I'm in Africa, SouthAfrica to be exact. The hobbyist scene is very fragmented down here and we really don't have much support from the suppliers, who focus mostly on big buying customers in the manufacturing industry. They will supply you with components at reasonable prices however don't expect to be first in the que or high on the priority list, and sometimes you can feel the sales people getting irritated with you when you come along and place orders that barely exceed $2. Even when they know your face already. These places also charge you differently depending on the mood of the staff and who you talk to.<br>
<br>We do have one or two smaller stores and shops that supply to the hobbyist market as well as to the amateur radio community, but the prices are a bit steep, but they are popular and have been around for years. This kind of business isnt very sustainable with such a scattered customer base so you will often find that these stores are a subdivision of a bigger business that has steady income through supplying industry.<br>
<br>RS have a big presence here with warehouses but cater mostly to the industrial and manufacturing sectors. We also have access to Farnells catalog at a 30% markup through a local company acting as an agent, but most people don't know about Farnell. <br>
<br>Otherwise I have seen many people just buying off the internet from Adafruit, Sparkfun and of course Seeedstudio. Less hassle and no middle man, even if you have to wait. Something that have done is place an order with someone else to save shipping.<br>
<br>I myself am in the process of starting something in this area. I have also developed a low cost Arduino clone suitable called the ZArdino for the South African hobbyist community, and I have tried to keep the design as simple as possible. Making use of mostly through hole components except for the FT232 and using common sized components that any hobbyist and student should be able to find, <br>
<br>Instead of adopting a rigid business model I have actually gone and tried an experimental approach to opensource business to help encourage hackerspaces to get going locally it works along these lines:<br><br>-I wil sell you a completely assembled unit at a reasonable price close to the Arduino price. I am charging you for my time and labour, and support, however I will sell you a dissambled kit (with the FT232 already soldered) for a lot less and you can build or trouble shoot it yourself. <br>
<br>-Or if you want you can obtain the blank PCB directly from my supplier ( on a COD basis) and you can build as many and even sell them to others if you want. I gave the supplier permission to sell boards from my production runs in this way to anyone. <br>
<br>Not everyone will have the skills to build and troubleshoot a board themselves, but it offloads a lot of pressure from me because of all the requests I have had after publishing the design.<br><br>The response has been phenomenal, even though I haven't made any money of this project and I don't intend to, since the project has been open sourced in the truest sense of the word. I do however benefit in one way, my web address is on all the boards so I get marketing out of this for the future. An open source advertising model if you wish. <br>
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