Quote:
Originally Posted by zcohen
1) Since when was this free? I spend $5000 to get this stuff. The kickoff kits used to be much larger, with many of the things we've seen in FIRST Choice in them for everyone. As teams grew though they couldn't get the supplies for everyone and they set up this system. Yeah it allows for some cool new stuff, but at the loss of quite a few items that we used to get, so I would never say its free.
|
Okay, semantics. It's not free. But if you were to buy everything yourself, I'd bet you're getting close to a 75% discount overall.
Plus, I don't know about you, but our shelves are crammed with things we got in past KoPs that we never used (but might be useful later-?). Smaller KoPs with the freedom to choose among some of the more auxiliary parts help streamline our warehouse.
Quote:
|
2) Did Andymark ever say that they do this for nothing? Maybe they had and if thats the case kudos to them (ignoring the probably huge tax writeoff they can get for this). If not though, it doesnt make much economic sense for a company of Andymark's size to deal with FIRST Choice for free. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of monetary support so that they at least get close to breaking even.
|
The 'kickback' they get is that they get to say they are a Crown Supplier. This is a donation of their time, materials, manpower, website hosting and construction, and space. So, yes, kudos to them.