End of MAKER Shed?
erco
Posts: 20,250
My spider sense is tingling. Just got an email from Maker Shed, 40% off everything. This on the heels of their blowout sale a few of us pounced on a few months ago.
http://newsletter.makermedia.com/dm?id=C878FF6DE0B28929C5611A686DAAD55C
Or maybe I'm just being oversensitive since I got this casual email from Sport Chalet last week:
Dear Loyal Customer,
Today Sport Chalet will begin the process of closing all of our stores and will stop selling merchandise online. Store closing sales will begin at the open of business today and continue over the next several weeks, offering customers the opportunity to take advantage of great sales. Our online store will stop selling merchandise on April 16th, but you may visit our website, www.SportChalet.com to find the location closest to you.
Sport Chalet gift cards, rewards certificates and store credits will be honored in Sport Chalet stores through April 29th, 2016. Customers who are unable to visit us before this date are invited to transfer gift card balances to a gift card from one of our sister stores, Eastern Mountain Sports or Bob's Stores through July 29th, 2016. To transfer your balance, please contact customer service at (888) 801-9162 and an agent will assist you.
We also ask that you pick up any equipment that had been left in one of our stores for repair no later than April 29th, 2016 and ask you to return Sport Chalet rental equipment before this date.
Thank you for your loyalty over the years. We hope to see you at our store closing sales.
http://newsletter.makermedia.com/dm?id=C878FF6DE0B28929C5611A686DAAD55C
Or maybe I'm just being oversensitive since I got this casual email from Sport Chalet last week:
Dear Loyal Customer,
Today Sport Chalet will begin the process of closing all of our stores and will stop selling merchandise online. Store closing sales will begin at the open of business today and continue over the next several weeks, offering customers the opportunity to take advantage of great sales. Our online store will stop selling merchandise on April 16th, but you may visit our website, www.SportChalet.com to find the location closest to you.
Sport Chalet gift cards, rewards certificates and store credits will be honored in Sport Chalet stores through April 29th, 2016. Customers who are unable to visit us before this date are invited to transfer gift card balances to a gift card from one of our sister stores, Eastern Mountain Sports or Bob's Stores through July 29th, 2016. To transfer your balance, please contact customer service at (888) 801-9162 and an agent will assist you.
We also ask that you pick up any equipment that had been left in one of our stores for repair no later than April 29th, 2016 and ask you to return Sport Chalet rental equipment before this date.
Thank you for your loyalty over the years. We hope to see you at our store closing sales.
Comments
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/02/news/companies/sports-authority-bankruptcy/
Seems there's a problem for brick-and-mortar sporting goods.
Maker Media has had to restructure some recently, so they may be clearing out the shelves for more stuff:
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/08/burn-slower-or-vaporize/
I have a feeling they are simply reorganizing around certain products and lines. I think it's part of a natural evolution. Everyone is selling "maker" supplies these days, at same or more attractive prices. When you've got the producer companies like Parallax, SparkFun, Pololu, and Adafruit also selling direct to consumers, it's hard to build a niche and make money.
A major disadvantage for MakerMedia is that they are based in the Bay Area, where a bag of popcorn requires a loan. A bijou 1 bedroom in the city is $2500-3500. Even east bay is crazy ($2000 or more for a single in Oakland??), and then you have the commute. So, with high costs all around, salaries have to be high, too. It's tough to stay competitive when everything costs so much.
My spider sense continues to tingle, and now I smell smoke.
I'm not an Arduino fan, but this is the best deal I saw at a quick glance: http://www.makershed.com/products/ultimate-arduino-microcontroller-pack The Make: Ultimate Arduino Microcontroller Pack, regularly $150, marked down to $44.49. Half off of that is $22.25. $5 shipping for orders over $75, so buy 3 and a bit more.
Will there be a 60% off sale next? Stay tuned.
I notice that MANY things have dropped out of their online catalog, like their Lolz 3D printer, which last week they sold out on. I would rather think they have removed these back ordered items to keep down the frustration level, rather than actually clearing out their inventory, rolling up the carpet, and going back to fly fishing in the Russian River (that's near Sebastopol, where O'Reilly/Make Media is HQ'ed, for those who think I'm talking about the real Russia).
http://www.makershed.com/products/micro-drone-2-0-motor-set
Order just 60 pieces for $5 shipping!
He was talking about this one:
http://www.makershed.com/products/ultimate-arduino-microcontroller-pack
Apparently, the 50% off code (APRIL50) can be applied to sale items for an additional discount.
We have an expo this week with a nice blend of different micros - http://www.meetup.com/Seek-Robotics-Meetup/events/230692796
One spot open for a presenter, no pressure, I'll pick you up at KCRQ.
Second - as you all know - there are lots of players between SparkFun, Parallax, Adafruit and a handful of others. It's absolutely imperative to offer something the others can't easily produce.
