Ecotech radion g5 knock off found!

BeanAnimal

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
3,202
Reaction score
4,840
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Theres no magic thing in my mind that can actually justify the crazy prices some of this stuff in this hobby goes for.
Design and manufacture a durable goods product for a tiny market (aquarium lights in this case) and sell that product at what you view NOW as a reasonable price... Let's see how long you stay in business without raising your price to "crazy" level. I dare you...

Nobody is selling US made aquarium lights and island hopping weekends on their leer jet and yachts with the profits. Most vendors in this space are stuggling to keep the lights (pun, no pun) on with competition, price undercutting from foreign imports and the insane cost of tax, regulation, utility, legal, materials, etc.
 

jda

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
14,325
Reaction score
22,156
Location
Boulder, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Go to an aquarium trade show and ask any OEM how much IP and patent theft costs them. It is in the range of 17 to 20%. All of these products would be cheaper if people respected the OEM IP and did not buy knockoffs. ...but people love their cheap pumps and lights, right?
 

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Design and manufacture a durable goods product for a tiny market (aquarium lights in this case) and sell that product at what you view NOW as a reasonable price... Let's see how long you stay in business without raising your price to "crazy" level. I dare you...

Nobody is selling US made aquarium lights and island hopping weekends on their leer jet and yachts with the profits. Most vendors in this space are stuggling to keep the lights (pun, no pun) on with competition, price undercutting from foreign imports and the insane cost of tax, regulation, utility, legal, materials, etc.
You dont have to lecture me I know how it works. I seen it almost every day and even worked for companies that did it themselves. Most of these companies spend the majority of thier budgets and marketing and not manufacturing or even research and development. They pay someone else to make a product for them and get ticked when the people making the product cut them out and sell direct with minor changes, sometimes with no changes. I dont think we are talking about any company that actually designed and built thier own product? Even the ones that claim made in the usa just have some final assembly done here in almost all cases at this point. Thats what earns the biggest profit.

Ive worked in industries were we regularly would take say a $20 chinese power supply and charge $1600 mark up for it. And im takling reputable companies you would know. I could give you dozens of examples of how and why many companies overcharge so much just to "cover" thier bottom line and yeah in most cases with high end priced products there are likely some nice yacts involved.
When I see a company that has a great long warranty with an easy replacement policy I know right away I'll be prepaying for that replacement whether I need it or not.

Business politics aside something thats assembled with $50 in components made by others should not cost $800 in my mind. And we are all free to make our own choices but again as someone who seen how it more oftenly plays out I will not be that consumer.
So IP and propietary software patents are one thing. But those things are not really necessary in an aquarium light..If you have to have the latest hot thing great, your choice, if im not mistaken that tech was not stolen for these lights right? They use something more along the lines of the type of tech you can emulate with an arduino or even google home. These are led light fixtures folks.
 
Last edited:

CBonito

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 20, 2023
Messages
1,114
Reaction score
1,300
Location
Detroit Area
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
You dont have to lecture me I know how it works. I seen it almost every day and even worked for companies that did it themselves. Most of these companies spend the majority of thier budgets and marketing and not manufacturing or even research and development. They pay someone else to make a product for them and get ticked when the people making the product cut them out and sell direct with minor changes, sometimes with no changes.
Ive worked in industries were we regularly would take say a $20 power supply and charge $1600 mark up for it. And im takling reputable companies you would know. I could give you dozens of examples of how and why many companies overcharge so much just to "cover" thier bottom line and yah there are likely some nice yacts involved.
When I see a company that has a great long warranty with a replacement policy I know right away I'll be prepaying for that replacement whether I need it or not.

Business politics aside something thats assembled with $50 in components made by others should not cost $800 in my mind. And we are all free to make our own choices but again as someone who seen how it more oftenly plays out I will not be that consumer.
Agreed man! I wonder what the cost differences are between "manufacturers" selling the same meanwell power supply. ;)
 

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Design and manufacture a durable goods product for a tiny market (aquarium lights in this case) and sell that product at what you view NOW as a reasonable price... Let's see how long you stay in business without raising your price to "crazy" level. I dare you...

