slider cost - d@mn!

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landtank said:
What I'm surprised at is nobody offers the outriggers only as a sale item. That way people could save quite a bit on shipping these things on special pallets by trucks. I'd bet Christo could make the same money on outriggers only as he does his whole slider and people could easily weld up the remainder of the slider and then finish them however they want and save some cash. Everyone is happy.
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:beer:

Damn good idea.
 
landtank said:
What I'm surprised at is nobody offers the outriggers only as a sale item. That way people could save quite a bit on shipping these things on special pallets by trucks. I'd bet Christo could make the same money on outriggers only as he does his whole slider and people could easily weld up the remainder of the slider and then finish them however they want and save some cash. Everyone is happy.
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Rick this was my idea with George's design, shipping to Alaska would be reasonable and I could source the long parts here, I think since that idea did not pan out I vote for Slee's also.:D
 
Walking Eagle said:
Piss off Gumby. You obviously don't know @&@&@&@& about ecconomy of scale. If you take out all the defending of a price vs. quality that has nothing to do with the origonal question, that's what it boils down to. The more you make the cheaper it is to make them, and the less profit you have to make on each one. End of story.
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You still do not understand reality. It doesn't necessarily matter how many you make, if Slee made 2 million sliders it would not mean that he needs to make less profit, as he would still have to sell them. In order to sell them, there are many variables involved, it is not simply a matter of how many you make, or even sell. There are actual/real costs involved in making a product that must be factored in.
 
firetruck41 said:
You still do not understand reality. It doesn't necessarily matter how many you make, if Slee made 2 million sliders it would not mean that he needs to make less profit, as he would still have to sell them. In order to sell them, there are many variables involved, it is not simply a matter of how many you make, or even sell. There are actual/real costs involved in making a product that must be factored in.
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Yes, I do understand reality. If slee made and sold 2 million, he wouldn't make them the same way he does now. It took Tirediron 6 hrs to make his set, cause he was making 1 set. If you make 50 sets, you make some basic fixtures, it takes less time - fewer labor hours, and costs less. If you make 2 million sets, you have presses instead of hand cutting, and press brake forming. You could do the cat protector in a couple of hits of a die, rather than cutting several pieces and putting them together. Basically the "actual/real costs involved in making a product that must be factored in" change as volumes change. Heck, just look at the u-bolts Slee uses to attach the sliders. If he makes 50 a year, he buys maybe a thousand or two a year, tops. Lets say they cost $10 a piece (yes, $10 is another number out of that hairy place, just to have a number). If he built 5,000 a year, that's one or two hundred thousand to buy a year. At that rate he's not paying $10 a piece any more, he's paying $6 or $7. The costs go down with volume. Same thing with the steel he buys. Company I work for uses a quater million tons of steel a year at our division alone. I'm guessing we pay a bit less per pound than Slee or Hanna.

And yes, you can afford to make less per unit, even % wise, if you make enough of something.
 
Walking Eagle said:
"Slee's sliders cost so much cause that's what people are willing to pay." is what I said. You say - "If people were not prepared to pay for them we would not sell them." It's too sides of the same coin.
The point I was trying to make is that our prices are driven by how much it cost to make the part. Yes, we do look at the market to see what is realistic to charge but that is not the main driving force. We have developed products that just turned out to expensive to make and thus would not sell.

People being willing to pay for them does not imply quality, availabily or profit. Kinda like Hummer H2's. People are willing to pay so much for them, and that's why GM sells them at that price. It doesn't really imply quality, proffit, or the lack of either.
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Agreed, I was just pointing out where our pricing comes from.

I think you'd be surprised at the low margins in the mass manufacturing industry. BIG SNIP

Big market - lots of competition - drives price down.

Small market - not alot of competition - allows higher prices.

Neither intrinsically guarantees quality or demands the lack of it.
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Agreed, I never said they can not be made cheaper if the volume is there. However I still say that a mass produced low quality product will be cheaper than a mass produced high quality product.


By saying Slee 80 series sliders cost so much more than Taccoma, or 60 series, or Jeep sliders is "because that is how much it costs to make a quality products, keep them on the shelve ready to ship, sell them, make some profit and keep the doors open." is effectively saying, that all sliders made for any other vehicle that cost less are not quality, or the companies are going out of buisness. This is quite rediculous.
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If you look at our Tacoma / 4Runner prices you will see that are cheaper. Cheaper to make and that is passed on to the consumer. If our prices were set based on what people will pay, we would just stick to a single price for all sliders. More so if you look at the different models of 80 and 100 sliders.

They cost less because volume drives competition! Volume drives efficiency! Volume drives more proffit off of lower proffit margins! Volume drives manufacturing tecniques that are impractical at lower volumes!
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Yes, that I agree with. If we did 1000 sets of sliders a year I can move production in house and probably do it cheaper. However I can not see the 80 or 100 series market ever get there. Marlin sold weld on sliders for $99 a set for 4runner and trucks. Not sure where they were made but I would have loved to see the economics of making that work. Not even that market has the number for that kind of price.

So in short, we make the stuff, we put it out there to buy. Hopefully we make money and people get a good product. I started this as a DIY'er doing sliders in my garage. I have nothing against that and everyone that does that knows that there are a certain satisfaction to doing it and have your own custom designed sliders. You gain knowledge, save money, hopefully end up with kick-ass tools etc etc. The ballgame just changes when you have to make and sell them.
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Funny stuff

After reading this thread I thought I was back getting my MBA again. Reading Mud I expect to learn about wrenching not economics, product positiong, price elasticity, etc. I think that all anyone can really argue is that economics involves an exorbitant amount of factors and at some point in time nearly everything I have read would apply. Quit annoying each other and enlighten the rest of us with worthwhile @&@&@&@& like some good old landcruiser wisdom.
 
This is the 80 board.

We LIVE to beat dead horses..................:D
 
SWCruiser said:
Quit annoying each other and enlighten the rest of us with worthwhile @&@&@&@& like some good old landcruiser wisdom.
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What fun would that be?:confused: :D There is a very fine line between 80 series tech and chat:)
 
I think what has gotten lost here is that Christo has become fabulously wealthy building sliders. This year he is likely to make the Forbes "top 100" list of wealthy Americans. Be thankful he is still employing Americans and hasn't shifted production overseas to some cut rate producer in China. I estimate he has sold 1,000,000 copies of his 80 series sliders at an average profit of $100 per set. While that isn't Bill Gates territory, it's getting close. Similarly, anyone who has met Ken Hanna knows he is buying his second mansion in the Hollywood Hills on the strength of his slider profits. Now me personally, I could build a nice set of sliders for about $20, but they would be made of plywood scraps and might not survive the Rubicon.:flipoff2: :flipoff2: :flipoff2:













Further flogging of this dead army mule....These sliders could be cheaper if they were mass produced. However, I don't see people lined up outside Slee Offroad to have a set installed, so they will always be a boutique item and a low volume seller. Regardless of the $750 cost, the have saved me thousands in rocker damage over the years, and I am thankful that Slee Offroad offers then as a regular production item. Flog on dudes, this is becoming the Ultimate thread of the 80 series section.:flipoff2:
 
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cruiserdan said:
This is the 80 board.

We LIVE to beat dead horses..................:D
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Woody should give us this smiley.

deadhorse.gif


It would get used more than this.:princess: ,,,, :D
 
I want one too...:flipoff2:


deadhorse.gif
 
Just let it go :)
 
If we're going to beat a dead horse, don't we all need to join in?

deadhorse.gif


-B-
 
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