Beware of fake Safari Snorkels hitting the market.

[cruiseroutfit]

...At 100 units molded you are still in 1st article/sample run quantities for a part. The price savings kicks in at 500+ units. They get really cheap if you can commit to an order of 3-5000 units and have the shop opperate on a running PO so you don't pay for or recieve them all at once. If thinking on the global market you are probably looking into selling a few thousand of each every year at least. If your not, then you probably decide not to supply product to that particular vehicle.

I think we would all be surprised to know how few they do sell in the grand scheme. Obviously the 40/60/80/Rover Snorkels have been great sellers over the years, but you'de be 15 years behind the curve on those and many non-US applications had OEM installs, thus limiting your market a bit. As for newer vehicles, given many of the vehicles are country specific, ie the FJC & Tacoma being US spec, you've really get a limited market. I don't remember the specifics but the gen 1 snorkel was a very slow seller, enough that it turned them off on the idea of a gen 2 Tacoma snorkel, as I recall it took several years to sell off their initial batch of 200? I once heard that in hind site they wouldn't of even produced it given the low market demand.

Market information like this is pretty guarded for obvious reasons but my hunch is some applications sell more in the 100's per year versus the thousands

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...Last point before I head off to the Aquarium with the kids. I am banging my head against the wall right now trying to work with our "sister" company in Australia to have a large product produced. It is amazing how much materials and things cost down there. That is a big reason why thier stuff costs so much. Something that I can source here for $1 they also source here for a buck, pay all the shipping and duties..... If they can get it in Australia it is often times even more than shipping it in because someone else already did and marked it up. Crazy stuff.

The cost of living there is by no means inexpensive. $4-5 dollar soda pops at the gas station, $140 speeding tickets for $6 over, $30 for rubbing compound before you take your 4x4 back to the hire agency. Seriously though we did find the prices there rather startling, even with the currency exchanged leveled their pricing was sometimes 50% higher than what we would expect in the States for a par item. The price you pay to live in such a beautiful country

 

[sami]

I can attest to the stack of multi colored sheetmetal circles from 80 series, tacomas, 4runners, 100 series, you name it.. All hanging proudly in Kurt's shop.

I certainly believe that not all Chinese manufacturing companies are created equally.. Or, create equally.. The company I work for has developed it's own AC motor design utilizing a manufacturing company in China. Yes, China. We were able to produce a more robust and beefier motor than any other motor that we sell, including ALL the big names. We had a local machine shop run several tests on our motor vs a same spec motor of a different brand, and ours could not be killed until running it at 150% load... Which, ran for several minutes. Our motors have more copper windings, more steel, higher standards such as VPI dipped and baked, inverter duty, 1.25%SF up to 100hp, and 1.15%SF thereafter and higher quality bearings than the competition..

Point is, as mentioned before, there can be quality stuff that comes out of China.. It has been an uphill battle to sell these motors in a lot of the US market, but they continue to prove themselves. I've only had one blow up on a customerd, and it was the end users fault by pushing 150%SF through it on accident. Even then it wasn't totally destroyed.

I will say that when it comes to something like a Snorkel, I would not find the cheepest unit to save a few bucks.. A destroyed motor will offset the upfront 'savings' of a lesser quality snorkel.

-Jason

 

[cruisertoy]

I think we would all be surprised to know how few they do sell in the grand scheme. Obviously the 40/60/80/Rover Snorkels have been great sellers over the years, but you'de be 15 years behind the curve on those and many non-US applications had OEM installs, thus limiting your market a bit. As for newer vehicles, given many of the vehicles are country specific, ie the FJC & Tacoma being US spec, you've really get a limited market. I don't remember the specifics but the gen 1 snorkel was a very slow seller, enough that it turned them off on the idea of a gen 2 Tacoma snorkel, as I recall it took several years to sell off their initial batch of 200? I once heard that in hind site they wouldn't of even produced it given the low market demand.

Market information like this is pretty guarded for obvious reasons but my hunch is some applications sell more in the 100's per year versus the thousands

Great info. That would all have to be part of the Due-Diligence prior to knocking off or starting over on a product before the design and prototpying phases. I would have never guessed that even throughout the US that it would take years to sell off a few hundred units. So if the original manufacturer is wishy washy about whether they should have brought them to market, where is the need and more specifically the volume of sales to justify knocking something off. There's no need for a better mouse trap if there are no mice. It's fascinating to me to get into the nuts and bolts of this as it directly applies to my industry and the products my company sells. We have had parts of our products knocked off, even by our own suppliers in the past. I would be interested to know if the name brand guys make thier own stuff or if they have the plastic molding outsourced.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Great info. That would all have to be part of the Due-Diligence prior to knocking off or starting over on a product before the design and prototpying phases. I would have never guessed that even throughout the US that it would take years to sell off a few hundred units. So if the original manufacturer is wishy washy about whether they should have brought them to market, where is the need and more specifically the volume of sales to justify knocking something off. There's no need for a better mouse trap if there are no mice. It's fascinating to me to get into the nuts and bolts of this as it directly applies to my industry and the products my company sells. We have had parts of our products knocked off, even by our own suppliers in the past. I would be interested to know if the name brand guys make thier own stuff or if they have the plastic molding outsourced.

Great conversation regardless Trent. One day in the future when our busy lives slow down we should get together and chat about some of these ideas. I've always got some ideas bumping around in my head, still dink around in Solidworks every now and then drawing up a widget.

 

[latinoguy]

I think the summary of the Fake Safari :snorkel: debate is the following:

Safari / ARB will charge whatever people are willing to pay. This, could be their basis for determining retail price, and IT COULD be based less on a P&L with a break even, profitable, and mature product analysis. Not knowing true costs this is only my educated opinion.

There are consumers who aren't willing to pay $300 to $400 for a snorkel, but will pay $150-$200 for one. These same consumers don't really care who makes them as long as they are getting a fair product at a fair price.

We agree that the cost of this snorkel is a handful of dollars at best. ARB would you agree your safari sorkel variable cost to be around $20-40 US dollars?

There are not many snorkel options out there. For the FJ80 I only know Safari or OEM.

You can get spare parts through ARB NA when you need them.

FWIW
There is room for the ebay seller to improve on the quality of the product. Simple solution just: rework the product specs with the help on an engineer that you can easily find through Elance or a similar forum. Once the specs are bolstered, go back to the manufacturer and have them retool the manufacturing line according to spec requirements.

I guess I don't get where the big $ R&D comes into play. There is very little barrier to entry into this and a lot of other markets. If there is demand to knock off a snorkel then there is demand to come up with something better than a Safari at a better Price. I must say that I do not own a store bought snorkel. My 40 has had a home made one on it from 10 years ago that served me very well. I have plastic parts made at work that use similar amounts of plastic as a snorkel and they cost me about the price of a combo burger at BurgerKing. I am fully aware of mark ups having owned my own business, but even factoring volume, packaging, shipping to the US and overhead Keystoning this type of product doesn't get to the $3-400 that we are talking about. Remember how little R&D really has to go into these products. I look at Injection molded, roto molded, blow molded, sonic welded and vacuum formed parts and often laugh at what people pay for them. Then there are the Rotomolded water cans from LCI that cost you $15 shipped. That's about the same amount of plastic as a snorkel. $15 shipped. Shipping alone would be half that. Still laughing.