Nobody is selling US made aquarium lights and island hopping weekends on their leer jet and yachts with the profits. Most vendors in this space are stuggling to keep the lights (pun, no pun) on with competition, price undercutting from foreign imports and the insane cost of tax, regulation, utility, legal, materials, etc.
I'm sure someone much smarter than me can do a better job at finding or verifying this info but lets take a look at how many employees companies like ecotech marine actually employ and what type of earnings they actually report? Maybe this is not accurate because according to this they had an annual revenue of 4.7 million last year and only have 27 employees? Those 27 employees have an estimated revenue of $175,000 a year... If theses figures are even remotely close it doesnt sound like any struggling going on to me?
You really think they have that massive overhead and are manufacturing their own product? I dont. Especially when I see many of the job listing they have advertised being marketing and social media related. I'm willing to bet there is in fact somef expensive toys and yachts involved here, even if its through some other massive conglomerate that may own them. Believe what you want folks.







Individual salaries vary by job title, department, and location, as well as by the employee's level of education, certifications, and other skills. For example, a Sales Manager at Ecotech Marine is paid between $74 and $106 per hour. Executives or management will also be paid more. There is also a huge difference in salary for each position. Get Pay Right and Achieve Pay Equity are critical to finding and retaining the right talent.
 
Last edited:

BeanAnimal

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
3,202
Reaction score
4,840
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
You dont have to lecture me I know how it works.
Respectfully, it wasn't a lecture and given your comments and response I don't think you understand what it actually costs to run a business that designs, manufactures, wholesales and retails their own products at this scale. I am not (even remotely) a fan of the companies in question here and am not defending them. I Just tire of the "ohh my god these things cost $8 and they sell them for $8,00000000" type of comments.

I seen it almost every day and even worked for companies that did it themselves. Most of these companies spend the majority of thier budgets and marketing and not manufacturing or even research and development.
Yes, they have to or they get buried by the competition and people such as you would then complain that they are not innovative.

They pay someone else to make a product for them and get ticked when the people making the product cut them out and sell direct with minor changes, sometimes with no changes.
And you wouldn't as the business owner being undercut? You are not helping your point here.

I dont think we are talking about any company that actually designed and built thier own product? Even the ones that claim made in the usa just have some final assembly done here in almost all cases at this point. Thats what earns the biggest profit.
If they designed it IN HOUSE with all IN HOUSE TALENT and manufactured it all here, it would cost even more. You are not helping your case here either.

Ive worked in industries were we regularly would take say a $20 chinese power supply and charge $1600 mark up for it. And im takling reputable companies you would know. I could give you dozens of examples of how and why many companies overcharge so much just to "cover" thier bottom line
Ehh... if they don't cover their bottom line, they go out of business, or did I miss something in economics class? Working an industry and running that business are two different worlds. Most sales guys, assembly line guys, engineers, etc. have no real clue what it costs to run a business unless they have ever run a business. The list of expenses is endless and all go agains the margin generated by the markup.


and yeah in most cases with high end priced products there are likely some nice yacts involved.
LoL - you clearly don't have a grasp of how tiny this market is. Nobody is buying a yacht on the profits from aquarium lights.

When I see a company that has a great long warranty with an easy replacement policy I know right away I'll be prepaying for that replacement whether I need it or not.
Ohhh you want them to give you a nice long warranty and an easy replacement process without baking that cost into the product. That makes absolutely zero sense in any sane context.

Business politics aside something thats assembled with $50 in components made by others should not cost $800 in my mind.
I think that is because "your mind" is missing the actual costs to run a business, especially one where you have to provide ongoing support an service for the products that you sell.

