hexagone

OP: I would suggest not trying to market a new product by being deceivingly ambiguous, or touting the value because of some arbitrary price mark you've come up with. Say that you are making center cap blanks that are OEM cap adapters, nothing more or less. Don't price them on par, and especially not more than OEM, unless they actually are better than OEM. Don't bait and switch people into thinking they're getting one thing, but you have to add X, Y, Z cost to make them appear what they are in the photo.

Many of us here are in different lines of product, engineering and business fields where we can smell something fishy right away.

Wheel Dynamics

We are able to custom finish them to match your wheels.... $15 ea. with purchase.

Wheel Dynamics

Well I would say then how would one honestly have that mentality when it comes to purchasing a set of forged wheels? With this mentality you are saying that only factory original parts are the very best and any aftermarket part is sub-par?

Anyone is welcome to set up and make their own version , that is not a problem, as a matter of fact that's how most small businesses are created, off of the idea of improving a product or inventing a product that may not otherwise been available.

BTW: These are made in the USA, they are refinished in the USA.

Not sure where all of the negativity is coming from, all we are doing is offering a product that is not available, if you think a plastic center cap is far superior over our billet design or it's not within your budget for caps then we respect your take on it.

nile13

I was talking specifically about the price. And the "right end" is the market. Whatever the market would bear is the right price. For the seller and the market, that is, not for each of us individually.

I think because in many buyer's eyes they are better than OEM. "Better" can be discussed from every angle, but it, again reverts to "will the market pay more for this than OEM". OTOH, why should OEM be more expensive than aftermarket?

I agree. And my contribution to the discussion is that the pricing is unrelated to production cost and, for one's sanity sake, should not be mentally tied to the production costs at all. I know, I collect watches

Yeah, but, by the same token, why should we want to the the aforementioned brethren pay $60+ for an OEM plastic cap that, in the same sense, cost about $2 to produce?

I have no problem with an opinion: "It's too expensive". I'm just cautioning against "it's too expensive because it costs so little to produce". The first part of the sentence is not really related to the second.

nile13

How would one define "better" in this case?

And why not price them (correctly) at the point where most profit can be made both short and long term?

Wheel Dynamics

Appreciate all of your input, and trust me these don't come close to $2 to produce, we have received many request to build billet caps over the years and we typically have cut one set at a time, the typical cost to do so had those sets priced out at $150 ea. cap built in the USA and refinished here also just as these are. We simplified this design and had mass-produced these pieces. when I say mass this refers to 100-pcs. this is a lot considering the cost to manufacture them only to sit on the shelf to sell one set at a time.

So from then to now we have saved consumers $200 on the build by our volume production. We had no idea this would offend a few out there, but I guess we should be used to it by now.

Here are the sets we've built and sold in the past, they went anywhere from $1,000 to $1,200 per set as seen in these photos. And no, we don't plan on manufacturing these designs anymore since it's not worth the efforts for one set at a time, but they are sure nice to look at.

hexagone

The product you are manufacturing and selling are billet center cap adapters - something you were not clear and up front right away. What you are presenting to the potential customers on this forum are billet center caps with the logo, which is not actually what is being sold.

You are also trying to explain that it costs you $400 to create these adapters, when there are very similar products in the market that cost as much to manufacture, for half the price.

So how can you justify the 100% markup? It's not a premium product either, because all you are doing is replacing a plastic center cap backing, with an aluminum one and still relying on the factory crest. And then on top of that, there's a premium to match the factory finish which you get on the OEM part anyway.

It's not like the crest is milled, which I would see as a justification for the premium. And if those $1000 caps you shared are fully milled caps, then I'd argue there is an extremely limited market for those too.

Silver Surfer

Damn, what a tough crowd! I hope the OP isn't chased away. Those are beautiful center caps and the crested ones seem priced at about what I would expect to have to pay.

Wheel Dynamics

These items are not adapters, they are actual billet aluminum center caps finished in a clear coat after being machine polished.

These caps are not a 100% mark-up, where ever did you get that number from? I don't think you understand the product we are offering.

Wheel Dynamics

Sometimes I see why there are many vendors who choose not to get involved, however being a Porsche owner myself I can say that if I see a product that is out of my prince range I wouldn't complain over how steep the price was until I knew all of the details.

We have those assuming they are made in China

We have those assuming that we are making 100% mark-up

We have those assuming that any machine shop can pop these out for less, which IMO if it was that easy we wouldn't be making them, we would have simply voided the whole process.

Materials to cut
Labor and R&D and generating a program to cut the pattern for the recessed area (lots of time spent on this)
Logistics time/transporting from material to machine shop to paint shop, to cut, prep for paint, paint. After all of this time to photo and market.

Simply put, no one is forcing anyone to buy them, a simple "too much for my blood" would suffice instead of the speculations. We are in business to stay in business, we are not a charity. No one complains about a $6 cup of coffee from Starbucks when you can have a cup of coffee from McD's for 1/4 of that price, but I guess it boils down to quality, same as it is here.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INPUT SURFER

LexVan

You should just lock your own thread at this point.

911PERVY

The previous caps look like Boothe Design ones, they certainly have his "Patented fixing device", they tend to use a Genuine hood crest (due to Porsche copyright) and cost big $

I just dont think you will sell many (in the UK you would sell about 6 sets in total!) due to the removal of the badge from a plastic cap and then re-fitting in these, whats the point? OK, if painted silver they would look good, but $400 better than the plastic ones?

Quadcammer

Putting aside the price, whats the point? is there something wrong with the stock caps? i mean call me a weirdo, but i dont go around oogling center caps nor has anything gone wrong with the stock ones. so maybe you can explain what the need here is?

Gbos1

I just got a headache reading this thread!

Wheel Dynamics

Well thank you to those who took the time to add some positive comments to this new item, we set out to offer a product at a fair price and while a good majority found it to be somewhat neat and interesting there were those who made accusations as to the quality and the cost of this product.

This is America and we all have equal rights to be heard, however it is definitely somewhat depressing to offer a new product and have it ridiculed and put under such scrutiny over many of the other products I see being advertised on these forums.

For just a moment think about this for just a sec. if Porsche themselves were to come up with a similar product how much would they charge for it?

They currently offer their plastic caps (at most dealerships) for around $200/set, so this is about $50 ea. each cap.

I'd personally venture to say that based on their mark-up on those items if they were to build something like this my guess is that it would be no less than $200 ea. cap.

If you are interested in purchasing a set don't hesitate to contact us here at Wheel Dynamics

Thank you all for your time and input,