I always have an issue with my yoyos. On the one hand, I love to collect and own high end metals and my collection is made up exclusively of them. I always try out the new “hot” thing and that ends with my having quite a few dollars invested in my collection.
The issue is that I come to love some of these throws. So much so that my desire to keep them flawless, plus the amount of money I have invested in them, causes me to actually choose taking care of them over throwing them at times. The “obvious” solution to this is to either buy someone else’s beat throw or just buy some cheaper yoyos that I don’t care so much about to play outside or wherever.
…But, I’d actually be much more interested in a “beater edition” of the high end stuff I love. What I’m picturing is say…a CLYW Chief, but available with no box, no anno, no included bearing, no included response, and any other cost saving measure that doesn’t directly affect the performance quality of the yoyo halves…and at half the price. If they could offer this, would you be into it?
I might be. I don’t really throw outside or on hard surfaces too often. Usually it’s over carpet so I don’t have to worry about getting dings. I do see your point, but instead of that some of the b-grade version of yoyos could be used like that. I know it’s not the same because a lot of them still have ano and play pretty well, but it’s kind of close.
I do see where you’re going with it though. It would be easier for someone with a big collection and doesn’t want to get any of their good throws messed up but still get good quality and not have to worry about it. It would also be good for someone who keeps a lot of extra parts with them so they could just buy one of those and slap in an extra bearing and response. I just usually don’t have too many extras. When I do, it’s for a specific yoyo I need them for.
May introduce that with my yoyo…
I think companies avoid it due to the fact that they get bearings and response way cheaper than everyone else. So they make big profit. That might’ve already been stated. I was just too lazy to read the whole thing.
But if lots of people think this is a good idea, I will use it.
I assume that small things like the bearing, axle, and response probably don’t make up a bulk of the cost of a yoyo. But, where I think you might make up some extra cost is just in the manpower you don’t have to expend working those things out. If you’re talking an already established model like the chief, you just make another run and wrap the halves in bubble wrap hot off the lathe and ship them out directly. No sending them out to get anno or sending them back to be assembled or calling vendors and waiting for shipments of supplies. I would think it would be really profitable even if the margins weren’t that good simply because there’s almost no effort required.
Even better, you could flood the market with beater editions and it wouldn’t devalue your standard models because it’s a very different product. If someone wants a 28 stories they’ll still be in the market for your $145 throw. And, you can get a lower priced product out there without making compromises on quality that could hurt your brand.
Would anyone be interested in a service where you send me your mint yoyo and $10 and I mail it back to you beat up? I’d send it back to you so dinged up that you’d never again give a second thought to damaging it.
VsNYYC thought about something VERY similar when it first started called a “Core Throw Series”. here are its flaws and why we dont do it. i intend this post to be informative and not inflammatory.
1.) ano to the bearing seat makes it more durable and less prone to galling out
2.) the overall cost of a box and accessories dont make the yoyos cost low enough to not include them, and the majority of people really dont want a 100$+ do it yourself project. Axles can also be a real pain to find a match.
3.) while there is a certain beauty in raw yoyos, it does not last without constant care. it also doesnt grind well or handle skin contact nearly as well as a blasted yoyo, and blasting the yoyo and not sealing it with ano eventually takes its toll on the finish and yoyo itself.
4.) raw yoyos lack any factory specific markings that make them collectible, and would require tons of company backing to maintain any real market value over time.
I’m not saying that it is completely hopeless. I’m just showing you what the procedure is up against. i hope this helps answer your question
Probably not, naoki. But I may have hit on a pretty phenomenal service. Maybe I’ll call it the “JRod’s liberate you from ding anxiety mod.”
As has already been hinted at, it would be difficult to reduce the cost of most high end metals by eliminating “frills” like anodization and the box. Boxes are cheap, and so is single color ano, even taking into consideration the shipping cost if you do it domestically. What would eliminate manufacturing time for a lot of the yoyo makers is matching halves to get uber smooth yoyos. In this respect, a lot of the b grade product that gets offered might already fit the bill.
Edit - I saw that Heath ninja’d me. There are other reasons why manufacturers, especially those doing smaller runs, might not aim for what you’ve suggested, stookie. The biggest issue that comes to mind is machine time, which is limited for most.
As I said before, I don’t think the cost savings is in the parts or the anno. I think it’s in the manpower. A bearing is cheap, but the time you spend on the logistics of getting a bearing in each of your yoyos is what “costs” you money as a business in the form of time and effort. I wouldn’t release a beater edition of a new model or even do a one-off run of beater editions period.
Where I see it working is alongside a standard run of an already established model. You increase your production number to hopefully decrease the cost per unit, but you don’t actually have to eat any further cost or spend any extra time on the “beater” extras. That’s where I think the benefit is. Even if you sell those for a dollar profit after shipping, that’s a dollar you did nothing extra for AND you increased profit margin on your standard throws. You also have to consider that your lower priced throws may attract customers that you standard throws wouldn’t.
I’m also really glad Heath responded. While he brought up some very pertinent points about longevity, that’s actually the sort of stuff I’d be totally fine with. Actually, that’s the point of my idea. This yoyo gets used up. I wouldn’t be the least bit concerned with it’s value after I recieved it and the finish is of no concern to me because I’m going to beat the heck out of it. I’d actually plan to continue buying “beater” editions on a regular basis.
