Would be really cool if they set some time aside for workshops, demos, or other interactive use of the space aside from just selling stuff. Without some serious guidance and help, many Pis just turn into an unusual way to play Minecraft.
The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
101–110 of 211 posts
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's 5 dollars for one . If you want 2-5, it's $10 each, and if you want 6+, it's $15 each. This is exactly my point. It's asinine to advertise it at $5. If you don't live near a physical Microcenter, it's not even $5 for one, because they charge shipping too.
I don't know any stores that include shipping on their price tags. But you're right, the Zeros are so popular that the MSRP of $5 is difficult to achieve without them being constantly sold out. Hard to blame the market for correcting, they're worth way more than $5.
The Raspberry Pi foundation outsource all their manufacturing, as is normal in the electronics industry.
In the absence of component shortages, they could up production of Zeros by 10x or more if they wanted to. And the Zero barely has any components, so a component shortage seems unlikely.
If there's such high market demand that the product constantly sells out when offered for the MSRP, why haven't they just told their manufacturer to make the next manufacturing run much larger?
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#103I wonder if they sell any water poof cases. I've had a hard time finding a case that can fit a Pi + battery and yet has grommet holes for wiring (so I can connect outdoor sensors). Most of what I've found are hacked together things or people drill into expensive pelican cases and then epoxy all the cables with a resin.
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#104Now that's where I'd throw my money out
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
This post on the forums [0] is the best answer I've read yet. They sell the Pi Zero (W) at such a low price to promote the platform for educational and non-commercial purposes. However, the margins are so low at that price that they cannot afford to sell in bulk. They apparently do offer bulk buys (>500 [1]) at higher prices. The few options to buy multiple are to buy kits (which basically pass that bulk pricing in t…
> However, the margins are so low at that price that they cannot afford to sell in bulk Typically, ordering in bulk is how you _support_ low margins, by amortizing all the various fixed overheads. What I suspect you mean is 'the margins are negative, and we're hoping to make it up via attach rate.'
Indeed. It's a loss-leader.
The aim is to pull in real people with single sales, both to grow their community and support further sales down the line of more powerful hardware.
Bulk selling these to industry for [near]-disposable application doesn't help the organisation or its aims. It also forces them up another rung of production capacity and warehousing, which is a serious expense.
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#106I wonder if they sell any water poof cases. I've had a hard time finding a case that can fit a Pi + battery and yet has grommet holes for wiring (so I can connect outdoor sensors). Most of what I've found are hacked together things or people drill into expensive pelican cases and then epoxy all the cables with a resin.
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Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
This post on the forums [0] is the best answer I've read yet. They sell the Pi Zero (W) at such a low price to promote the platform for educational and non-commercial purposes. However, the margins are so low at that price that they cannot afford to sell in bulk. They apparently do offer bulk buys (>500 [1]) at higher prices. The few options to buy multiple are to buy kits (which basically pass that bulk pricing in t…
If they can't afford to sell in bulk, the margins are actually negative.
Does anybody know how negative?
personally would have rather seen them priced at a value it could be bulk ordered. As many others pointed out, they are neat to build multi node projects or prototypes of doodles with.
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#108Cambridge native here - the store is super cool. The look and feel is very Apple store so that probably is the fairest comparison - but they’ve managed to retain the good bits without it feeling like the chaotic jumble sale that Apple Store’s have become. Dotted around the store are live demo machines showing Python code running on Pis powering sensors etc, and tutorials showing you how to run it etc. Was really inte…
The comparison to the Apple Store (just downstairs from the Pi store …) is both apt and misleading: Apple Stores are all shiny but in essence it’s a sales room. the Pi store, by contrast, has the potential of becoming a place to geek out, to learn something new¹, and to mingle. Let’s see whether this will actually happen. As somebody else said, with luck it might become a modern version of Maplin/RadioShack.
¹ I’m aware that Apple Stores also offer courses but as far as I understand these are more along the lines of “Here’s how to send emails” rather than “You’ll learn something cool about computers”. Both have their place, but they’re quite different in spirit.
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the alternatives (Orange Pi Zero in particular) might be a good option... They have more powerful hardware too, AFAICT, though the mainline linux support isn't as good. (Although looking at that now, the cheapest board is still about $9)
See, being able to run "just Linux" is about the main selling point of RPi. It's no secret you can get boards with better performance/price or performance/power, or even build your own RPi at a lower price (not sure about zero). But RPi being just "plug and play" with familiar software platform means that I can just go and link my software skills with physical doohickeys.
For the Orange Pi Zero, you can just download an Armbian SD card image much like you would with Raspbian - except that unlike Raspbian, everything but the kernel and bootloader is just stock Debian and receives updates straight from Debian. (In theory the next upcoming Debian release should work stock out-the-box, but it's a lot less user-friendly to get working.)
Re: The Raspberry Pi store is much cooler than an Apple Store
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the alternatives (Orange Pi Zero in particular) might be a good option... They have more powerful hardware too, AFAICT, though the mainline linux support isn't as good. (Although looking at that now, the cheapest board is still about $9)
See, being able to run "just Linux" is about the main selling point of RPi. It's no secret you can get boards with better performance/price or performance/power, or even build your own RPi at a lower price (not sure about zero). But RPi being just "plug and play" with familiar software platform means that I can just go and link my software skills with physical doohickeys.
Just about every other board out there is just as plug and play as the RPI.
I'm not saying that to downplay the RPI - the community it has around it is great, but long gone are the days of trying to get Linux running on a random arm board. And I should know, I have over 100 different arm machines at my place.