Paint

[blinket]

ok so everyones been discussing the pros of .50 cal paint, more shots in your hopper, more shots per fill of air. Sounds brilliant in my opinion. The topic of how many paintballs you can buy per box has also been touched on. Surely paint companys are still going to be supplying box's of 2000 rounds though, are they realy going to do 4000 round boxes for the same price as 2000 round boxes? The way i see it is that this is going to be an oppertunity for paintball companies to make a gain as opposed to letting more paint go for a similar price.

So as great as .50 cal sounds, is it going to work out heaper for the player? or are paint companies going to see the £ sign and think "chane to make more money for less product quantity" The fact that .50 cal contains less fill and has a smaller mass than .68 means they wont be using as many materials, does anyone think they will use this to thei advantage or will they sell more paintballs at a smaller calibre for the same price?

[Piper]

Paint will still be sold in boxes of 2,000

It is cheaper because it is cheaper to make, 50 cal being smaller uses less material so therefore is cheaper to make. Also it is cheaper to ship becuase you get more in a container than 68 cal, so shipping cost is reduced.

Currently you can ship 6,000,000 paintballs in a 40 foot container for 68 cal, for 50 cal you get 10,000,000. So cost per ball to ship is obviously a lot less.

[blinket]

i can see where your coming from piper but what im trying to get at is, are paint companies going to reduce to price of boxes of 2000 .50 cals because of this reduction in materials etc or, are they going to cash in big time and not pass the savings on to players?

[Piper]

i can see where your coming from piper but what im trying to get at is, are paint companies going to reduce to price of boxes of 2000 .50 cals because of this reduction in materials etc or, are they going to cash in big time and not pass the savings on to players?

OK in answer to your question......... yes we have reduced the cost to the site owner and the stores, compared to 68 cal. Now as we only sell wholesale I can only hope that stores and fields will reduce the cost to the player.......... which I am 99.9% sure they will :D

[Dusty]

i can see where your coming from piper but what im trying to get at is, are paint companies going to reduce to price of boxes of 2000 .50 cals because of this reduction in materials etc or, are they going to cash in big time and not pass the savings on to players?

Really that is up to who you buy your paint from. Manufacturers don't set the retail price, stores do. In my opinion they'd be foolish not to retain the same profit margin per box and lower the price

[blinket]

dusty you say it might be foolish but could it be that .50cal may struggle to take off if the price isnt lowerd to incentivise the player?

[Dusty]

dusty you say it might be foolish but could it be that .50cal may struggle to take off if the price isnt lowerd to incentivise the player?

Read my post again. Retain same margin eg ten pounds per box and lower the price.

[AsylumDave]

Well market competition is likely to sort that out isn't it. One store decides not to drop the price, another competitor sees this and drops theirs, players buy off them right?

[blinket]

ahh i get you now dusty, my bad :rolleyes:

in that case, it would make sense to switch to .50 cal. The price of conversion kits could soon be made back from the savings players make on boxes of paint etc. So it would work out alot better to use .50 cal!

[Dark Warrior]

Depends how much it costs to change your marker

The cost saving in paint is a long term saving whilst the cost of new marker is large short term expense

Think about it, for most people it will takes at least 2 to 3 year to shoot 100 boxes of paint

50 cal will be ideal for site owners as they pass all their costs directly to customer and the swap to 50 cal means nothing to them. That means that site owners do not have to change any prices if they don't want to.

Remember that there are many sites out there that do a good business even though they have a high price point. In the long term they have to recoup the cost of initial investment of new equipment from the profit they make from paint sales. The savings in the cost of paint will probably be just be enough to give them a slightly bigger profit margin

[Dexter]

ok because i dont know the prices of .50 lets say £25

ok so you buy a box of .68 for £30 and a box of .50 for £25. thats a bag of .68 for £7.50 and a bag of .50 for £6.25.

one of the new hoppers holds 500 balls (chris lasoyas words not mine)
dye rotor holds 200, give or take a couple.

to fill a dye rotor you are paying £3
to fill the new hopper you are still paying £6.50

now has anyone ever had to dump a full hopper for one reason or another? this could be due to contamination, tampering or just your lid coming open.
think about if you had been playing using .50, you would have just lost quarter of a box. now the same can be applied to pods, have you ever been running and a pod has opened?

ok now if your a sponsored team or have an unlimited bank ballance this might not be a problem for you but for everyone else its gonna hurt.

[Smally85]

ok because i dont know the prices of .50 lets say £25

ok so you buy a box of .68 for £30 and a box of .50 for £25. thats a bag of .68 for £7.50 and a bag of .50 for £6.25.

one of the new hoppers holds 500 balls (chris lasoyas words not mine)
dye rotor holds 200, give or take a couple.

to fill a dye rotor you are paying £3
to fill the new hopper you are still paying £6.50

now has anyone ever had to dump a full hopper for one reason or another? this could be due to contamination, tampering or just your lid coming open.
think about if you had been playing using .50, you would have just lost quarter of a box. now the same can be applied to pods, have you ever been running and a pod has opened?

ok now if your a sponsored team or have an unlimited bank ballance this might not be a problem for you but for everyone else its gonna hurt.

With the frequency that I have to dump a hopper of paint, or lose a pod because I use **** ones that don't stay shut ;) I don't really see how this is going to make a massive difference.

