
Elon Musk’s late-night announcement to raise prices and reopen some stores - smacktoward
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/03/elon-musks-late-night-announcement-to-raise-prices-and-reopen-some-stores/
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benj111
So announcement of the closure was discussed here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19329600](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19329600)

My comment there was:

"I can't make my mind up on the closures. I just think, in 5 years time when
they're having to sell to average people, not just Tesla fans, how are they
going to compete with everyone else. Is your Mum or Dad going to buy a (new
fangled electric) car, on the internet, sight unseen?

Now its still not necessarily a bad decision now to be closing stores they
don't need, but is it going to hamper them later?"

Can I claim victory for my foresight?

~~~
Fjolsvith
The shed industry is surprisingly similar to the automotive industry. The
major manufacturers sell through either big-store retail or roadside
dealerships.

My dad built 10 or so sheds a year on the side (he was a carpenter). When he
quit about 9 years ago, I said, "Aha! That's my new business opportunity." I
built my first shed and put a picture of it on the Internet. Every shed after
that I put a picture up on my webpage with a price. After a few years, I
couldn't handle all the sales calls and continue to build, so I hired two guys
to build and I spent 3 months putting together an eCommerce store.

The first week of it going online, I got 17 shed orders - 3 months worth of
building! It turned out that no other manufacturer had an online store, or
even listed their prices online.

I give customers lots of pictures, and they order my buildings, sight
"unseen".

I'm able to undercut my competitors by almost a third because there's no
dealer markup.

~~~
benj111
"3 months worth of building! It turned out that no other manufacturer had an
online store, or even listed their prices online"

And now that the competition has arrived? My concern would be differentiation.
You can either compete on price or quality, and its hard to communicate
quality online. Unless you can get repeat customers (unlikely I'm guessing) or
word of mouth?

I'm guessing we're in different territories, when I think shed I think cheapy
rickety thing. they don't take 3 guys a month to make 5!

~~~
Fjolsvith
ksshedbuilder.com

