What's your target market?

People who don't want to spend a fortune on a tablet but want one that's half-decent and that it 'just works'.

Archos/Arnova have just emailed me (It's private so I don't want to post the whole thing, sorry)


The above requirement being App store, Rom etc...

you need to think more specifically than that. Men? women?

30 somethings with disposable income? Techies? White-collar workers? Commuters?

Once you've got that nailed, its much easier to think what features they would want.

See also:
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg...type=RESOURCES

Cheers for the link. Kind of baffled by $150 for 4000pcs??? I know it means items but does that mean 400 for $150. Seems unlikely?

My target market is:

Both Men/Women and Children
Techies (hacking)/Non-techies (easy to use/set up)
People with a small disposable income
Commuters (lightweight)
UK citizens
Male/Female
People who like open-source, don't want to be locked in
People who like to watch films/Catch Up TV
People who like to browse the Web/Play games
App lovers


Basically, an average Joe that doesn't want to blow his saving on a crap but cheap tablet or an expensive one.

You said 4000, not 400.

"I can do USD 150 for 4000pcs"

Seems to me that Arnova will do them for you at a cost of $150 each, so long as you order 4000.

Presumably that's $150 each for 4000 of them, that's $600,000 worth. Yikes.

My mistake, missed a zero.
I have changed the Processor to a OMAP3630 as it can be overclocked/cheaper.

Even if it's cheaper enough to be e.g. $100, you're still looking at that cost X 4000...

I know. It was purely a quote and nothing has been signed. I need to see if it is viable or not, awaiting another reply.

If you don't have access to half a million quid then it's not a goer. 4000 is a lot of stock to try and shift for a brand no one will have heard of.

Don't forget you'll need to add import duty and VAT on top of that. That would be over £125 per unit before you even add shipping and support costs. The may offer certain amount of leaway on payment, maybe 60 days but seeing as you are not even registered as a business I doubt it. So that would half a million up front.

Also your target market is too vague, you have target every single group.

They are (I think) ripping me off. If they can offer an Arnova 10 G2 at £130, how can I compete?

I know they need to make a profit but at that price come on.

The E-mail looks like it's been translated on Google Translate. The Employee (who I'm not naming) said that the Rockchip's max frequency is max 1gb (yes, 1GB). I am English and am rubbish at French but surely Archos (who makes millions) should employ someone who can write fluent English

I would be better off just creating ROMs (which I enjoy). What time is it now in France? There's a days delay in every Email sent.

And no, I don't have 1/2 a million

A lot of the big vendors like asus and gigabyte have crappy translated manuals so I would not worry about that. Plus why would they send all their e-mails though one department who check it for english ? Expect this to be the least of your worries if you go ahead with this plan.

As for price, what do you expect. The big chains would be ordering tens of thousands. Margin on each unit probably be very small.

As for the money, I would expect you to borrow it so you have to take that into account.

I know, someone small like me can't compete with the likes of DSG. I would have thought that it would be much cheaper. In fact, I don't even think that price includes the App Store costs and Rom Development

With a sale price of £120 there's potential for around £4 margin per unit based on 4000 units at $150 each.

That's around £16k for the whole order of 4000 units. You need to consider what your other related costs would be, and work out a conversion (to profit) rate from that.

You'd need to raise around £475k of capital to be able to do anything at all though, as the import VAT would have to be paid initially although it could later be claimed back.

£4 margin isn't a lot at all. In fact, it's hardly worth it.

Put lots of porn on there with a Porn Store instead of an app store. You'll make a fortune. I'd buy three.

You need to get a manufacturer's quote from the factory. Arnova and Archos are just resellers of the original factory goods, hence the high price per unit in the quote. A factory quote would be shitloads cheaper than that, but remember that it'll still be a big bulk order.

With it being a new brand, make sure you factor in the costs of an advertising campaign and packaging design/production too. Although there's loads of scope for doing some of this cheaper now using the internet, as opposed to billboards and magazines etc.

Factor in storage costs also, if the factory aren't willing to provide to customers on a drop-shipping basis.

Will do, I need to find some OEM's. It's hard to find them.

It is an interesting idea but I can’t see you competing if you are trying to sell these at a low price. Would it not be better to look at a higher spec with more added extras to sell for more money?

I think people will generally either buy a brand or buy the cheapest one that they can find – it seems you are in that middle ground which can be quite tough.

If you find somewhere to get the OEM ones from you’ll probably have to pay up front for all the units as well so could get expensive when you will need to be buying thousands at one go – you would really need some finance behind you to get going.

Good luck with it all.

OP would need to make sure he can and does get permissions for including these – I expect it may be quite difficult for someone who has never done this before to get the necessary permissions.

I have been looking on Alibaba.com.

I am going for the price range of £100-200 for a tablet.
Any more than that and there's no reason to buy mine, and will probably get a Fire or Archos 101 G9.

Just a thought, would any of you one here buy one if they were in a shop? I'm just trying to ask consumers directly. For example, there was one in a shop with a 10.1'' screen. Custom Android ROM (overclocked), 1.4ghz processor, tabbed web browser, and a custom app store. Would you buy one? Around £170.

I would consider one from you if I was happy with the spec and price – I don’t know the prices of a similar spec Android Tablet to compare.

I don’t mind about brand as long as the tablet is well built and had a good quality screen – for me if the screen is poor then I would not be interested.

I know, it seems a bit ridiculous to have a terrible quality screen when 70% of it is the screen!

Anyway, it doesn't look likely that I would be able to do this.