laxu
Rock Star
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- 5,182
I'd look at it from a different point of view.Define 'just fine'. A loyal base they got for sure.
Highly doubt that more than 5-10% of NEW upper modeling sales are going to Fractal.
- no marketing
- no dealer network
- bad warranty (relatively speaking)
- badly outdated GUI
Seriously, if not for the hardcore base buying and re-buying literally multiple times over what would their sales be?
Fractal's devices are often out of stock, which means they sell pretty much everything they make and can't produce more with their current capacity. So there's probably a higher demand than supply, at least for the first let's say 3-5 years of the product's lifetime. So despite having very little marketing, they are able to sell all they make. That's a good spot for a small company where they don't have a lot of money tied into things sitting on shelves.
So far I've owned an Axe-Fx Standard, II, III and FM3. So I do think there's Fractal fans who are upgrading even within a generation, but the people who buy all of their boxes or their variants are probably fewer. The new-to-Fractal person is likely to buy the FM3 or FM9.
Dealer network can mean they can sell more, but also can mean that the cost for the buyer becomes higher. Longer warranty, shipping across the pond and a distributor does make Fractals quite expensive in Europe, Australia etc. I still would like to see them become more easily available, more like how you can buy the QC in so many places.
No complaints about warranty for me, at least with G66 in Europe. They've even sent me e.g a new fan for an Axe-Fx 2 that I bought used. The warranty time is the standard 2 years like for most electronics. US warranties tend to be a worse deal regardless of brand.