The selling price of a product consists of several factors - one of them being part of the 'service' component. Most IT distributors are only concerned with appearing to be 'the cheapest' and attempt to lure customers or business through extremely low prices. While low prices can most certainly be offered through scales of economy and efficiencies, many companies cut the service or quality element of the price - sometimes both and are then incapable of providing a proper after sales service. You do get what you pay for and what CyberDyne has always advocated is that customers should look at the big picture, being Quality, Service & price - not simply the selling price.

Simply put, certain distributors will offer product at extremely low prices to attract customers. Only once you sign up as a dealer do you find out that in order to obtain the product at this price you either need to purchase a certain minimum quantity or delivery costs will apply. Once more when comparing prices you need to be asking questions. It is all good and well a distributor being for example R 30.00 a unit less than CyberDyne, but if this distributor is going to charge R 100.00 for delivery, then their true price is actually higher than CyberDyne.

A perfect example would that of a typical reseller who runs a one man business and has to take care of all facets of the business, including product returns for service. Most of the major South African distributors can take over an hour or longer to handle a simple one-for-one swap out under warranty. CyberDyne is able to process most component swap outs in under 15 minutes. This time saving alone is putting money back into your pocket because if your time is worth say R 500.00 per hour, every hour you are standing in a queue making a return is costing you R 500.00. You may have purchased the item originally for a few Rands less than CyberDyne, but should you need to make a return, this perceived 'saving' is quickly negated and replaced with an actual loss. Without question, time is money and that is why when choosing a distributor, these type of questions need to be asked.

While the saying 'You paying for the name' is a common one, there is more often than not a difference in quality between branded product and non-branded product in that a reputable brands primary concern is to protect or uphold its reputation. This means that during manufacture, more attention is paid to areas such as compatibility, reliability and ease of use - driving up the cost which ultimately results in a higher selling price. Again we may revert back to the issue of time saving in that a product which installs and works without any issues out of the packaging is actually cheaper in the long run than one that has a lower selling price, but for which time needs to be spent to get it to work correctly.

Quality varies from good to extremely poor. What needs to be understood here is that at a component level, South Africa lacks the ability to manufacture locally. Locally branded product is simply product that has been procured from overseas manufacturers and re-branded in the name of a local supplier. Because so many of the local suppliers are trading purely on the basis of price, they will order product from whichever foreign manufacturer is able to offer them the lowest price at the time of order. As an example, they may be branding their Flash Drive products with their company name and will purchase an initial consignment from manufacturer 'A'. When it comes time to re-stock the product, they may find that manufacturer 'B' is offering a lower price and will switch their orders to this supplier. The net result of this is an inconsistency in terms of quality as product from manufacturer 'A' may have been of better quality than manufacturer 'B'. This is why unless a local supplier is prepared to divulge exactly who the original manufacturer is, it pays to spend a little more on an International brand for which the source of manufacture is a known quantity.