And we are all free to make our own choices but again as someone who seen how it more oftenly plays out I will not be that consumer.
Of course, you are free to buy whatever you like and avoid companies where you don't find value. That said, if you offer an opinion in public, don't be upset when somebody offers a differing opinion or facts.

So IP and propietary software patents are one thing. But those things are not really necessary in an aquarium light..
Says who? I suggest going and taking a look over the last 2 decades at the lawsuits, cease and cease and desist threats that have been slung back and forth both from inside this niche AND from larger outside interests. Care to guess how that affects the cost of these products?

Likewise, blatant patent infringement form overseas markets is extremely costly. It undercuts profits by both driving price down and by pillaging customers and sales. That sir, only served to make the remaining products left for sale even more expensive because the fixed costs still have to be covered to stay in business.
 
Last edited:

BeanAnimal

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
3,202
Reaction score
4,840
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I'm sure someone much smarter than me can do a better job at finding or verifying this info but lets take a look at how many employees companies like ecotech marine actually employ and what type of earnings they actually report? Maybe this is not accurate because according to this they had an annual revenue of 4.7 million last year and only have 27 employees? Those 27 employees have an estimated revenue of $175,000 a year...
Let me help:
1 - you are reading that wrong. "Revenue per employee" is not their salary, it is the company REVENUE divided by the number of employees. It is a metric to judge the business revenue and employee footprint against other companies.

2 - Revenue is GROSS intake. Everything that they pay for from materials, to advertising, to lawyers, to utilities, to shipping, to lawsuit settlements, fines, cost of damaged goods and returns, salaries, etc. EVERYTHING comes out of that REVENUE.

If theses figures are even remotely close it doesnt sound like any struggling going on to me?
Should employees struggle so that you can have cheaper products?

You really think they have that massive overhead and are manufacturing their own product? I dont. Especially when I see many of the job listing they have advertised being marketing and social media related.
Again - I think you are very naive to what it costs to run a company like this. Let's use some round numbers:
30 Employees - a few make 200K a year and a few make 50K a year. Lets call the average from CEO to Janitor $75,000 a year. That is $2.25 Million dollars in paychecks. Those employees have benefits and there are wage taxes and penalties for unemployment, etc. Lets call that 30%. That is another $675,000. So we are now at $2.93 million and we have not paid for rent, utilities, materials, shipping, a single lawyer, a single lawsuit, a single ad unit, a single pound of material, a single sheet of paper, pen or computer, no garbage bags or light bulbs, or floor mats, NOTHING but labor cost and we only have $1.77 million left! We have not paid any local, state or federal taxes, permits, fees or services (cleaning, garbage, etc.).

The building is 100,000 square feet. Rent or Buy, that is a tremendous capital outlay and is listed at over $1.6 million. Interest on the loan? What about the cost of fuel and vehicles, equipment such as machinery? These are all assets that are tax and devalue over time and/or need to be replaced often enough to be a serious burden.

We still have not manufactured a product yet... Who pays for the mistakes, the returns, the theft?

Great - now we finally sell some stuff. But we have to cover the warrant, then even after that the customer support.

If you insist we can put number to all of this and then compare that to the "Insane margin" these folks are making and figure out what sizes yachts they can't afford to buy.

I'm willing to bet there is in fact somef expensive toys and yachts involved here, even if its through some other massive conglomerate that may own them. Believe what you want folks.
There is no massive conglomerate. There is a capital investment group that is certainly taking profit and reducing costs to do so. But here is the double edged sword.... EcoTech and partner companies would not exist without them.... WHY you ask??? Because the market is too small and saturated for a small manufacturer to be able to stay above water, especially when being undercut by overseas competition that has a TINY fraction of the overhead. This hobby (every hobby) is littered with the corpses of companies that got in way over their heads.
 

