Ahh. Now you’ve outlined clearly what you are getting at. And just for the record, I’m not arguing, I’m discussing with the hope of understanding, and I hope you’re doing the same. If you’re approaching this interaction with the goal of “being right” or “winning”, please let me know and I’ll stop communicating with you now.
Hopefully one of the smaller company owners can chime in on this, but assembly time is usually way, way, way more substantial than most folks realize. By “assembly time” I’m referring particularly to the amount of time it takes to match halves, which is sometimes hours upon hours upon hours of tedious work. With a couple exceptions I wont get into, yoyo halves don’t just fall out of the lathe ready to be put together with any other half, unless you’re fine with crazy wobble and/or pulse vibes, which is what you’ll often get with two randomly matched halves. As for why a company might be hesitant to sell unassembled pieces that when put together produce a shoddy product, well, I’m sure the reasons for that are clear.
Honestly, part of the mission here is that you WILL get a yoyo that is in many ways inferior to the original. If, in order to cut costs to a desireable amount, then maybe they don’t do as much testing with the beater halves. As Heath already said, these yoyos will also probably not last as long as a regular yoyo.
But, I don’t see these as general market offerings for your consideration. Every Beater sold would be sold with the understanding that the buyer is purchasing an unfinished product in the same way they’re told about B grades. The idea is not to have people trying to decide between the standard and beater version. They’re entirely different products, and should not have any affect on anyone’s perception on a given brand’s quality.
I don’t expect that a “beater” Chief would be $40. I know that’s less than just the machine cost. What I’m thinking is, if it could be done for around half(is) of the standard price, then it might be worth it. So…maybe $80. Even if that represents only 5 or 10$ profit for CLYW, I still don’t see the downside given that it really doesn’t affect the profit on their standard run.
The only big downside to this would be if a person got a pair of halves that were so wobly that the yoyo was a drag to play - and that would be a distinct possibility - and just to be clear, I’m talking the kind of wobbly that makes a buzz and makes the yoyo look like a blur. I wont say specifics, but I know there have been entire runs of yoyos where, even after spending weeks trying to match halves, smooth matches couldn’t be found, which I mention just to reiterate how important matching halves is to the process of putting out a solid playing yoyo. The idea you’re promoting is somewhat akin to what General Yo is doing with the competition grade. But it sounds like you’re asking for some companies to offer something that’s gone through less QC. Of course, if a person was okay with the risk of getting a wobbly yoyo and wouldn’t take to slandering the name of the company they purchased it from - which, unfortunately, isn’t an uncommon response from folks in the yoyo community - then it’d be a neat option.
Well, that wouldn’t necessarily need to be part of the deal. I just said that’s one possibility. The point being here that a company would find the ideal way where they could both offer something desirable and simultaneously cut their cost/involvement to a minimum. That may be different for everyone.
If the only significant manpower in the entire beater run was just matching halves, I don’t see why that should necessarily destroy the entire concept. They’d be matching halves on the standard run halves at the same time. So you add maybe 20 halves to that process, take the ones that aren’t quite right, and instead of going through all the crap to make them b grades…just stop right there and sell them for a price that is still profitable. Maybe you even build up your “beater grades” over the course of a few runs and it becomes a good way to sell off your mistakes without going to the trouble to anno and assemble them.
Regardless, the point of this was not so much to make money for manufacturers. It was just my expressing that I would love it if some manufacturers would offer stripped out versions of their good stuff. That it may be feasible, and how feasible, is really secondary.
It qould be cool to have a yoyo where if you dinged it the color would change around the ding.
1 Like
