QUOTE(ThinAir @ Aug 8 2012, 02:06 AM)
and a question -
Since you say you need 100 ordered in order to make this happen, what is the plan for how soon you need to reach that number? I'm not sweating the $$, but I'm just curious since it's the first time I've paid up-front for something that wasn't ready to ship at the time of purchase.
I've never taken money up front for a product that doesn't exist yet either.
However, I'm determined not to let this go the way of repro GT flares where people had money tied up for years before a single part was made.
The tooling buy-in is just too steep for me to foot the bill up front, hence the group buy concept.
I'm holding the diaphragm money in a separate bank account while I collect orders.
I suspected we couldn't get 100 orders with the first round.
We hit 41 by the first deadline, not nearly as good as I had hoped.
I have a feeling there are plenty of people waiting for the part to be on the shelf before ordering theirs.
I had one Volvo shop owner pay for two kits, then email me only 24 hours later to ask for his money back.
I asked GH if he was interested in any but he would rather buy from Fuel Injection Corp than get involved in rebuilding MPS's at AA.
Without my knowledge GH contacted the owner of FIC, who then called me to get the scoop.
He isn't interested in buying diaphragms from me unless I can give him chinese pricing.
From our conversation I didn't get a good feeling about that guy anyway.
The 100 mark isn't a firm number.
We've been busy of late, so if my bank account grows a bit I'll be able to cover more of the up front costs on my own and move ahead sooner rather than later.
But after 3 years of losing money in business there's no more limb for me to go out on.