Reply To: Aotrs Shipyards Scifi Release Thread

[Aotrs Commander]

Aotrs Shipyards Re-Pricing Project

Tomorrow on the 5th of April, I will be initiating the process of making the price rises on the webshop at Only-Games. For why this is necessary and by what amount, see below.

I will be starting from from the beginning and going through the ranges in alphabetically order to keep track (and also because it gives the later scifi releases – which were also in roughly alphabetical order) slightly longer.

I don’t know how long it will take, but I project around a week (since with 560 models, if it takes me an average of just 2 minutes per, that’s still 18 work hours.)

I will be posting updates to the Aotrs Shipyards Facebook page with progress daily as I complete a range.

As a result, the moderns release for this month will be delayed until this is done, and there will very likely not be a scifi release this month.

 

In addition, I will be taking the chance to add all models to the new ranges system that came in a few months ago.

I will also be overhaulling the fighter stands for the starship ranges. When I started at shapeways, where volume was the only consideration in price, I did fighters as a top/bottom strip of 6. Only-Games gets better results if they are all orientated the same way, so for later releases, I did have been doing two rows of six. However, as of this morning (and why I’ve ended up writing this on what is my weekend), it ocurred to me that, if I’m doing that, I might as well go one better.

I will thus be organising the fighter sprues instead in three rows of four, and slightly increasing the length of the bars that connect the base of the fighter to the sprue. The base of the Sprue will also be changed from a simple circle to beign square at the bottom. As such, the sprue will then serve as a functional-enough flight stand, for anyone (like myself, even), that view the prospect of basing tiny fighters without much relish. It also will hopefully have a second benefit for Only-Games that the fighter stands will sit in the bubble packs better.

This will likely have some minimal effect on price, but a very minimal especially considering fighters were already very low cost. (Won’t know exactly until I actually put it into practise tomorrow).

However, because re-doing the renders is a job best done in batches and to keep a better pace of workflow, I will not be updating the sprue renders (this is the white renders, that show the actual model sprue) until the re-pricing is complete. Likewise, I will not implement these changes to the Shapeways versions until then. (As Shapeways already has the fighters all below their minimum cost floor, this will not change their prices at all.)

 

Why is this happening?

Short version: Because the money I earn per model for past six months only been between 1 and 4 pence. (If that.)

Long Version: I have always taken the approach that I take only a modest profit margin, to keep my models as affordable as possible. When I started at TheShop3D, I used the same pricing scheme as I had used at Shapeways:

Total Model Price = Manufacturing Production Cost + 12% Profit

When they came out of beta to be Only-Games, due to feedback from the other designers (which were not, in general, manufacturers themselves), Only-Games changed their pricing system to the following:

Profit = (70% Total Model Price) – Manufacturing Production Cost

Ie. they take 30% of the total price you set, on top of their manufacturing costs.

This was what a sufficient enough majority of their other designers wanted.

Now, Only-Games do also offer a second option, which is a subscription wherein you can pay a very reasonable amount, in lieu of them taking the 30% total price. However, as reasonable as it is, it requires that, of course, you be making more than that per month, which I am emphatically not. So we realised that a price hike would have to be done.

Furthermore, in order to get my profit margin up to cloest to what it was intended to be, it mandates an unfortunate significant price rise.

As I try to absolutely stright with you (perhaps to my own detriment sometimes), I’ll break it down for you here.

If a product cost them exactly £1 to make, I would have previously set the price to £1.12, of which I make the 12p. (So price is base costs x 1.12.)

With the new system, to make that only 12p, the Total Model Price has to be though experimentation) set to £1.60.

30% of £1.6 = 48p
£1.60 – 48p = £1.12
£1.12 – £1 production cost = profit of 12p.

This is a 43% rise in overall price.

Obviously, neither I nor Only-Games were comfortable with having to do that, which is why in discussion I said I would leave the prices as they were until April, when I would have gotten everything back up to speed, and have givne youfolks plenty of advance warning. I also handed out all the 15% discount flyers and the conventions we went to, also supply be Only-Games’ suggestion.

I am in fact only going to take 10% of the production price as my profit, not 12% (so I’ll be making 10p on every pound), as a measure to take a tiny bit of the edge off. This has the net effect of dropping the price increase to only 41%, but it’s all I can do, having already taken the six-month hit. Sorry.

As when and most pertinently IF the Shipyards is ever making comfortably and consistently enough to be able to offset the Only-Games subscription costs, I can then potentially look at re-visting the prices again.