OMG Instruments

home for BlueARP pattern arpeggiator

Updates on BlueARP DM sales (July 2022)

Sorry for long silence on BlueARP DM project. Due to political and economical turbulence I was waiting for the situation to settle down a bit, and honestly I was (and still am) quite low-spirited and de-motivated because all of this happening. But at least I can see that for the last 3 months the logistics/economical restrictions stay more or less the same and I can plan some actions.

Shipping / Logistics:

I can ship to most of the countries, except those few who suspended postal connections with Russia from their side: Finland, Australia, Denmark, Sweden. Also there are some countries where Russian Post doesn’t send officially due to missing logistics (like Yemen, Botswana, etc.), but I never got orders from these counties and unlikely ever will. The main issue is with 4 countries stated before – I can’t ship there right now and I don’t have a partner in a proxy country nearby yet, but there is a chance it will be sorted out in a few months.

Payments:

PayPal is not an option since March 2022 and this is unlikely to change anytime soon, so the only working option right now is direct wire transfer / SWIFT. There is a chance I will have a partner with PayPal account who will collect PayPal payments for me in a few months, but for now I can offer only SWIFT payment. It should work with any bank, the difference is that it is not instant (may take 1-2 days) and there is some transaction fee like 20-30$.

Parts procurement:

Most of the parts are from China and this logistics channel still works. I order about half of the parts from Chinese retailers directly and other half from the local retailers. Only the enclosures are the problem (blue and white ones) cause I was ordering them from USA. It is still possible for me to order from USA, but it is much trickier now, so likely I will switch to local alternatives. Still I have a few enclosures in stock. Chip shortage is still there and the price is a bit higher, but they are still available. So parts wise it is not bad overall (comparing to other areas).

USD/RUB Exchange Rate:

This is a real PITA, cause before Feb 2022 it was around 80 RUB per 1 USD, now it is about 60 RUB, due to heavy currency regulations imposed by Russian government. With this exchange rate, selling them in USD at current price (730$ for the blue and 790$ for the white) leaves me with no margin at all , since the parts price didn’t drop that much and this eats up all my margin. There is a hope the exchange rate will grow back a bit after Sept 2022, when some regulations should be weakened, but I can’t rely on that. So at least for those who are in the waiting list already, I will sell at the same USD price, later I may consider revising the prices.

Production rates / Scaling up:

Before Feb 2022 I was planning to outsource the production, cause I got more orders that I could fulfill with my limited production capacity. Now I expect 50%-90% of the customers will be put off by the obstacles like missing PayPal, delays and other stuff. So scaling up plans are suspended for now and I will build the units myself.

Further actions:

First I’m going to send mails to all the people from my current waiting list and ask if they are still in the game. So the few units I have now will be re-arranged cause I think that at least half of the people will cancel or already forgot about it. Next, I will plan further production.