not more than testing 3 switches and 2 wheels, let’s say 2 minutes for someone who works extremely slow. That also is something that has to be done by the third party grip creators.
So creating a grip is extremely cheap and simple.
DX can sell them for $45.- including P&P and still makes a profit. Lets say Pentax employees are more expensive (in fact, I really don't think they are, the grip of Pentax is also made in honking or somewhere in that area), so Pentax could possibly sell them for $100.- and makes profit. That leaves a hole of $200.- overprizing.
Quote: But,...if you steal a design by reverse engineering the grip like some third party suppliers are doing there is no overhead involved is there? Under this scenario of course you can sell the knock-off at $50.
Reverse engineering a stupid box with some switches and 10cm of wiring
I myself can reverse engineer the grip in 10 minutes. Nothing more needed than a multimeter, an original grip, a pencil and a peace of paper (or an empty corner of yesterdays paper
).
Quote: Seriously,... how many Pentax K7 grips do you think Pentax is even selling? Even at a hypothetical $150 profit/unit they would still have to sell 1,600 to 3,300 grips if their cost to develop the grip is even close to the range I gave (bear in mind the number is just thrown out there and not a real number) before they even see a profit.
With a retail price of $350.- they will have a very hard time to break even. Everybody know that it is way overprized and only the persons who really don't know how to get rid of all there money will buy one. I am absolutely sure that if they lowered there prize to something 'round $100.- there wouldn’t even exist a third-party grip and everybody would buy an original one.
Quote: My point? well I guess for those that are reading....if you want Pentax to develop features and accessories, then support them otherwise they may start phasing this stuff out. Especially since they don't deal with the same volume numbers as Canon or Nikon.
So, you don't have any other brand of lenses, filters, flashes and focus screens than Pentax.
My point?
Creating a grip is almost not different for Pentax or for the third-party grip creators. The only difference is that Pentax put some rubber sealing here and there in there grip.
The original grip is that much overprized that people start looking for third-party ones, partly because they can't afford an original grip, or they rather spend $250.- more at a lens than at an overprized stupid plastic box.
Last edited by Sakura; 05-04-2010 at 12:04 PM.