Yeah that would be appealing for most players who are not into collecting.
As for myself, I love raw yoyos, I hate blasts, I hate dead smooth yoyos and I have tons of spare parts.
If you play outside just find some grass. I play my mint clyws all the time over grass. Never hurts them. As for the beater edition. Sounds like a decent idea. I dunno. I still love a good clyw colorway.
[quote=“stookie,post:11,topic:39621”]
Except work, that is. There are limits to how little “profit” you can make before it’s not worth your time. Think about it. If you make $1 on something that requires 2 hours of your time, or even 1 hour of your time - putting the halves together, packing it, shipping it, etc., not to mention all the time that goes into running a company (going to contests, running a website, having a forum presence, etc., etc.) that have to be factored in - are you really going to want to spend your time doing that? Also, the size of the runs that would be necessary to drive down cost per unit to the levels you’re thinking aren’t tenable for the smaller manufacturers given the current size of the yoyo community. I’m not saying that this isn’t reasonable in the abstract. But I am saying that given the current state of things, what you’re suggesting isn’t practical or desirable for most of the manufacturers in the business.
You understand that my example of a dollar is hyperbole intended to make a point. That point is the less time you spend on something, the less you have to charge to justify it.
In this instance, you wouldn’t even have to factor in shipping beyond what you would have already done with your standard runs. CLYW sells mostly through vendors anyway so they’d just send their “beater” halves along with the standard runs in one bulk shipment.
I think you’re still looking at this as if it were a one-off run. It isn’t. All you’re doing is having the lathe knock out 30 extra pairs in addition to the 100 you would have ordered anyway. That’s it. Beyond that you do nothing to the halves but ship them to the point of sale along with everything else. Every cent you make on those is effectively increased profit margin on the standard throws you were already making.
You’re exactly right, and that’s why I’d love to see this idea implemented. I want to be able to keep my 28 stories throw looking and playing perfect because it’s a wonderful thing. The best way to do that…why not have another one that plays every bit the same but that you don’t care about?
What I really like about it is that doing this would put high end and usually expensive designs in a lower price bracket. So now, instead of wondering if you should get a DV888 to use as a beater, now you could consider getting a DV888 or a Gnarwhal. That’s not even a choice for me.
I’m not even sure what you’re arguing anymore because I’ve laid it out straightforward.
The time is saved because once the halves get popped out on the lathe, you don’t have to figure out where or how you’re going to get your boxes or bearings or anno, you wouldn’t have to send the beaters to anno’d or to be assembled or do ANYTHING to them that you’re going to do with your standard throws.
And then, when the standards are all ready, you pop those beater halves (which have had nothing done to them at all after being automatically cut on the lathe) in the box with the standard runs to YYE to be sold.
So, now, I want to know where you think the extra work is.
Assembly. Maybe this will help to bring to light what I’m getting at. Most of the costs a small time manufacturer is working with are constant.
R&D time is a fixed figure once the design is complete.
Machine time – constant per unit.
Anodization – constant per unit unless the runs get really huge. We’re talking roughly $5 per yoyo for solid colors after shipping on runs of 100 or more.
Engraving – constant per unit, but typically very cheap.
Assembly time (the important one for this discussion) – constant per unit, unless you have an a-grade/b-grade sort of system, in which case you can decrease labor time by decreasing quality control. This is what Ernie is doing with his “competition grade.”
Shipping – bigger shipments decrease time spent per yoyo, but not enough to warrant a 60% price cut.
So again, you are limited in the ways that you can decrease the amount of time you spend per yoyo if you are a one or two person operation. And unless you value your labor at nothing, I’m still not seeing what you are proposing as a way to decrease cost, stookie. The sentence you quoted from me is a reason why cost doesn’t go down by increasing production when the manpower is the same. Since you mentioned the DV888, you could potentially be advocating for outsourcing labor, as YYF does with that particular model. Is that what you’re suggesting companies like CLYW do? If so, we have a very different discussion on our hands.
Ok, first off, doing a beater run does not decrease cost of the entire operation. It will effectively increase the profit margin of the entire run, but it does not decrease the total cost.
What it does is create a secondary revenue stream. And even better, it does so alongside the revenue stream you were already working on. HOWEVER, the beauty here is that the Beater project does not require you to do anything further. Not only do you not have to pay for anno, you don’t even have to talk to the anno guy on the phone or send him those yoyos. Not only do you not need to buy a bearing, you don’t even need to place a bearing order and wait for it to ship, and then assemble them inside a finished yoyo. You see where I’m going with this now, hopefully. Halves come off lathe, you sell halves. Done.
I’m just not sure what your argument is. If a company is making 100 Chiefs anyway, why would they not want to just sell 30 extra pairs on the side that don’t require any further effort on their part? And because they required no further effort, they can sell them at a much smaller profit margin because these beaters didn’t cost them any extra time.
But I may have hit on a pretty phenomenal service. Maybe I’ll call it the “JRod’s liberate you from ding anxiety mod.”