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Like I said your entitled to your opinion. You made some good points against my over simplified posts to get the point across but I know what it costs to run the small business I have and I know what we gross vs what we make after paying our overhead and im sorry I just dont buy that a company doing almost 5 million a year in sales with less than 30 employees is struggling. I would think that those 27 employees would have to be working pretty long hours to manufacture that many light fixtures which is why I believe its likely they farmed it out to china and likely the manufacturing thats going on in PA is just the installation of the proprietary software control hardware and developement along with packaging and distribution.
These cosmetically similiar units are likely made from the same component and tooling and possibly from the same manufacturer. Often a manufacturer will even get the rights to sell thier own version of a product after a contract period is up in some cases even being awarded the rights to use the companies proprietary tech after that time period.
I dont know what the case is here for sure but it should come as no suprise to a company who sends manufacturing there for the cheap labor and far lower product cost that this could happen either way. Especially when a manufacturer sees what a product is selling for vs what they are making it for.

I am aware of all the failures and companies that come and go with vanishing support after they sell you a product. I also know for every one of those there are companies making a lot of profit of niche markets like this. I worked for one for a long time

I myself would rather buy something for a fair price without a long replacement warranty and take my chances vs prepaying for something I should never even need if it really was the superior quality I paid for. But moreoften the case these days is the fact that often The same products are sold by different companies at different pricepoints and its the "Support" that your paying so much extra for.

You can buy an automobile for 10 times more than another but it doesnt necessarly mean that automobile cost ten times more to manufacture and bring to the market or that its ten times the actual value... Its a percieved thing and theres other things that influence a purchse at that point and I get it. But I will never spend a grand on a light fixture for my tank myself, That is my opinion alone.
 
Last edited:

jda

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
14,325
Reaction score
22,156
Location
Boulder, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
EcoTech is owned by a private equity company. They don't show their books. You could just draw numbers out of a hat and get as close as what you found on the internet. I have no love for any of the Aperture Brands, but you can bet that if they were rolling in the money like Scrooge McDuck, they never would have partnered or sold. The hobby is in decline and the notion that they got paid a number that they could not refuse is just beyond stupid - capital groups just do not throw away money like this and often will only invest at a discount.

You forgot about contract labor. Even though their software looks like it was written as a high school class experiment in 2007, it still is usually too expensive for these kind of companies to keep many (if any) software engineers, network engineers on full time. They can demand more than the C level execs in some cases. We did.

Every loser in the world wants something for cheap when they need it, yet they want full price when they are doing the work.
 

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I worked for a company that designed and manufactured high end niche market semi automated machinery sold around the world. The various third party components used in the machinery were supported by their own engineers and we designed the Gui and software that made it all work together. We had 2 in house software engineers.

And you can imply im a loser because I wont overpay for something I dont feel justifies the cost to me because when I break down what it is and what its comprised of I dont see justified value. But then again im not wearing a Rolex either nor would I buy one even if I had the extra money for many of the same reasons.

We are the sum of our own experiences and I cant make you experience things from my perspective any more that you can mine.
 

jda

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
14,325
Reaction score
22,156
Location
Boulder, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I worked for a company that designed and manufactured high end niche market semi automated machinery sold around the world. The various third party components used in the machinery were supported by their own engineers and we designed the Gui and software that made it all work together. We had 2 in house software engineers.

Sounds over priced to me. Too many levels and layers of people supporting this or making that. Need to cut out a few layers, their overhead and profit and streamline it down. This could be way cheaper.

I have no love for EcoTech, their prices or products, but I do have an issue if anybody thinks that they could do the same thing any cheaper. It is not exactly like these superior and cheaper products are coming out of the woodwork. What happened to the light in the first post?

Nobody who does a cost/benefit is a loser, but people who think that their layer is a benefit and other people's layers are just a cost... kinda are losers.

