> printing + shipping + retailing, and any other middle-man involved > printing they're going to murder you on cost here. you'll print maybe X things a day. t

> printing + shipping + retailing, and any other middle-man involved > printing they're going to murder you on cost here. you'll print maybe X things a day. they're going to print a million times that. they'll for sure have more efficient machines, and their supply costs are going to be way lower than theirs. don't like middle men? think about having to buy small quantities of plastic / copper / miscellaneous raw materials. some middle man is going to sell that to you. the factories won't have to deal with that since they can buy massive quantities directly from producers. > shipping you'll have to pay for the shipping costs of small quantities of raw materials. that will likely mitigate any advantage you have here. > retailing it may not be a brick and mortar retailer; you might upload your spec to a website and it'd get shipped to you. in that case, if they're smart, their retail costs will be very low. also, you have to pay retail prices for your raw materials.