Manfrotto spares - are they having a laugh? (1 Viewer)

The panning brake on my Manfrotto 700RC2 needs replacing due to wear and tear and I was surprised to find that the Ass(!) Pan Brake (R700.07) is indeed available as a user replaceable part. The shock came when I checked on the price of the part - a small rectangle of plastic, approx. 20mm x 6mm with a depression in the centre which creates a friction ‘brake’ activated by the panning lock-screw.

The part itself is £3.43 which, with an ‘order surcharge’ of £1.57 and VAT quickly rises to £6.00. If that isn’t enough, the cheapest carriage (2nd class post) is an eye-watering £3.99, bringing the grand total to £9.99:eek!:! Even allowing for the usual on-costs, how can they possibly justify this extortionate price?

Does anyone know of an alternative supplier or are we forced to use Manfrotto’s website? I suspect the latter, but advice appreciated.

RB

Hi Rotherbirder,

Rotherbirder said:

a small rectangle of plastic, approx. 20mm x 6mm with a depression in the centre which creates a friction ‘brake’ activated by the panning lock-screw.

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I have to admit that after discovering 3D printing, the breaking of small but important plastic parts has lost some of its terror to me. I've designed my own twist-up eyecup ring replacement when I needed one, for example.

Regards,

Henning

Hauksen said:

Hi Rotherbirder,



I have to admit that after discovering 3D printing, the breaking of small but important plastic parts has lost some of its terror to me. I've designed my own twist-up eyecup ring replacement when I needed one, for example.

Regards,

Henning

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Thanks for the feedback Henning. I have followed your posts on this subject with interest. 3D printing of custom parts would certainly be an option, but with replacement parts from a major player, copyright would be an issue to consider.

RB

I take your point, RB. Manfrotto are not alone. What happens to the price if you order 2 pieces? Is the 'order surcharge' dropped because the minimum order price has been reached (or is it coincidence that the item price and the surcharge total a round £5)? If these bits are replaceable due to wear and tear, you may need a second in due course. And if you order 2 now you reduce the unit cost of each. That said, in my experience buying 2 of this type of thing usually means I never need the second or when I do I can't remember where I put it.

Having accidentally taken this particular head apart on Friday night, i know exactly the bit you mean; mine was leaning at an angle, which probably was the reason i could never satisfactorily tighten the pan. I sorted that, but realised how much like a rubber brake block for a kid's bike it was. I think the pan control just screwed into it. Reckon you could probably make something that does the job. I couldn't see any particular purpose to some aspects of the form of it - the screw, the edge and the shape seemed to be what was critical.
Or you could just bite the bullet on it and order a new one...

But you can't blame VAT and the cost of 2nd class post on Manfrotto. And this part was almost certainly not been made in the UK so it will have been shipped around Europe a bit and maybe even from China. Manfrotto UK needs to make a profit to survive and if this product is moulded there is the cost of the mould(s) to pay for.

Lee

Hi RB,

Rotherbirder said:

3D printing of custom parts would certainly be an option, but with replacement parts from a major player, copyright would be an issue to consider.

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Here's a pretty interesting site offering replacement parts for quite a number of brands. They even have Manfrotto tripod leg clamps on there:

https://www.happy3d.fr/en/

It's run by a major French company, so I'm sure they have done their homework regarding the legality of their site.

Of course, the situation of someone printing his own replacement parts on his personal 3D printer at home is quite different. I don't think it's too different from DIY'ing parts to fix broken gear in the traditional manner, though.

Regards,

Henning

Rotherbirder said:

The panning brake on my Manfrotto 700RC2 needs replacing due to wear and tear and I was surprised to find that the Ass(!) Pan Brake (R700.07) is indeed available as a user replaceable part. The shock came when I checked on the price of the part - a small rectangle of plastic, approx. 20mm x 6mm with a depression in the centre which creates a friction ‘brake’ activated by the panning lock-screw.

The part itself is £3.43 which, with an ‘order surcharge’ of £1.57 and VAT quickly rises to £6.00. If that isn’t enough, the cheapest carriage (2nd class post) is an eye-watering £3.99, bringing the grand total to £9.99:eek!:! Even allowing for the usual on-costs, how can they possibly justify this extortionate price?

Does anyone know of an alternative supplier or are we forced to use Manfrotto’s website? I suspect the latter, but advice appreciated.

RB

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The rubber brake thingy on the 700RC2 really is the pits. Mine fell apart just two months after I bought it, and then it had only been used twice. Now replaced with a bit of softish plastic cut to size. But it really is not on that Manfrotto have produced such a shoddy piece of kit - we are not the first to experience how bad this part is. SW.

Hauksen said:

It's run by a major French company, so I'm sure they have done their homework regarding the legality of their site.

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Hi,

well the design is from thingiverse, one of a lot of Manfrotto parts there...

