RK Cooler Price Adjustments

Update 5/26/10

RK Cooler Price Adjustments - Well folks, the numbers are in and it just ain't pretty.  I want to be as transparent with you as possible with all this, so here is the straight deal.  These coolers are really great units, beautiful, functional, and having used one, I never want to go back to any other cooling method.  But the straight and honest truth is these things are incredibly labor intensive and require a very large amount of material to do it right.  In fact, 40.5LB of stainless steel, motors and fans are in this unit.  Frankly, it is everything we dreamed it could be.  The last 4 coolers took 42 labor hours to build.  If you look at one up close, you will see all the brackets, welds and bends that go into these coolers.  It really and truly is a custom work of art.  Larry tells me, however,  they just simply can't be built for what we are charging for them.  Literally, it means coming out of pocket to build them at the prices we initially had them set at.

Adding in the materials and labor, all the stainless steel, motors, wiring, etc...we literally pay cash out of pocket to get them out the door.  If you look at the amount of labor and material in each drum, then compare the amount of labor and material in the cooler, you will see that even the new prices are proportionally acceptable.  So, the question is....  Is it worth it to us to have these nice coolers, at the cost required to build them, when we can rig up a box fan for $50 to do the job?  I think the true question comes down to what you want to do with your coffee business.  If you are in public view, I think these coolers are a mandatory addition to bring as professional an image as possible to the table.  They work extraordinarily well, and are a pleasure and a joy to use, and having been spoiled by one, I will never go back to the old way.  I feel a stroke of pride if someone happens to see me roasting, and they say "That's really a cool machine!"

So with all that, I'm going to have to price these in at $649 and $715 respectively for the basic and deluxe units.  The honest truth is, at those prices, RK makes $0 in profit and is straight cost of build to you.  That's a poor decision from a business standpoint, but I feel it is a great unit that we have put hundreds of hours of work into and I don't want to scrap it just based on price alone.  I realize that this is going to price some of you out of the game.  Some will just say "I'll keep doing it the old way".  I respect that.  However, if things get rolling for you, I would absolutely and seriously consider getting one if you can, you definitely won't look back.  I just don't want to see these units scrapped, and will just offer the unit at pure cost so that RK has a good cooler option to go along with the drums, and because I love them so!

Finally, the only way to do these, is to build a batch of 5 at a time.  The cost of setting all the machines to the right bend and roll radiuses to make these coolers is actually quite expensive.  It may take 45 minutes to setup the machines just to roll the outer shell of the cooler in 5 seconds.  So to only fabricate one cooler at a time, is not practical.  That process is repeated for each bend and roll of the cooler, so you can see how you would take 90% of your time, just setting machines.  Better to set the machines once and roll out 5 in assembly line fashion.  So on this issue, we are going to take pre-orders for 5 coolers.  When we get 5 orders in, we'll go ahead and stamp out 5 coolers all at once.  I'll keep a list of those interested, with a very small deposit, just to keep people serious, and once we get 5, we'll roll and ship all of them at once.  I do realize this is also an unattractive decision.  The reality is that we can't do it any other way, at even this new price.  If you want special consideration, give me a ring and I'm sure we can find a way to make it worth the shops time to roll out one if you are in a hurry.

I truly regret having to do this as this was not quite the vision that any of us had, but the bottom line is that there is too much work and material in these coolers to do it any other way.  Someone once told me,

"If you're going to work for free, why bother working at all...?  Might as well go do something fun."

I think everyone gets that.  Please don't hesitate to call me up and chat about it if you wish, I always welcome your conversations.  The only other alternative is to not make them or price them $200 higher yet.  I will constantly keep my eye open for ways to improve on this, but for now that's where things stand.  To those of you who got in under the wire and already have your cooler, Congrats!  You got one heck of a deal!  -  Shane