Re: Why are restaurant RF gizmos so complicated?

Hello Tim,

My theory on these kind of products is that the markup is so high that the manufacturer doesn't really care how much they cost to make. My guess is that they just threw something together quickly in order to be early into the market.

There has to be competition. Every restaurant I went to had a different type. Maybe not always from different mfgs though.

These things are often a captive market in that they are tied to the restaurant's billing system so competition isn't a big issue. I know of a company where the profit on a particular product wasn't very impressive, but the profit on the cables needed to connect it was about $95 on a cable that sold for $100. Much like theaters - they don't make much on the movie but they make a killing on the concessions.

Yes, maybe. Although it wasn't NCR, the billing system. It was a separate installation, just to organize the waiting area. Possibly restaurant owners are too concerned about the cost of such stuff.

Theater: When I saw that they wanted more than $5 for a small bag of popcorn we decided we didn't want popcorn. And BYOW because a small bottle of water was in a similar price range. Go figure the markup on that... ;-)

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
.

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