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Comment by liz_upton | Hacker News Reader

We're selling too close to cost to make any discounts workable, but we can discount on shipping if people buy lots in one go.

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That's actually quite scary. If you sell 'close to cost' then your margins are going to be razor thin even with just a little overhead it might not be viable.

Beware of selling too cheap.

AFAICT they are a registered charity with the goal of promoting computer science education, so I suspect large profit margins matter less than if they were a business.

They don't need large profit margins, but they should try to have enough for an office and staff.

Profit is what you have after paying for costs, including staff.

I think they should increase the single unit cost to $45 or higher (49 or 63). Have it a vote on the main page so people feel like they have some input, the higher cost can support discounts for bulk buys and other non-profits (think give one get one). Explain the rational for the price increase on the poll. The geeks that are making single purchases can definitely pay the higher price. Have a discount kick in @ qty 10 or 20 (down to $35). The at cost (which is never really @ cost, ever) discount shouldn't kick in till either non-profit status or qty 100.

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You are going to have a problem meeting demand. And some for profit shop is going to use these as digital signage and suck up all the supply. Beware of unintended consequences, everyone that buys them isn't going to be doing good in the world. Capitalism is faceless and cares about us much gravity or water.

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Another option is to have a classroom in a box package where you sell 30, power supplies, keyboards and an app that runs on all operating systems so you can DD pre-canned images onto end user supplied SD cards (point them at preferred cards on newegg).

I think this is a terrible idea, unless that price only applied to buyers in first world countries. At $25 for the board + shipping to South Africa + power supplies I can afford twice the boards I would buy. And even at $25, I can't buy as many as I would actually need.

I plan on giving them to interested school kids from the local squatter camp (slum for non-South Africans) and hopefully teaching them a bit of programming and general computer skills. The charities that service these kids have a hard time getting them food, so getting them to shell out for computers (even at $25ea) is a complete non-starter.

Since I will be paying for every single one myself, and will be scrounging up the rest of the parts wherever I can, an extra $20 - $40 would make a massive difference to me.

Then under my plan if you bought 10 you would get the discount. When you get the cheap nearly at cost price so do the people who won't be doing good in the world. How do you differentiate them? What if I put in an order 1000 and hoovered them all up for in store digital signage? I am preventing 1000 kids from getting access to education and Raspberry gets nothing in return.

How do you solve this problem?

Good points. Still, it would be terrible if they ended up not surviving because of pricing it too low. Even a charity has to somehow make ends meet and if they end up going out of business everybody loses. I really hope they can make it work at the price points indicated but I'd rather have them a bit more expensive than not at all.

Exactly my take as well. The organism needs to survive and 100% altruistic organisms don't. If they sell at a profit then they can grow and more low cost education can spread.

Are you planning on making these available to the public at this price point?

I personally would be tempted to hang on to the $25 price point for non-profit/educational institutions, and sell them to the general public at $50 a pop.

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