These direct-sales eInk products are essentially SDKs for their tech, so it makes sense that they’ve always been low-volume B2B products with high per-unit prices.
Nevertheless, there has been a recent decrease in price of this SDK hardware. I believe it’s been driven by eInk having created a modular substrate (all the stuff in a display, minus the panel) allowing cheaper iteration on their panel technology. So people can buy the SDK substrate component once; and then buy a new SDK panel component each time eInk reformulates it. Lower manufacturing costs + cheaper logistics for eInk Corp. = cheaper costs for everyone else, even when buying the whole kit together.
(Sort of the same reason that essentially the same cube-shelf design is cheaper from IKEA — IKEA just packs wood tightly into a flat box, and then piles those flat boxes up in a shipping container; and when you buy it and get it delivered, it’s still flat right up until it’s in your house. Other manufacturers, meanwhile, assemble the thing at some point — whether at the factory or at the story — and then ship it at least once in assembled form, where it’s taking up a huge amount of space in the container / on the truck.)
I actually realized when I was in the ikea warehouse recently pondering why ikea still don’t offer home delivery for most things: they actually just never pay anyone to move or handle less than a pallet-load of flat pack boxes at a time. You do that labor yourself for them - taking the cart, finding the box (or multiple separate boxes for a lot of their more customizable combination items) in the warehouse, picking it, taking it to the scanning station, loading it for transport. All that labor that you do as a customer is a core part of Ikea’s competitive advantage. Even if other companies ship you items flatpacked, they’re still doing all that work ikea doesn’t.
It’s funny. I live in a city where public transit is very good and I don’t need to own a car (so I don’t.) One of the inconveniences in my life is getting large furniture from stores. I can get to an IKEA just fine — but I have no way to get the products back home on my own.
If they would let me, I would actually be perfectly happy to go to the IKEA, pick the boxes myself, and even load them into their truck myself, if that would result in the items then being driven to my house. I have to imagine that IKEA would be pretty okay with that arrangement as well. I wonder why they don’t offer that “service”...
Is there no third-party filling that niche? Here in Berlin there's companies that pretty much offer "guy with van that picks you up at IKEA" (or other furniture stores, but at IKEA there's usually one lingering about waiting for customers)
Although I thought they'd deliver almost everything by now too if you want. but haven't checked in a long time.
It may look easy for you but it would complicate things for them. After packing your stuff you would probably want to get back home in the same vehicle, right? Otherwise the driver could get there before you. But in order to optimize, they will try to serve several customers at once - it would be impossible to let them all into the same large truck.
SO basically you have two options: either use their online story (the most convenient option) or use public transport to go there and a taxi (of adequate size) to get back home. I usually use the former option after having visited the store first to actually try the products I intend to buy. I don't treat their stores as stores but as showrooms.