The savings you'll make will still be there over the balance of time.

[Shwat]

You dont HAVE to fill your hopper with 500 balls every time you fill up...

[Dexter]

ah but if your running around with it half full you stand more chance of having a break in you hopper meaning you would have to ditch that paint :D

[scoobytgi]

ah but if your running around with it half full you stand more chance of having a break in you hopper meaning you would have to ditch that paint :D

Good luck getting the 50cal to break there or anywhere else ;)

[Dexter]

Good luck getting the 50cal to break there or anywhere else ;)

thats what i was thinking :D

[Piper]

thats what i was thinking :D

Dexter so you have changed your tune then??

Have either you or scoobytgi even shot held, looked at a .50 cal ball?

I am intertested in what experience you have with the .50 ball? Have you seen it or just formed an opinion from what you have read on the internet?

[Dexter]

just an informed oppinion from what ive seen and read on the internet :D

[Piper]

just an informed oppinion from what ive seen and read on the internet :D

That is always the best way I feel read what other people write form an opinion then change your mind over the course of a thread and other forums, but never actually say you have all the facts and have actually read what people write.......... :D

[Steve@Warped]

Dex, Don't knock till you tried it!!!

I shoot a 0.50cal impulse at the 10 man, the balls broke well and the fill was great and that was from the medium grade rec ball not the highend tournament ball.;)

[Sid Sidgwick]

Steve,

What was it like for distance, accuracy et al compared to a regular .68.

[Missy-Q]

Pipes, you know I'm a fan of yours & all, but if you are saying that you are 99.9% certain that stores & fields would charge less money for paint then I believe you're mistaken.
I'll give you stores, stores will likely need to stay competitive, and if there's a MAP on 2000 50cal (I hope there will be) then thats where they will end up.

Fields however, would (and arguably 'should') not pass on the savings. They have a captive market. They do not need to be as price competitive. The players will be paying the same price as they were before, just using smaller paintballs.
If you are advocating that Fields drop their prices, I think that's the worst possible advice for our market, and the quickest way to wipe 20% off the gross industry revenue. I do not believe that 50 quid for a day's paintball is too expensive, and nor do the majority of people who pay it. That spend is needed to keep the wheels of industry turning.
This brings me to my problem with the whole 'idea' of 50cal. The people with existing margins are the fields. The people struggling with margins are the store/dealer/distributor. 50Cal would appear to be offering the field owners even more margin, but doing nothing in the area's where more margin is needed. Thats great if you want a 2-tier industry - manufacturers supplying fields - but not if you want the industry to be a healthy traditional 4-tier, with growth opportunity throughout.

So, the question then becomes - who does GI Milsim want to sell to?
Do you want to sell directly to fields? (thats who you have been visiting so far I believe) If the answer is yes, then you are cutting out 2 area's of the industry immediately. We can do that now, with 68cal, and acheive the same thing, but we wouldn't want to, because it would mean the death of many more stores, and it would only help one section of the marketplace, the one that needs the least help...

[Piper]

Missy

When I wrote that post I had (like a lot of people) formed an opinion, however since seeing the product I have changed my view and 100% agree that fields for one should not pass on the saving. I do however think stores will pass on the saving but only in the way of the Retail price.

We offer margin on the guns (infact the same margin that most of the other companies offer) and this is at a time when the company is new. You know as well as I do the more product that get's sold the cheaper the goods become.

I completely understand you point about the tear system that the industry needs, but everyone has to be on the same page for this to happen.................. and I really don't think that would happen, but if we could make it happen I would be the first in the room!

[Reiner]

When I wrote that post I had (like a lot of people) formed an opinion, however since seeing the product I have changed my view and 100% agree that fields for one should not pass on the saving. I do however think stores will pass on the saving but only in the way of the Retail price. Stores will pass on the savings. They always do. Paintballs are like any other commodity for a store. Price them lower and more go out the door, price them too high, and the store down the road selling a little cheaper has more going out the door.

For a field however, paintballs are just part of the experience that is being sold. Again, if a field prices paintballs lower they will sell more. But that also means that more will be shot. That changes the "experience", the thing people are really there for. No one goes to a paintball field because they want to buy little speres of gelatin and goo. They want an experience and they want to have fun. The volume of paintballs sold (and shot) affects and changes that experience. This is the primary reason paintball fields in North Americe (especially the USA) have been seeing declines in attendance, long before the recession started. They dropped the price of paintballs so low (even BYOP) at fields that the experience changed to something that less people enjoy. Sure there are lots of people that still enjoy paintball with the low prices (and therefore high volume) but not nearly as many that enjoyed it at the lower volume (higher paintball prices) level.

The problem is though, although some field owners are starting to realize this in North America, most still haven't figured it out. They still feel the only way to compete is to have the lowest paintball prices and that is why when I first heard of .50 cal, I was very concerned. The initial press release focused on paintballs being available for less money for the player. Players for the most part do not understand how cheaper paintballs affects attendance at fields. They just want more paintballs for the same price. How can you blame someone for that? It's perfectly normal. But that doesn't change the fact that the lower priced balls will affect the experience and by extension, attendance at fields.

Cheaper paintballs (at fields), whatever the caliber, will in the long run hurt the industry more than it helps.

[Piper]

Hence why I changed my opinion