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.