dmward wrote in post #16367246
^^ My experience sourcing parts and products from contract manufacturers is that they have no interest in a one time minimum quantity order. What they would expect is a multi-year commitment for a minimum order per month.
If their supply chain is sized to deliver 5000 units a month that means 250 minimum orders a month to fill it. While it will only take 50 customers at 100 units per month.
My guess is they won't accept a one time order, but rather ask for a recurring order over time.
The concept of a group buy does have a certain näive charm to it. In the real world, however, businesses rely on a continuing relationship based on regular orders, each for multiple units. It costs any business both time and money to establish both their supply line and their distribution network. It's extremely unlikely that a single order for one / two-hundred-and-fiftieth of their monthly production would even be considered, let alone actually come to fruition.
Even if, for some reason, Godox did decide to accept a one-off order (far more likely to laugh and walk away; alternatively just politely ignore the request) there are a number of other considerations. Production of the order is stated as 10-20 days. That's 10-20 days after full payment in advance has been cleared. The goods are delivered dockside or landside if air freighting. Transportation cost, loading/unloading costs, transit insurance, possibly an export levy, inbound customs charges, any import duty payable, delivery to a group distribution point, onward distribution to the group members - all these costs fall to the group and not to Godox. Even the cost of 20 (minimum) lots of packaging to send the individual items onwards to their new owners has to be factored into the overall cost. So, you'd be looking at probably 3 months from parting with your money to actually getting the goods in your hands (and folks regularly complain here that their order took over 2 weeks). Also, you don't lay hands on the goods until that further lump of money has been paid out for all the additional costs listed above.
Obviously things differ from country to country but if this scheme were applied in the UK (for example), we'd have to pay 6% import duty on the items. On top of that, we'd have to pay the shipping cost, the transit insurance, the loading/unloading charges, an admin fee on all these and then 20% VAT on all the preceding including the import duty. And that's just to get the container onto UK soil. Similar systems probably apply to USA/Australia/Canada/etc with varying figures depending on how greedy the Government in question happens to be.
When you finally do get your hands on your share of the group order, what happens if it is faulty/damaged in transit/DOA? As an individual, you can't go back to Godox because you were never a customer of theirs. Any warranty claim has to go back through the group in the form of the person appointed by the group to handle the order. Then the item has to go back to Shenzhen for examination - after Godox have acknowledged the complaint and authorised the return. Then comes the costs of the return of the goods to China and the wait for a replacement.
All these seem to me to be fairly large stumbling blocks which make a group order an interesting concept but not a practical proposition. Is it really worth it to save a few paltry dollars? Definitely not to me, it isn't; life is just too short to waste time for such a small potential return.
