Just out of curiosity, why do you guys think this campaign is doing worse than 1st one?
We see it in some different way... "if you do not know why is something happening, then it is mostly because of the price/money" (it is a "saying" we have in Poland")
Yes, we had a great exposure and we are pretty sure we've reached most of people who really wanted such product like Sentry PC case, but if you want to get answers why numbers aren't higher, then some of them are below:
1. Price: €230 = ~$260 is a high price. Yeah, it is a really high price and we are aware of that. But at this moment we can not do anything about it. We are ordering Sentry 2.0 elements from our subcontractors and they dictate prices. Our profit is about 15% and if we assume there will be no problems with sent cases, then we will get maybe 20-25%, which most of the time we will spent on improvements. We talked with some factories in Asia about it (we searched some sub-subcontractors to get better prices), and they were astonished that we are not getting 100% of profit with such high price. But remember, we are not manufacturing our Sentry cases in Asia. Most of our elements are manufactured and quality tested in European Union. If you want to compare price of Sentry with other PC cases, then please just check where those other cases are being manufactured. As a company, we treat Sentry project as an advertisement of our DR ZĄBER brand. When we wanted to make it cheaper, then most of possible sub-manufacturers asked us for 10 000 units order and more. I don't remember a crowdfunded PC case which reached at least half of that. In such situation we just can not lower the price, because we are manufacturing "on demand". It is a true on demand, premium product, designed, manufactured and tested in European Union with EU standards, and even if we want it to become as affordable as it can be, the predictable low volume of orders is blocking us. It means, even if we want this case to be cheap, we can't do it, mostly because our sub-manufacturers dictate their prices, and if we won't get 5-10k orders, then the price won't change.
We understand that Sentry is a "right" design, which should become a standard, but at this point it is very expensive in manufacturing, and only small fraction of enthusiasts can afford it. We will try to change it, but it will take some time.
2. We wanted to offer our case for €230 euro. We informed everybody that this will be the price for Sentry 2.0. When we wanted to start our crowdfunding campaign with this price, there was an misleading information in the indiegogo form, that we won't be allowed to use the EUR currency, even if Poland is in the European Union. We were forced by indiegogo to use US dollars. For some reason many people think that €1 = $1. In 2016 it was true, but now situation is different. 1 EURO costs more than 1 dollar. It means 230 euro doesn't equal 230 US dollars (but ~260-261 USD). We sent many engineering samples to our reviewers and we wrote them that this case will cost 230 EURO. And most of the time they said the proper expected price... but remember - in Euro. Many people were confused when they saw 260 USD while they thought it will cost 230 USD. We never said our new Sentry will cost 230 USD. We said it will cost 230 EUR (similar price to other premium kickstarter cases, but this is not made in Asia) and many people felt that we lied to them, while we didn't. Currently EURO is stronger currency than US dollar, and this is something we just can't change.
3. Almost 1/3 of the price are taxes. Almost 9% of the price is an "Indiegogo tax". We can lower it by selling pc cases directly from our website but probably we would need to use "Paypal" to make those payments safe, and it also costs like 6-8% of the paid price. Everyone wants their share...
4. We sent many engineering samples to reviewers and we said there are no strings attached. We did not give them any dates or deadlines when they will have to release their reviews, and we even didn't say what they can or can't do with their samples. We just wrote they can do whatever they want. We said it is a community project and we want true, honest reviews. Everything was OK, until many of them decided to release their reviews at the same time (which we didn't expect). Because of that, many people thought we paid all of those reviewers and those reviews were "paid reviews". People just hate paid reviews, because they do not know which information is real and which is not (everyone hate "bs"). Sentry 2.0 reviews weren't paid, but because we said everyone can make a review in the way they think it will be the best for them, then some of them showed up in the same time, which was a bit weird (but not intended).
5. We have thousands of subscribers for our newsletter, who wanted an information when Sentry will be available. For sending emails, we were using a service from our country, which wasn't very efficient (only 15-25% of emails were opened by recipients, because most of those emails were sent to a spam folder). Because of that most of our subscribers didn't get an information that Sentry will be again available. Now we changed our newsletter system to the one which guarantees a lot bigger amount of delivered/opened emails. We know it is late, but we changed our old newsletter system as soon as we got statistics about current deliveries from our old email notifications system. Right now 40-60% of our newsletter emails are being opened by our subscribers, which is quite ok.
6. Expected delivery time of Sentry 2.0... Unlike many other crowdfunding campaigns, we wanted to be fair towards our backers. We wanted to show them the real dates. We did not want to set dates, after which we would need to say "sorry" every time we couldn't achieve them. We made Sentry 1.1 and we knew how much time it takes to manufacture similar product. We have this knowledge. Basing on this information we made some estimations for best and worst scenario when our Sentry 2.0 cases will be sent. Because we set a maximum number of possible to order cases to 5000 units, then the worst case scenario for delivery was set to December. This date is quite realistic for this number of cases. Many people was scared when they saw this date, because they do not want to wait that long. As engineers we prefer to give our client the best information we have, than lie saying something which will give us better profit. Crowdfunding is full of campaigns which are scam, and we would like to change it. Our campaign is real and true, and we just want to give our "customers" the best information before they will decide to back our project. Costs are real, delivery times are real and product is real. If people want to be "fooled" by saying they will get their product faster, then Sentry crowdfunding campaign is not for them. Our company is for over 2 decades on the heavy industry market mostly because we are honest with our customers. When we started this and previous Sentry crowdfunding campaign we decided we prefer to not get any funds, than gathering funds from writing some marketing, misleading information. We just do not want to do that. We know, that other companies use some marketing tricks, but as I said... we just do not want to do that.
7. Sentry is still being compared to other premium cases, but the main criterion is always the price. In such comparison, when you won't add other information, Sentry won't ever win. Sentry won't even win with plastic, a lot bigger Node 202 which you won't fit in a laptop bag. Price kills the whole conversation. We, as a small company, do not have a power to fight with many of such comparisons, and the only thing we can do is to give our future clients the best, true information. If you want to get a true premium case, then probably there is no real competition for Sentry... mostly because it is made "to your order". Just check where most of "premium" cases are made. You will find out that they are made in Asia with molds and automatic assembling machines which are used for other PC cases, which aren't "so" premium" and are made in thousands. Then you will find out that this "premium" factor will disappear. Most of people do not know how expensive is the manufacturing process if you do not have molds and automatic assembling machines, and because of that they think Sentry is an overpriced case. In our opinion Sentry isn't expensive case if you consider the small quantity in which it is made. But we do not have power to inform most of interested people why mainstream cases can be as cheap as they are, and why Sentry is more expensive... but we are doing everything we can in this matter.
We hope this campaign will allow us to get funds to improve manufacturing process, and maybe (in the future) to make next Sentry cases a little bit cheaper... but we can't promise that right now.
