tompumped said:
I too was wondering if it would be the same price.
Anyway. I received an email from the seller of the boxes without serial numbers. I'm curious to see if what they recently told me is true. If it is then that's pretty messed up on the part of the manufacturer for trying to dictate what their item can sell for. Here's a quote from the email:
"All our vaporizers are legitimate but Magic Flight manufacturer does not honor the warranty for items that are sold for less than the MAP price of $99.00. For that reason, distributors need to identify items that are sold on eBay so thats why these items do not have serial numbers on them. "
Hi,
Your seller is lying to you regarding the warranty: we do honor the warranty for legitimate Boxes regardless of where purchased or for how much. Your seller probably filed off the numbers themselves -- usually for the reason of attempting to hide stolen or otherwise illegitimately obtained product. It is also true that for any boxes deliberately damaged, either by a seller or by a user, that we cannot reasonably be expected to honor the warranty.
In regards to the pricing, people need to understand that local retailers and shops have a lot of real expenses (rent, insurance, utilities, etc) that must be paid to remain in business. These shops are our primary distribution channel and account for the vast majority of our sales. An online Ebay vendor has comparatively few expenses, and can effectively compete unfairly with physical shops when pricing their products, effectively preventing all of the brick and mortar businesses from being able to carry that item. The result is that fewer wholesale purchases are made by retailers, and that in itself causes a collapse of the market, the manufacturer goes out of business and
everyone looses (the product is no longer available). I think it is safe to say that most people would at least like to have the choice to communicate with a real person in a real store when purchasing an item of this kind -- and have some hope of real service -- rather than to purchase from an faceless and anonymous Ebay vendor who will disavow any further contact once the sale is completed. We want to ensure that customers are supported -- vendors who refuse to do this are not vendors we want to work with.
This phenomena is something that occurs in nearly every market, for nearly every product. In order for
any business to remain sustainable for the long term, it is necessary that everyone work together and play fair with one another. We set policies with our resellers to ensure and encourage at least a minimum level of fairness and service to ALL of our customers. If we are going to be able to actually honor our lifetime warranty, we need to do what is necessary to ensure that we survive at least that long.
Also, in regards to the pricing on the production power supply: we simply do not know yet. We are still obtaining parts for the first main run, and do not yet have a sense as to what the costs will be, except to say that they will probably be within 15% of the current price for the Beta. As to when the production model will be available, it will be at least a few weeks.
Finally, for people who are sending emails, please be patient. We do our best to keep up with traffic but sometimes emails get lost, caught in spam filters, etc. If you do not get an answer within two business days, please try again.
-- Magic-Flight