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Re: The Fault Code Guide
Can someone please explain the 3.99 for 30 days bit in the app store i’m guessing that it lasts longer than that.
Thanks Jay..Re: The Fault Code Guide
£3.99 for a whole month is less than 14p per day; then you renew your subscription on the next month if you need it. I don’t think that is bad considering the cost of building and supplying that APP.
At least you have the choice of taking the APP only in the months that you require it.
Depending on your capability, you may only require it’s use one or two months of the year and on that basis it would only cost you £7.98 for the years use. Alternatively, it could cost you a maximum of £47.97 if you are not very confident at repairs and require the APP’s use in every month of the year.Re: The Fault Code Guide
I honestly can’t believe the amount of people moaning about the £3.99 charge for 30 days use of this app.Although I take my comment back if you’re only charging your customers £2 an hour to do a repair. If not then either pay for the App of shut the hell up…..
Re: The Fault Code Guide
hf wrote:Can someone please explain the 3.99 for 30 days bit in the app store i’m guessing that it lasts longer than that.
This has been bugging me and, to date I’ve held my peace on it but, let me explain some facts of life to you all that like to have a pop on this subject.
To employ one IT support plus on costs is about £2500 per month. We’ll ignore server costs, development costs, time to enter data and all the rest of the costs.
To pay my salary and the others that deliver you the Amica work, ISE, the engineer search, phone stuff, the WTA stuff and so on the cost is who knows what. But for me to spend the time and effort to update the FCG there just isn’t the money in it and, nowhere even close to employ someone to do it.
So, to make a profit from £3.99 a month when just to hope to meet the cost of the infrastructure to keep it all running and, keeping in mind that both Apple and Google get paid 30{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of that £3.99 before we kick a ball, I’ll let you work out how many subscribers you need to come out in front with a little more background.
To put some perspective on that, for each 100 subscribers we get the grand total of £269 vs probably more than £2500 in costs. We don’t even have 100. Then HMRC take 20{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the £269 or whatever it ends up at.
The reality is that even if we charge you £30 a month or more we still wouldn’t make from it. In fact, we’d make a loss. Even charging £300 a month we’d be touch and go! And, true to form we do make a loss on the apps, a huge one so it’s not right up there on my “to-do” list.
It moves even further down that list when I get whining about how much it costs when people don’t have a chuffin’ clue that it’s costing me money to deliver that to you.
So, if you think I’m creaming in the cash, think again because nothing could be further from the truth.
Now let me clue you in on a little secret, UKW has never, ever made a profit on the FCG either printed or digital. Not a bean.
We’ve made a loss on it. A huge one.
So in light of the criticism on pricing about six months or so ago this became no more than a pet project that I will do as and when I have the time or inclination to do so. There are not enough people willing to pay for the service so, insofar as I am concerned it is a dead duck as far as the trade goes and therefore not really worth bothering with.
I did this for the good of the industry at large, just as many of us give time and effort in the forums to help both trade and public but when that effort is met with something between a whine and outright hostility you begin to question why you bother.
Then you consider the profitability or lack thereof.
The annoying thing is that with a bit of support and a little money this could be linked to other things and made so, so much more useful but I cannot justify the time or effort to develop it any further when the support for it is, frankly, abysmal.
I don’t have money to throw at things only to give it away for free just as much as all of you don’t run about doing service calls for free.
Just like everyone else, I need to pay the bills and, just like everyone else, I need to look at what is worth doing or not. And, just like everyone else, there’s times where I struggle to make ends meet. So stuff like this where it’s a dead duck in my eyes, gets scythed.
The next time you want to have a pop and, you’re more than welcome to do so, try placing yourself in my shoes and think what you’d do. Just please understand that I’m not exactly going to be very sympathetic in this respect where I’m bleeding cash to help people.
In reality we all have our own problems, I get that but, I would ask that you perhaps think about the value of this to you and, if it’s not worth the money that’s fine, it will die off and no longer be available or updated.
Whatever you choose, just don’t moan about it or the outcome eh? 😉
K.
Re: The Fault Code Guide
Is the FGC available via Apple & Android to all or just limited to UKW trade members?
Re: The Fault Code Guide
Available to all, under the store rules you cannot restrict to certain groups as a commercial app.
K.
Re: The Fault Code Guide
Can this app be renewed as a rolling contract. Recently needed it but couldn’t renew as I was in a bad reception area
Re: The Fault Code Guide
kwatt wrote:Available to all, under the store rules you cannot restrict to certain groups as a commercial app.
OK, so if it were readily available and more took it on would that monthly price point go down accordingly by encouraging more to subscribe?
Re: The Fault Code Guide
No Andy, sadly not.
In truth there’s a lot we just can’t do because of all the damned app store rules. Google is bit more forgiving than Apple but not by much as for them, it’s ka-ching so they want their pound of flesh.
You can only do a rolling subscription on magazines IIRC, complete PITA to deal with and it takes an age to get stuff done. Even any updates take about a week or two as the app has to be resubmitted from scratch for approval.
There are ways around that but, to be blunt, I’m not wasting my time and dev time on something that won’t even wash its face.
K.
Re: The Fault Code Guide
Martin wrote:OK, so if it were readily available and more took it on would that monthly price point go down accordingly by encouraging more to subscribe?
There would need to be hundreds of subscribers to make it worth doing as I demonstrated.
You would need to be over the thousand mark to be get to the point where the price could be lowered.
I’m not being funny but, this is why there are so many apps out there utilising in-app purchases, it’s the only way to make it even remotely viable financially to run an app. They give it away free or at a low price in the hope that they get their claws into many thousands of wallets.
I don’t give a stuff about making from it but, I’m not prepared to spend cash I don’t have on something that gets zero return and in reality makes a loss. That’d be utterly insane.
K.
Re: The Fault Code Guide
kwatt wrote:I don’t give a stuff about making from it but, I’m not prepared to spend cash I don’t have on something that gets zero return and in reality makes a loss. That’d be utterly insane.
Well, as you have already concluded, throwing money at a loss is insane. Pull the plug on this pointless public service and let us (together 😉 ) improve the already brilliant ‘Known Error Codes’ thread. Looking to tomorrow 4G is to be played out everywhere so our trade members will have wall to wall access to UKW in seconds. The ‘search’ facility has got better and better meanwhile (thanks to you and your tech team). So the trade members will get better benefit all round. Stands to reason dunnit?Scrap the app!
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