I mean, go for it... give it a try. Build LEDs with audrino out of your garage and see how it goes... watch them corrode and fail and then you have to design and make your own board. You make a few and everything is great and then 100% of your time is then focused on making sure that stupid customers are supported... and maybe some real issues. Then your software engineer wants to start a brewpub with his friends and write software for bars while mixing hops and drinking all day (ask me how I know this specific example?) The next thing that you know, you have a $1000 light and are miserable... and the only reason that you are still doing it is to try and keep the people who depend on you still employed (ask me how I know about this too?) Then, China is selling your product on Amazon or eBay with no US presence and you cannot sue or defend yourself - you have to markup even more to split this lost revenue over fewer sales... all the while reading on boards like r2r about how your product is overpriced.
 

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Sounds over priced to me. Too many levels and layers of people supporting this or making that. Need to cut out a few layers, their overhead and profit and streamline it down. This could be way cheaper.

I have no love for EcoTech, their prices or products, but I do have an issue if anybody thinks that they could do the same thing any cheaper. It is not exactly like these superior and cheaper products are coming out of the woodwork. What happened to the light in the first post?

Nobody who does a cost/benefit is a loser, but people who think that their layer is a benefit and other people's layers are just a cost... kinda are losers.

I mean, go for it... give it a try. Build LEDs with audrino out of your garage and see how it goes... watch them corrode and fail and then you have to design and make your own board. You make a few and everything is great and then 100% of your time is then focused on making sure that stupid customers are supported... and maybe some real issues. Then your software engineer wants to start a brewpub with his friends and write software for bars while mixing hops and drinking all day (ask me how I know this specific example?) The next thing that you know, you have a $1000 light and are miserable... and the only reason that you are still doing it is to try and keep the people who depend on you still employed (ask me how I know about this too?) Then, China is selling your product on Amazon or eBay with no US presence and you cannot sue or defend yourself - you have to markup even more to split this lost revenue over fewer sales... all the while reading on boards like r2r about how your product is overpriced.
The chinese literally ARE making these lights cheaper. and the fact that they are not only likely supplying ecotech with the bulk of their product but also selling their own less expensive version with less frills for so many times less while still making a profit themselves should speak for itself that theres quite a bit of wiggle room with what some are charging.

A company called Curtis had an old pwm motor controller design they were making for decades and selling retail for about $700-1000 each used in forklifts and golf carts... They decided it would be more profitable to close their manufacturing for this product and have the chinese make them. The price never went down of course and for a sort time im sure curtis made a better profit. Soon after clones popped up for $100-200 shipped on places like alibaba and ebay. So curtis discontinued the agreement with the chines manufacturer and to this day multiple factories are making these clones including the original contracted chinese manufacturer and vendors are still selling them for under $200 with shipping and making profit doing so.. this means they are likely being sold to vendors for around $75 each as many places are selling them for $125 shipped. I dont know how a 30year old product thats long paid for its R&D can still be justified to have a such a markup to the $700 to over $1000 these units were selling for through Curtis channels other than they could.

And Yeah, without much competition for a competing product the company I worked for could charge what they wanted for while. Until more competition came out with their own versions for less. Lack of as much choice and competition in the market makes it easier for one company to stand out and this makes it easier for a company to make more profit at least for a while.

So way way back when I was installing and servicing engineering printers, we sold and serviced multiple brands like Ricoh and Xerox and HP and it always amazed me how when one came out with new features in a new model the others would release a remarkably similar model. When I was asked to install a competitors machine in the R&D dept of one of these companies and seen the massive space filled with all the competing products some being torn down to be reversed engineered, it made more sense to me how it worked. Yes in part they were checking to see if others had stolen their tech but also they were coping the innovations of their competition and this is why a toaster looks like a toaster regardless of who makes it. More than one the products I worked on were literally built by thier competition who may have sold them themselves for less or more but since they had an agreement to they could sell and exclusively maintain the equipment they sold with their name on it. A consumer could pay thousands more for a particular product simply because they "trust" that brand more. When I worked on TVS this was very apparent. I noticed things like the higher end LG tvs were made of almost all Samsung parts and the lower end models werent made at all by the manufacturers who put thier logos on them yet you could buy this exact same tv for sometimes as little as 1/2 the price with another logo on it and somehow those companies still managed to earn a profit?
 
