Now then, where were we?
you are showing your ignorance. You don't know what you are talking about. You are embarrassing yourself. Still love you PS/2->USB convertor though. That I give you a thumbs up. But not the nonsense you are spilling here.
Talking of nonsense... let's see how many of your 'facts' stand up...
Yup, you are right I don't have the facts of the exact transaction between Rag and SP. But I know these:
At 200 keycap tier, SP charges:
1x @ $0.95 each
1.25x 1.5x, 1.75x @ $1.24 each
2x @ $1.27 each
2.25x 2.75x @ $1.89 each
At 250 keycap tier, SP charges:
1x @ $0.71 each
1.25x 1.5x, 1.75x @ $1.14 each
2x @ $1.17 each
2.25x 2.75x @ $1.79 each
- These prices includes SP's COGs and production cost and profit margin
- In his Red Alert thread, he claimed that the modifier set only reached the 100 set tier.
- At least 200 sets and possibly 250 sets of these red mods were made.
So essentially all you are saying there is that he ordered the next tier up.
When I wrote a post about
handling tiered pricing, you didn't give any sensible comment on it.
- He made up a story about how Melissa at SP made this mistake of making the red modifiers incorrectly and she may lose her job to get more people to buy the left over caps, but it was not true
Clearly there's no question that 'Melissa at SP made this mistake of making the red modifiers incorrectly', because she did.
What Rag actually said was "That way SP stays in business and Melissa doesn't get fired.", which is clearly hyperbole. Anyone taking that literally and calling him a liar can only be doing so deliberately to make trouble.
- He said he is going to give the profit back to SP but has not said how much
- He said he is going to give the profit back to SP but has not said when
After the attack you and the mob launched on him, it's hardly surprising he hasn't said anything more about it.
Clearly, since those comments were about the wrongly made keys, his decision was simply to send them back.
So those points are moot.
- SP is selling the same set for $18 that Rag has been selling them for $30
- Rag has said he makes enough money from group buys to pay for his rent
This is all about
tiered pricing again, and how an organizer should deal with it.
- You assert that at $18 is selling them below cost
- You assert that Rag could have bought them at more than $30/set and is selling them at a loss
I did not 'assert' any such things. My point was that you did not know exactly what he paid, or what SP's cost was.
- I assert that he bought them for around the same price that SP is selling them at $18, if not lower, and is selling them at $30/set
- I assert that he makes $12 profit or more for each set he sells
Only IF he sells them ALL. You are counting his chickens before they are hatched.
Essentially though, this is just about
handling tiered pricing again.
We can draw our own conclusion.
Sure we can. Our definitions of 'group buy' are clearly slightly different, for a start.
Yours was:
Group buy: a large group of people get together, PAY IN ADVANCE, to get a a lower price. The group shares the risks, organizers volunteer their time to organize and try to break even get a few free keys.
To which you later add that organizers should largely not profit. (I've paraphrased that part, correct me if I'm wrong).
My definition is simply as the quote there, without any further qualification.
The point is to get something AT A LOWER PRICE.
Getting a modifier set at $30 is definitely far less than it would cost to buy a single set from SP (of course, I mean in cases where they don't screw up and make 200 more by mistake). So as far as I'm concerned, it passes my 'group buy' definition just fine.
It is good when organizers are open about costs, and tiers, etc. Then there's no question of anyone being misled. But frankly when there's an attack mob roaming around they are far less likely to.
My problem with rag has nothing to do with him making money, but that he lied to make money, and he uses GB as a screen to profit. GB is supposed to be a a group of people pitching in to get a better buying power. In Rag's GBs, he uses the group's money to fund his GB, and he makes the profit without fronting any money.
Rag uses other people's money so he can buy up to cheaper tier pricing, without sharing the discount to the group. He then buy up to the next tier to get additional discount *and* additional stock so he can sell them after the GB is closed. Not only that, he sells the extra stock at even higher prices to make even more money. He is taking advantage of the community. While other people are doing it the fair way, they open up a vendor forum without hiding behind "Group Buys". What is worse is he lied to the community how Melissa was going to get fired if he doesn't sell the wrong color keycaps.
There are so many inconsistencies in this attack that I don't know where to start.
Firstly, he didn't lie about Melissa. You just want to portray it that way.
You say "Rag uses other people's money so he can buy up to cheaper tier pricing, without sharing the discount to the group".
This isn't true, since SP's tiered pricing makes it almost unavoidable - if you have 10% or 20% over one tier, it's almost free to get the keycaps at the next tier. No-one is being duped. It doesn't work to share the discount with the group. Again, see my
tiered pricing post.
Then you say: "he makes the profit without fronting any money" and also "He then buy up to the next tier to get additional discount".
Clearly these cannot both be true.
You probably haven't read this far before typing yet another 'Soarer is showing his ignorance' post. But, here's a surprise, you're right! I still do not understand...
... how any of what you've said above justifies your vendetta, since the
tiered pricing makes it prectically impossible for
anyone to avoid such criticism.
... how any of what you've said above explains your vendetta, since others do similar and you leave them alone.
... how, taken alone, Rag's open discussion of possible ways to handle the SP mistake drew so much fire, so immediately.
Which leaves me guessing that maybe you just want to harm his efforts in any way you can because of what transpired in his first few posts. Hell, I wouldn't even argue against that, if you only had the balls to admit it!
Or maybe there is some other piece of the puzzle that I've missed. I can't imagine it being anything directly related to Rag's GB in some way though, else you would've mentioned it by now. And I can't imagine it's only about his handling of
tiered pricing, or you would've answered my question about how to deal with it fairly, and proposed a better option.
There is one part of the pricing that I've missed out so far. Going with the previous hypothetical '120 orders costing the same as 200' example, if there are
more than 120 orders then some discount can be passed to the buyers straight away, at no risk to the organizer.
The bottom line is that for your vendetta to be justified, you'd have to show that the price was unfair
even when ignoring the free or cheap keycaps that come from moving up to a tier above the ordered quantity. Otherwise you are really just complaining about SP's
tiered pricing, and demanding that organizers take a risk, which isn't fair, or throw the extras away, which is stupid.