It remains to be seen if companies will try to get designs for printing spare parts for their products offline... it is going to be an interesting legal battle as unless the part is patented in some way, they don't really have a leg to stand on...

Joachim

Hi Joachim,

jring said:

It remains to be seen if companies will try to get designs for printing spare parts for their products offline... it is going to be an interesting legal battle as unless the part is patented in some way, they don't really have a leg to stand on...

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Well ... spare parts logistics probably is a unrewarding business, with large numbers of low-value, low-turnover parts, especially if you're trying to support products that are no longer in production, while at the same time customer exectations are high when you're trying to sustain a premium brand experience.

Accordingly, I believe that the apparently steep prices Manfrotto is asking for their spares (and they certainly feel steep - I've ordered from them, too) are actually quite reasonable, and probably not calculated to generate substantial profits for them.

If you're ever seen a typical spare parts high-rack warehouse: It's typically long, high and narrow, because turnover is so slow that you can handle it with a minimum number of rack feeders, and thus a minimum number of aisles.

If I'd have to guess, I'd say it's more likely that in the future, we're going to see more companies trying to reduce the overhead of spare parts support by empowering their customers to be self-supporting, improving customer satisfaction while cutting down on capital and personnel overhead required for the spare parts business.

Of course, you wouldn't want to fix your aircraft with parts downloaded from Thingiverse, so there are definitely going to be sectors where that's not an option! Still, the aviation industry is keenly interested in 3D printing, as spare parts logistics are quite the challenge for that industry, too!

Regards,

Henning

I agree £9.99 for a tiny piece of plastic is totally excessive!

What would be a reasonable price for producing the part, cataloging it, storing it (on the off chance that somebody might buy it), advertising it (website), processing the order, retrieving it from storage, packaging it, paying postage and actually posting it?

I am not an expert on these things but a car mechanic will do about 12 minutes work for £10 - so is £9.99 that unreasonable for the whole process?

The main thing contributing to the cost of spares is time.
Time is money.
Hobbyists give their time for free, maybe hours, so it is totally unjust to compare a hobbyist' costs to a commercial firm.

Then there is expertise.
Rents, business rates, tax, insurance, National insurance.
Pension provisions.
Accountants, Solicitors and Surveyors fees.

It may be O.K. in the minds of Uber, Amazon and the likes to employ underpaid labour, pay little or no tax etc. etc. But this is exploitation.

Of course, in low price countries, the costs become much less, employer safety may be poor or non existent, child labour may be justified, otherwise they might starve.

But in the West, things cost, and £10 is entirely justified for a piece of plastic worth 5p.
We may not like paying the £10.
However, the part should last ten years, not five minutes.

I remember seeing a stockist of Victorinox penknives asked to supply and fit a spare part. The part cost was O.K., but the £1.50 charge for fitting the part, the customer would not pay.
It took the vendor 5 seconds, with his special tool.
The customer refused to pay, so the staff member took the part out.
This argument went on for so long I walked out, so they lost my custom.
However, the vendor was correct. That was his fee for fitting the part.

A broken Rolleiflex was taken in for repair.
The repairer took it into the workshop, gave the medium format camera a hefty bang in the right place, made a cup of tea, took his time drinking it and returned.
The satisfied customer paid the repair cost happily.

Being a retailer is tough, and today with this damn internet, almost impossible.
I certainly would not be one.

I do appreciate the on-costs applying to retail; however, as Binastro says, the part should be fit for purpose and last a reasonable time performing the task that it was designed to do, then I would have less of an objection!

RB

Hi,

Binastro said:

Hobbyists give their time for free, maybe hours, so it is totally unjust to compare a hobbyist' costs to a commercial firm.

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That's undoubtly true. However, looking at the French site I linked above, it actually hosts some hundred spare parts that were created by company that runs the site, Boulanger, for products of their own brand.

I suspect that hosting hobbyist-designed Thingiverse parts is only a tactical move designed to increase the attractiveness of the Boulanger site both for consumers and for search engines, while the strategic purpose in fact is to create a more efficient way of providing spare parts to their customers.

I like your practical examples, as they highlight two important aspects:

- If the customer needs a spare part, he's probably somewhat annoyed already if he has the impression that the defect on the product is the fault of the manufacturer.
- The spare part problem not only affects the manufacturer, but also the retailers who are the primary customers of the manufacturer, and whose actions also influence the brand image.

It's not easy to make everyone happy in such a situation, especially if the manufacturer can't afford to lose money in the process.

The Boulanger site with free spare part files provides the customer with an opportunity to fix his product, eliminating the burden on the retailers' personnel and the manufacturer logistics, while reducing the chances of the customer having a negative experience he'd blame on the brand. In fact, being able to fix something using your own resources can be a strong positive experience.

Oh, and of course Boulanger also sell 3D printers ...

Regards,

Henning