gantork t1_j14z4yc wrote on December 21, 2022 at 6:29 PM

Reply to comment by inhumantsar in Ordered the SA Espresso (Alphas + Novelties) from Kono. Turns out the modifiers are a separate set for TKL that's 100 bucks extra for the 5 keys that I'm missing :( by Space_Floof

The TKL kit is rather slim to be honest, I split out numpad, specialties and iso from it. Buying alphas + tkl is simple to understand (maybe not?) and it provides good coverage without wasting a lot of keys.

As you can see in this post and the comments simply splitting the alphas already got people confused, you have to find a balance between flexibility and not confusing people with a ton of options.

In any case I'm not saying the kitting couldn't be improved, but I think it's good enough and it's not anti consumer.

inhumantsar t1_j15sn60 wrote on December 21, 2022 at 9:43 PM

I totally get you. It's definitely a balancing act. Not sure if you've gone thru an exercise of configuring a few keyboard types to see what the pricing looks like.

From my perspective it definitely starts to feel like a bit of a cash grab after adding 3+ different kits at $50-70+ USD each.

Eg: I've got a Moonlander and a separate numpad, so bare minimum I'd need the alpha, numpad, ergo, and ortho kits just to provide complete (actually, not quite co.plete but close enough) coverage for a total of $270USD before shipping and taxes. Kono recommends getting their 3rd party insurance for an extra $5 USD and shipping would cost $35 USD. That's $310USD before tax, which is perilously close to what I paid for the keyboard itself shipped, taxes in, nevermind the numpad.

I'm not saying you should simply lower your prices or that you don't deserve fair compensation for your (excellent) work, but I have to wonder how much opportunity cost you're eating with that kitting setup.

Is there efficiencies lost in the low volumes? Are retailers taking a big markup? What would make your life easier?

gantork t1_j15xua4 wrote on December 21, 2022 at 10:19 PM

Yes I definitely know how much it costs to cover different layouts. You're looking at extras prices which are a lot more expensive than buying during GB.

I don't know what your example shows, apart from that yeah SP SA is really expensive. You're trying to cover a pretty rare layout, not sure what I could change there.

I think kitting is good, I accepted a ton of feedback from the community and some members that are very knowledgeable about kitting before I ran the GB, not sure what else I can say.