The Mavic is a Market Killer that could actually be hurting DJI.
Here's a brief-ish explanation of why DJI may be stalling the Mavics:
Every competitive market is divided into segments. Ideally every segment represents a balance of pros and cons. A Tesla has luxury, speed & tech, but high price. A Ford Fiesta has low price, but little luxury or tech. Every car's segment is determined by its unique combination of tradeoffs. Collectively, all cars divide up among them the demand of the entire market. Now, everyone knows what typically happens when a car is released that doesn't have a good balance of pros and cons. There is little to no demand. And if you've manufactured 10s of thousands of that car, what do you do with them? Econ 101 - you lower price until demand increases and hopefully eliminates the inventory surplus.
But, the Mavic's imbalance of pros and cons has created a new problem.
What happens if Elon figures out a way to sell the Tesla Model X with ludicrous speed for the same price as a Honda Accord? Technically they're not in the same class, but so what. There's no way anyone would buy an Accord, a Taurus, or any other car on the road, INCLUDING the other Tesla models if they could get a Model X for less. You might still buy a pickup, but demand in every remotely similar market segment with products priced at or above the new Model X price would flatline. All the manufacturers in those segments would slash prices, and the lower price (Ford Fiesta) segments would be flooded with much higher quality/luxury alternatives.
This is what we're seeing in the drone market. DJI has found a way to put virtually every desirable feature in the Mavic, and they've priced it below everything remotely similar. As a consequence, almost all demand at that price point and above has been redirected to the Mavic. Suddenly, every manufacturer selling drones at similar prices, including DJI, has to figure out what to do with all their non-Mavic inventory.
The longer Mavic supply doesn't meet demand, the longer that demand can be redirected to other drone offerings. To encourage that unsatisfied demand to buy DJI, they are creatively dropping prices. The P4 may still be generally offered online for $999, but DJI is offloading it on their own site for $799 by labeling it refurbished. (People are reporting their refurbs look just like brand new.) The P3P "refurb" is now regularly $599, and NewEgg has had it as low as $575.
If I'm right, Mavic supply will continue tight until a couple of weeks after Christmas so that DJI can offload it's non-Mavic stock to holiday shoppers. Mavics may be scarce even longer if the newly gift-card-endowed are slow to buy. If that's the case, look for even lower-price offers on the Phantoms soon after Christmas, while Mavic slowness continues.
Here's a brief-ish explanation of why DJI may be stalling the Mavics:
Every competitive market is divided into segments. Ideally every segment represents a balance of pros and cons. A Tesla has luxury, speed & tech, but high price. A Ford Fiesta has low price, but little luxury or tech. Every car's segment is determined by its unique combination of tradeoffs. Collectively, all cars divide up among them the demand of the entire market. Now, everyone knows what typically happens when a car is released that doesn't have a good balance of pros and cons. There is little to no demand. And if you've manufactured 10s of thousands of that car, what do you do with them? Econ 101 - you lower price until demand increases and hopefully eliminates the inventory surplus.
But, the Mavic's imbalance of pros and cons has created a new problem.
What happens if Elon figures out a way to sell the Tesla Model X with ludicrous speed for the same price as a Honda Accord? Technically they're not in the same class, but so what. There's no way anyone would buy an Accord, a Taurus, or any other car on the road, INCLUDING the other Tesla models if they could get a Model X for less. You might still buy a pickup, but demand in every remotely similar market segment with products priced at or above the new Model X price would flatline. All the manufacturers in those segments would slash prices, and the lower price (Ford Fiesta) segments would be flooded with much higher quality/luxury alternatives.
This is what we're seeing in the drone market. DJI has found a way to put virtually every desirable feature in the Mavic, and they've priced it below everything remotely similar. As a consequence, almost all demand at that price point and above has been redirected to the Mavic. Suddenly, every manufacturer selling drones at similar prices, including DJI, has to figure out what to do with all their non-Mavic inventory.
The longer Mavic supply doesn't meet demand, the longer that demand can be redirected to other drone offerings. To encourage that unsatisfied demand to buy DJI, they are creatively dropping prices. The P4 may still be generally offered online for $999, but DJI is offloading it on their own site for $799 by labeling it refurbished. (People are reporting their refurbs look just like brand new.) The P3P "refurb" is now regularly $599, and NewEgg has had it as low as $575.
If I'm right, Mavic supply will continue tight until a couple of weeks after Christmas so that DJI can offload it's non-Mavic stock to holiday shoppers. Mavics may be scarce even longer if the newly gift-card-endowed are slow to buy. If that's the case, look for even lower-price offers on the Phantoms soon after Christmas, while Mavic slowness continues.
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