I posted on Reddit/Wacom yesterday and got some good questions about XOOT. There’s some good Q and A in there so I’m adding meat of it below.
(I’ll keep updating as things go along)
Q: huh, when i first heard about these, i was under the impression theyd be cheaper than an ErgoStand
A: Early on we had hoped to match or beat the price of the Wacom Ergo Stand ($500).
Then two things happened:
Feature creep (screen rotation, Kits, etc.)
We lowered our expected manufacturing volume.
This left us with the choice of compromising on quality to hit the price point, or building a XOOT system that’s stable, durable, and has all the features that make XOOT unique to other arm systems. We chose the latter.
Q: 700 dollars lmao
A: Sorry for the price but, we’re cutting our margins as low as we can.
Here’s a post that explains why a XOOT system costs so much.
You’ll need to judge the XOOT system on the features it provides and if they’re valuable to you.
It won’t be the right stand for everyone but, we’re hoping it’s the right stand for enough people.
Q: So you’re crowdfunding on your own or am I missing something?
A: I spoke with a VP at Indiegogo about the XOOT product. He said “We won’t bring much to the table”. Sites like indiegogo work best with goods for mass consumption. If a product is popular they route more traffic to it.
XOOT is a niche product for a niche industry. A high cost monitor arm that only works with a small number of specialized screens does not have a lot of mass appeal. Thus, XOOT would likely not get the benefit of having traffic driven to it.
With crowdfunding on xoot.pro the website it becomes the single portal to get a XOOT system, before and after crowdfunding. That helps lower costs. Believe it or not, even with XOOT’s high price, we’re below the profit margins that allow for using distributors.