Last edited:

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
And I did make my own pwm controlled led setup in a 48" 6" diameter glass tube with a fan pulling from one end for cooling the aluminum heatsink that ran the length of it. I eventually needed a wider setup for a 72" tank so I replaced it with the black boxes ive been running since about 2010-2012. Yes those were cheaply designed and had flaws I had to address over time but they worked well for what I purchased them for.

Ive actually built some automated control systems using arduinos and a windows based software interface I beta tested for the designer who now sells it commercially. I saved about 12 grand building one such panel vs buying one with much less capability at the time. But im sure those small niche companies building those panels out of thier gloried garage and selling them built to order in that case without even any UL certification needed to charge over 14 grand just to cover thier overhead?

I saved over 17 grand in another purchase of equipment I almost bought from the a reputable well known company in the states at the time. By researching and sourcing the company who actually made the equipment for that company I was able to buy direct and even with customer broker fees and shipping from china I still paid less than half the price if I purchased through the american middleman who by the way did not even design the equipment.
 
Last edited:

BeanAnimal

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
3,202
Reaction score
4,840
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I worked for a company that designed and manufactured high end niche market semi automated machinery sold around the world. The various third party components used in the machinery were supported by their own engineers and we designed the Gui and software that made it all work together. We had 2 in house software engineers.
Okay? That provides no indication that you understand what the cost to run the company was... which is my point.

And you can imply im a loser because I wont overpay for something I dont feel justifies the cost
Who called your implied that you were a loser? You are free to spend your money however you wish. You posted an opinion on a public forum. I responded to that opinion, as I feel it is uninformed. Nobody called you names or told you what to buy.

to me because when I break down what it is and what its comprised of I dont see justified value.
Because value is assigned by the individual. You find value in what you find value in. There is no right or wrong in that sense. If enough people share that same opinion of value, then the company in question will cease to exist or change whatever it is that is universally hurting their "value", to continue to exist. Capitalism.

But then again im not wearing a Rolex either nor would I buy one even if I had the extra money for many of the same reasons.
Exactly - but the guy next to you may live to have and wear a Rolex. This conversation is not about assigned value, it is about people saying "XYZ costs $50 to make and should not cost $500 to buy" without really have any clue what XYZ actually costs to make in context to the total revenue and profit of the company that makes and sells it and by extension about what you (any of you) want to hang your hat on as "fair" at the very end of the day.
We are the sum of our own experiences and I cant make you experience things from my perspective any more that you can mine.
Of course not. That is not the topic here.
 

BeanAnimal

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
3,202
Reaction score
4,840
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The chinese literally ARE making these lights cheaper. and the fact that they are not only likely supplying ecotech with the bulk of their product but also selling their own less expensive version with less frills for so many times less while still making a profit themselves should speak for itself that theres quite a bit of wiggle room with what some are charging.
You are digging yourself a deeper hole. Of course they are made cheaper in China. The expense to run a business there is exponentially less. Wages are lower, regulations regarding everything are more lax, the government aides and abets the price cutting, intellectual property theft, marketing and distribution as all companies are in one form or another an extension of their government machine. It is an unfair playing field.


A company called Curtis....selling retail for about $700-1000 each used in forklifts and golf carts... vendors are still selling them for under $200 with shipping and making profit doing so.. this means they are likely being sold to vendors for around $75 each as many places are selling them for $125 shipped. I dont know how a 30year old product thats long paid for its R&D can still be justified to have a such a markup to the $700 to over $1000
You clearly have no grasp of what it costs to run a company HERE in this country, with our laws, regulations, wages, healthcare, and everything else under the sun, VS the Chinese factory that you contracted selling YOUR design for a few dollars of profit out the back door with NONE of your overhead, employees, etc.

