I have a consumer product I am working to develop, and I don't know hardly anything about what you guys do. My ignorance appears to embolden my potential vendors into providing inflated quotes. Here are my issues:
I am currently at the Prototyping phase of the thing, and I'm working on resolving two issues:
1. Prototyping - I need a way to make a couple thousand plastic discs for the prototype models I'm making. I've seen the instructions on making your own injection molding machine on eBay, and I've seen that many of you seem to think those instructions are of good value. That's great! My question on that is how fast is that machine? Does each part need several minutes of labor? Or can I bang out several per minute? Also, how precise is this machine? My pieces need to "snap" together and stay together - I can't let my investors see pieces falling apart. They'll get wobbly if they think there's a quality issue.
2. Mass Production - The people I've contacted so far to do production on the product are coming in with prices that seem far too high to me. My pieces are fairly simple, around 1.5" x 0.1", and 1" x 0.03". My initial order would be for around 250,000 pieces. I thought I should pay between 2 and 5 cents each for them (after buying dies of course), but the prices I'm seeing are around 50 cents each! Far too high for me to realistically get my product retailed.
I'm waiting on some numbers from a Chinese manufacturer, but my preference is to use a domestic source. It isn't political with me, it's an issue of being able to control quality and have faster turnaround times in case I get a big order.
So, my question is this: Are my expectations unrealistic? Or do you guys have any suggestions for a producer that would be more reasonable?