Archive for the ‘Pricing’ Category

What does the labor shortage have to do with M.O.Q.?

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

The labor shortage at the liquid crystal display factories is causing the factories to increase their MOQ. MOQ is short for Minimum Order Quantity; this is the minimum amount of LCD products that can be ordered at one time.

A service we offer to our customers is to order the MOQ for you and then spread out your deliveries over a 12 month period. One advantage of this is that we can bring in your displays early and then ship them out to you on your schedule.

Character LCD:
Character displays are also known as alphanumeric LCD displays or numeric LCD displays. These are the more standard type of an LCD display module. As a general rule the character display manufacturers ask for 500 liquid crystal displays per order.

These include 8 x 1 LCD Display, 8 x 2 LCD Display, 16 x 1 LCD Display, 16 x 2 LCD Display, 16 x 4 LCD Display, 20 x 2 LCD Display, 20 x 4 LCD Display, 24 x 2 LCD Display, 40 x 1 LCD Display, 40 x 2 LCD Display, 40 x 4 LCD

Graphic LCD:
Graphic displays are also known as monochrome LCD displays. As a general rule the graphic display manufacturers request a 500 MOQ. These include FSTN, STN and TN. The MOQ is the same for no backlight as it is for LED backlight and EL backlight.

Custom LCD:
It is not uncommon to have a large minimum order for a custom LCD display module that is a replacement LCD display or to replace a discontinued LCD monochrome display.

Segment LCD:
Segment displays are also known as static displays or glass displays. At this time the MOQ for most static/segment displays is 2,500. The factory will build as few as 1,000 at a time, but the LCD cost per display will increase.

These include all types of segment displays such as 7 (seven) segment LCD display, 14 (fourteen) segment LCD display, 16 (sixteen) segment LCD display

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Discontinued, Displays, Inventory, Pricing | No Comments »

Have you been Factory swapped?

Friday, June 18th, 2010

The more you order, the lower your cost. This has always been true. The cost of 10K liquid crystal displays (lcd display modules) would be 5% or 7% less expensive than if you ordered 100 displays. This is also true for custom STN displays, FSTN displays and TN numeric displays. But lately we have seen some suppliers offer a price break by as much as 30% to 40%.

One example of this is when one supplier dropped the price by 35% when the customer increased the quantity from 10K to 50K displays. As it turned out the supplier quoted the 10K units to be manufactured in China and the 50K quantity to be manufactured in Cambodia.

A supplier could send you a sample from a factory in one country and then ship you samples from a different factory. This could cause problems later if there are any differences between the sample and production lcd module units.

The next time you receive a quote with a very large price break in character LCD modules, segment displays, and monochrome graphic LCD’s, make sure that the units will be produced by the same manufacture as the sample you receive.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Displays, Pricing | No Comments »

Changing Market Conditions in China may effect Pricing and Lead Time on LCD Modules

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Does “this quote is valid today only” sound like something you would hear from a salesman at the car dealership?

In the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD display module) industry we have enjoyed the luxury of honoring a customer’s quote for 30 days. In fact, if someone waited 45 days to place the PO, we would still honor the 30-day quote.

The cost of character, static and graphic monochrome LCD’s has not changed that much over the last few years.

This may be changing soon.

Why this drastic change in LCD display module prices? China is looking to increase minimum wage by as much as 20%. (see http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTOE62F07R20100316).

The main concern I have is that the change in price could come very rapidly and with very little notice. End-users of our LCD modules need to be able to forecast their cost and profits for months in advance.

Could the price of LCD monochrome displays and custom lcd displays change every month or week and by a significant percentage as was the case of gas prices? Do you remember how businesses would charge a “fuel surcharge” onto your shipping cost as gas prices increased?

The impact that this could have is staggering.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Displays, Pricing | No Comments »