New Products for 2016: Speculation, Wants

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

This is my biggest "want" for FRC suppliers this season, right here. I don't care much about new products. I want FRC suppliers to keep the products they list on their websites in stock for longer than the first few hours of build season, and ship them in a timely manner.

As suppliers we want this too. The big issue comes from the fact that each year the game changes and with it comes changes in demand for items. It is almost impossible to predict what item will be popular. To add to the issue, nobody wants inventory at the end of the season because after April any inventory will most likely not sell again until the next year. That inventory is "money sitting on a shelf." If funds are wrapped up, that is less money we can spend on other things like R&D, tooling for new products, travel to support events, etc. While not good for the teams, from a straight business case it is better to sell out than overshoot.

All that being said, FIRST suppliers ( and I know first hand this is true for REV, AndyMark, & vex, and I presume others) will do whatever we can during the season to get product to teams that need it. The example I can give is last year when REV extrusion and linear motion parts went out of stock in the first week of the season we produced and sent more than 1000 pieces of it via air freight from our manufacturer to get it in stock. Air freight rates at the time were right around $6/kg. Quite a bit of money was spent on shipping, to the point where we basically sold our extrusion at zero margin (or a bit of a loss depending on what is amortized into its cost). Did we have to do this, no. Would we do it again, yes. Most of the team centric suppliers are mentors on teams and we all know what it is like during build season. Every effort is made to provide you all with the parts you want, when you want.

It is a really hard problem, that is worse for small suppliers but we will keep trying to improve and always appreciate your support.