For these reasons you're seeing Parallax dig in for the long haul in education. There's a lot going on behind the scenes specifically for education and much of it will become visible in the coming weeks. We've been slow on hardware releases lately because so much of our energy has been put towards standards alignment, teacher's guides, Blockly, a new Learn structure, drone education, and bringing the ShieldBot with Arduino and ActivityBot up to the same level as the Boe-Bot. We know how to do this right and teachers are clearly responding.
As for MakerShed, who knows? They may have done some analysis on their inventory and determined they've got an 80/20 situation with the bulk of their inventory having very infrequent turns. And quite truthfully, it's so competitive that it takes near magic to buy and resell. Buyers must be hobbyists, educators or engineers with real training for purchasing.
Ken Gracey
I'm sure Erco can get them for 50 cents each, quantity 10, and they'll pay HIM to ship them.
While I don't have Erco's spider sense, I'm getting a bit worried about MakerShed, too. Except for a few curated items, and Make: books, they're primarily a reseller. I worry that this might reflect on the overall health of this market segment. OTOH, it could be that they're realigning their business, and/or planning to go halfsies with an existing reseller who can manage the warehouse, inventory, and fulfillment.
As an ongoing concern, they seem to be keeping a low profile. Their last tweet was a month ago; their last Facebook post a month before that. I have a friend who works (worked?) as an editor for Make: books. And now I read about layoffs within the group. Hope he's doing okay.
Glad to hear about the long haul in education, though like I've always said, my lack of educashun never hurt me none.
...lost the horse for lack of a shoe
...lots the advantage to be a disruptive force in a low margin highly competitive retail environment and saw no opportunities to pivot their strengths with the needed agility due to the lack of a horse
... and managed to combine the two without compromising the shortcomings of either.
Related and uplifting: One of their books is by guru Forrest Mims , who got me and many of us here started on the noble eightfold path to electronics nirvana. Forrest is still very active in the scientific community. He's one of my personal heroes. I got his email address from his website and sent him an email just to say hi and thanks for his great work. He sent a detailed personal reply within an hour! Such a neat, humble guy and he really made my year with his reply, which was definitely saved in my "Keepers" file.
-Phil
Meanwhile the Raspberry Pi "gadget" is going from strength to strength. Now with a new production line in Japan.
Parallax is doing OK as far as I can tell. And Adafruit, Sparkfun, Seed Studio.
Things have never been better for the gadget freak.
I guess 3D printers, Pebble watches, quadcopters etc are suffering extreme popularity of such things and the resulting shake down in the market.
Shame about the Pebble. They just introduced a Javascript dev environment for it. Great but no way could I justify the expense.
Even if is IS impossible to transmit FM using a Propeller.
The author makes quite a lot of leaps. Examples:
* Smartwatches are solutions looking for a problem. They were dopey in Dick Tracey's time. There are some interesting uses for them, but far too specialized.
* GoPro is overpriced, not that the market segment is waning. There are still plenty of buyers of sports cameras, thanks to the Chinese.
* 3D printing is the poster-child of the glutted market. They'd be doing fine if there were the usual 2-3 major players, and the oddball here and there. Plus, most consumer models are pretty sucky; more promise than results.
I could go on, but in the end, "gadgets" are what you make them. A new and *useful* gadget is still likely to be a big seller ... until the next better thing comes along. History proves this to be the case over and over.
When I think of gadgets I think James Bond.
We have navigators and trackers and all but where is my submersible, flying car, with bullet proof shielding and an ejector seat?
Oh, and a smart watch that actually works whilst we are at it.
The age of gadgets has not even got off the ground yet.
I'll shut up now. People get mad at me when I say that "many" people aren't creative. But I've been in the creative business my whole life and seen firsthand that many "creatives" really aren't, much less the general populace.
I keep digging myself deeper.
Erco out.
People bring me really nice broken stuff all the time. That leaves little reason to buy anything
Of course Pebble's problems weren't about poor reviews but about dependency on the good will of giant companies with financial agendas of their own.
Oh, I agree, it's much better than "not bad", it's downright great in the right hands with proper expectations. I'm not saying they are bad for "us guys", just for much of the general population of non-Maker types who have never made anything before and suddenly expect to be design wizards when they purchase an entry-level $300 machine. That's a recipe for disappointment.
Of course, it must be stated that the article did not include DIY "gadgets" like Parallax, Adafruit, and SparkFun sell. Those are tools for learning and building, not pre-built, single-purpose things.
-Phil
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1150792
The idea was that smartphones would be the sort of swiss army knife that would replace other gadgets, and this would cause a reduction in sales for the semiconductor manufacturers. For example - MP3 players, PNDs (GPS navigation), metronomes, tuners, voice recorders, cameras,...
As for gadgets.. Raspberry Pi production line in Japan? Didn't know that. Maybe I can get them cheaper and easier..
That was supposed to sound like sarcasm