So way way back when I was installing and servicing engineering printers, we sold and serviced multiple brands like Ricoh and Xerox and HP and it always amazed me how when one came out with new features in a new model the others would release a remarkably similar model.
You are conflating multi-national mega corporations with niche market manufacturing. The economies of scale are insanely different, as are the business motives, business dynamics and everything else. HP, Sony, Samsung, etc, can (and do) lose millions, tens or even hundreds of dollars on some models as loss leaders, just to stay competitive. They all also have billions of dollars of investment in multiple markets and economies from manufacturing, to real estate, to capital leasing... everything under the sun.

Have a nice day - I think this conversation has run its course.
BTW - I do agree that I don't find value in the Radions. I personally don't like the interface (Mobius) and think there are other fixtures that present a better spectrum.
 
Last edited:

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Okay? That provides no indication that you understand what the cost to run the company was... which is my point.


Who called your implied that you were a loser? You are free to spend your money however you wish. You posted an opinion on a public forum. I responded to that opinion, as I feel it is uninformed. Nobody called you names or told you what to buy.


Because value is assigned by the individual. You find value in what you find value in. There is no right or wrong in that sense. If enough people share that same opinion of value, then the company in question will cease to exist or change whatever it is that is universally hurting their "value", to continue to exist. Capitalism.


Exactly - but the guy next to you may live to have and wear a Rolex. This conversation is not about assigned value, it is about people saying "XYZ costs $50 to make and should not cost $500 to buy" without really have any clue what XYZ actually costs to make in context to the total revenue and profit of the company that makes and sells it and by extension about what you (any of you) want to hang your hat on as "fair" at the very end of the day.

Of course not. That is not the topic here.
Ok I'm not the one here attacking folks who are interested in these lights. I didnt attack anyone, I simply pointed out these lights likely perform as well as the ecotech version only without the proprietary app and interface.

I do in fact have a business here in the united states thats been in business for almost 5 years now and while I do manufacture and sell a product I recognize theres a lot of cost differences between a company like ecotech and mine so its not a fair comparison... I only have a third as many employees for one and I gross far less revenue each year.

I believe by your comment about all the in house manufacturing overhead that you missed the point completely about the ecotech lights likely being made by the very same manufacturer in china as these cheaper version with less features.
 
Last edited:

BeanAnimal

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
3,202
Reaction score
4,840
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Ok I'm not the one here attacking folks who are interested in these lights.
Who is?

I do in fact have a business here in the united states thats been in business for almost 5 years now and while I do manufacture and sell a product I recognize theres a lot of cost differences between a company like ecotech and mine so its not a fair comparison... I only have a third as many employees for one and I gross far less revenue each year.
And what happens when your small market evaporates because some factory in China is willing to sell your item at 0% margin, or even a loss just to put you out of business? Don't answer, it is rhetorical.

Good luck with your business and I hope (sincerely) that it does well enough for you to buy a yacht, or put your 12 kids through Harvard, or whatever it is that is your goal.
 

augiedoggy

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 4, 2024
Messages
22
Reaction score
7
Location
Western New York
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Who is?


And what happens when your small market evaporates because some factory in China is willing to sell your item at 0% margin, or even a loss just to put you out of business? Don't answer, it is rhetorical.

Good luck with your business and I hope (sincerely) that it does well enough for you to buy a yacht, or put your 12 kids through Harvard, or whatever it is that is your goal.
Well theres a good chance I would kinda have to hire the chinese to make them for me in the first place if we were to compare to this situation.

I have no intention of getting rich off my business and im done with owning boats but thanks.
 

Reefing threads: Do you wear gear from reef brands?

  • I wear reef gear everywhere.

    Votes: 37 15.9%
  • I wear reef gear primarily at fish events and my LFS.

    Votes: 13 5.6%
  • I wear reef gear primarily for water changes and tank maintenance.

    Votes: 1 0.4%
  • I wear reef gear primarily to relax where I live.

    Votes: 30 12.9%
  • I don’t wear gear from reef brands.

    Votes: 135 58.2%
  • Other.

    Votes: 16 6.9%
Back
Top