Good question, it is still a little premature to really get into it. Neverthless some preliminary thoughts have been developed.
Initially I thought the high equipment costs might have to be reflected over too short of a period and would raise the prices higher than we wanted to see. This fortunatly instead will be dealt with by a value added approach. Ebay does have a place in this as well. We will purchase complete headlights assemblies from places like ebay. Recondition a few of the components and resell them on Ebay. I expect these to be primarily antique american car units. The initial drive otherwise will be to refurbish the customers old reflectors as that is the most cost effective approach to both parties at this point.
Also the vendors of lighting parts. The names that you have become familiar with especially as mercedes owners. Have informed us they average several calls a week from people that want replacement reflectors. There are a lot of these places fortunatly for us. Since the reflectors are obsolite. They cannot help these people and would like a good place to reffer them to.
The guy on the west coast is overcharging in their opinion and mine. His real problem is that direct electroplating of silver or mirror silvering does require a perfect preliminary surface for a good job. I can sympathise with his problem. We on the otherhand have the ability to put a self leveling surface on.
This alone saves a lot of labour although there is still some. Plus our actual process cost is fairly low. I guess I will be stuck with the marketing work as well as quality control.
Word of mouth moves like wildfire when you turn out a superior product at a very reasonable price. I suspect that combined with a small amount of advertising will drive it to sustainable volumes. Right now the primary thrust is to finish gathering up the remaining equipment. Set it up and get it functioning. We are also exploring and examining various other approaches to marketing at this time. Ideals and suggestions as well are always welcome.
One esthetic consideration was the color match. Would it for all practical purposes duplicate the exact color of bright silver? It does. How about reflectivity? Only about 3 percent higher on average so it must be considered only slightly better than silver. There is no question that durability is better than electroplated or mirror silver. Warranty will also be well explained and backed up without question.
I am in no way trying to use mercedsshop as a commercial venue. Once we are up and running it is different and you may only see a refference to our website at best. Someone was generating a lot of questions about reflectors and how to deal with them. The subject of reflectors in general does also arise from time to time on site. It is also well known an informed person is in a position to make much better decisions on things that affect them. So any questions about processes involved or just any question that occurs to you about reflectors do not hesitate to ask. If I know the answer I will cheerfully respond. Or try to find out for you if I do not know. We are by and large a very curious and friendly group afterall.