I wonder what their actual costs are per machine. It seems they mostly buy completed parts or perform some finishing operations on parts made elsewhere. Nick Cupps has said they'll be looking to obtain parts ready to sell instead of manufacturing in-house. So even if they pay more for complete ready to sell parts they could eliminate the costs of maintaining a machine shop. That eliminates a fixed cost for them but still does nothing to provide components or whole machines at lower cost.
I do hope there's a considerable markup on the price of a 520 or 7 that they could cut out to boost sales. But the old adage of building a better mousetrap is fallacious. The world will not a beat a path to your door because you have a better mousetrap, they will only do that if you have an effective sales and marketing operation. Unfortunately you have to compete with poorer mousetraps being sold with better marketing also. Maybe if interest rates come down there would be a way to offer better long term financing.
I see the Mark 7 had a current sale price of $4995 and financing at $174 per month over 36 months. Not bad, but if they could swing $95 a month over 60 months it would be much more attractive, and if they could go further and knock another $1000 off the full price it could spur sales even if they make nothing on a new machine. The cost of marketing still has to be considered though. I doubt low cost internet 'influencing' alone will lead to those new sales, but it has potential to help.
Seems likely with the small volume they must be ordering. It's a big problem for dealing with parts, and largely behind the lack of availability for parts for many power tools. The major tool retailers are unwilling to reorder when their parts stock runs out because the cost will be too high at the low volumes matching demand.
For accessories and consumables they could run a big sale when they re-order. That way they get their cost down with more quantity, but don't really make any profit from those sale items. But they will have the products for the future at lower cost. Trouble is with any strategy they need demand for the products and that requires new customers.
All my comments here are based on minimal details of actual costs and internal operations so I could be way off on what the underlying issues are. Just throwing my opinions out there to contribute to the discussion.