ORIGINAL: ira d
ORIGINAL: STLPilot
I was talking about this industry. You would be greatly surprised for what Great Planes pays for a UCANDO 3D in China. Very surprised. China is making it's money on volume, competition and cheap labor. All of the markup on hobby products is done right here in the states. Of course these guys have to spend a heck of a lot of money on advertising to resell the products ... but the Chinese don't have a lot of profit in their products, just volume. If they did have high costs, you could just walk over to the factory just next door.
I would say Great Planes pays about $30.00 for said plane.
Lucky if the UCANDO 60 costs that much to put in a box. So where does the proft it lie...China??? Also keep in mind that the price of balsa is the same price that American wholesalers buy it as the same as the Chinese, since most of it comes from South America and it's all being sucked up by the wind farm industry. Chinese are lucky to make 10% profit on RC products and a $30 product sold direct for $150 is a 500% return on investment. However I do have a friend in China selling 10,000+ servos a day ..... not just to the RC industry. Chinese do their thing and we do ours. They know how to make it ... cheap. We know how to exploit through strategic marketing. God bless the USA!