Quiting my best selling product

[Sven]

I am about to quit selling my cheapest self steering system.

It was designed to be a dead cheap offer without direct support from me.

Where most buyers were able to do without support there were a few that needed soooooooooo much of it that it became a nuisance, tearing down my profit per system sold to unacceptable levels.

I thought of increasing the price to a level where I could provide the support but that turned out to be almost as expensive as my other systems.

So I will only sell systems that are 3x more expensive in a little while.... I am curious what that will do to profits!

I will redesign the cheap system to one that can be offered for free in plans and with paid support and detailed drawings as an extra.

[Dus10]

Are those that need help regularly needing the same assistance or advise? You could create some additional instructions or an FAQ and distribute with it...

[officer_dibble]

Perhaps don't offer any kind of support (except a money back guarantee and some additional instructions)? Would that be profitable?

[kamakiri]

Awesome plan Sven. I think it is a great decision. Get that old product out there and issue it under a GNU or a beer ware license. Ask for donations if your product helped and make an iron clan FAQ or wikia so people can answer their own questions.

I think you stand to have a lot more traffic to your profit building sites by getting something like that out there. It might even help in your plan from years ago to develop a forum for boat owners who actually participate. I saw a need for your stuff in Japan the first time I took a look at it. With something open-sourced and free, you can also milk the PR wagon from the aspect of being the first open-source wind powered yacht auto pilot (I know that isn't exactly what it is, but you get my drift).

Excellent decision.

[FrozenCanuck]

Sven ... definitely sounds like you may have the making for some great educational videos that reduce your workload ... this way time is not money (support = time).

But I agree with your overall direction. Get rid of the cheap product that is costing you money OR make it ULTRA CLEAR that the price is 1/3 of other products BECAUSE it does not include your support. Then people can't get mad if you tell them 'sorry, no support'.

[Sven]

It's not just about the workload after purchase, it is also before they buy.

It was supposed to be "order trough webshop only, no direct support" but it turned out to be normal advice beforehand and almost normal support afterwards.

The support afterwards could haven been reduced by educating the customer but the advise before just had to be there, the stuff was too expensive just to expect people to buy witout advise. This was also partially because there was a choice between cheap and unsupported and complete and fully supported.

Frozens last remark brings back the idea I had a while back:

How about selling identical systems in 2 structures. 1 is for the prices they are sold at now, with the "it will steer your boat or get your money back+3 years break = replace guarantee on parts" and support by email, phone and forum...

The other with only support by forum and without the "it will steer your boat or get your money back" guarantee.

The most expensive system with complete support costs EU 1495.-- at the moment, how much do you think the one with the second package should cost?

[badhank]

Any way you can make a dvd/online video with all/most the answers and route every support call to this resource? Im not sure if that is a realistic options but its a shame to throw away a great seller. You can keep this muse and also get into the pricier systems.

[Sven]

I'll turn the cheapest option in to a free version for which a few hard to get parts can be bought and an payed upgrade to the website that offers detailed drawings and support forum.

I won't let it all go to waste!

[Sven]

Ok, the product has been released, here are the first results:

I decided to give subscriptions away for free the first week and asked people to either become member of the website or mailing list to get a notification when the free subscriptions become available.

Membership has jumped from about 275 to 330 over the last 4 weeks and in the first 24 hours of giving away the free subscriptions 33 members have applied.

I hope these free members will help in getting the quality of the product up Future subscriptions will be payed) and also help in spreading the word.

After one week the free subscriptions can only be given away by other subscribers.

[Sven]

Gosh, Badhank, That video...

It wasn't an option for the system I just quit. But it is an option to add this to the support for my other systems and make it a sellable thing for owners of other systems that have a need for trouble shooting.

Aaaargh, the work keeps stacking up! :)