Author Topic: how do I market a product and manage liability ?  (Read 10893 times)

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Offline EEVblog

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #25 on: October 10, 2011, 03:14:27 am »
If you are supplying an individual part that might be installed in a system you have no control over, then you absolutely have to make this at the owner's own risk, due diligence expected, no warranty implied. You must make it very clear that the purchaser is responsible for any consequences of installing the part in their vehicle, and if they don't want to be responsible they must not purchase your part. I'm sure this comes up a lot in the enthusiast/hobby/restoration world. You might consult a lawyer for advice (although I know that will cost an arm and a leg, unfortunately).

And unfortunately even if you do pay for that advice, it does not stop you getting sued anyway and/or the advice being wrong.
People often fall into the trap of thinking they can't lose because they got "professional legal advice" first.

Dave.
 

Offline SimonTopic starter

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #26 on: October 10, 2011, 06:01:40 am »
Thank you all for your comments, yes i could put on it: regulator - not guaranteed to regulate, that would sell well  ;) I think i'll concentrate on getting it working while casting an eye on the marketing matters. One thing that is true is that I can't guarantee much if the owners car has a poor electrical system, the thing with certification is that these will be semi custom built or made to order, my guess is that once approved i can't change anything.
 

Offline Chet T16

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #27 on: October 10, 2011, 12:37:16 pm »
What if the LCD warning fails?  ???

Dave.

Sue the damn LCD manufacturer for every last cent of course!
Chet
Paid Electron Wrestler
 

Offline SimonTopic starter

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #28 on: October 10, 2011, 12:48:21 pm »
ok so to get serious again, say I wanted to take insurance - product liability insurance, what do I do, who do I go to ? I got a quote of £530 from the UK post office who act as an insurance broker
 

Offline bilko

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #29 on: October 10, 2011, 01:19:25 pm »
Check what the insurance policy covers you for. You need consequential loss to cover any claims against you. The product warranty will cover replacement should the product fail within the warranty period. Find out which disclaimers you can use and are legally binding. In the end, any product can fail either in warranty or out of warranty, there is nothing that you can do to prevent that. Can you design into the system that the product fails safe, i.e. overvoltage condition is monitored and displayed using independent system and the instruction states that the owner/driver must pull over and stop the engine at the earliest opportunity as the battery will no longer be charged. What happens when your car displays 'engine fault' ?

 

Offline SimonTopic starter

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #30 on: October 10, 2011, 01:37:16 pm »
ok so where do I go for insurance, I spoke to an advisor about starting a business and he avised against using the post office and to find an insurance company oriented to the industry (I did in fact have a hard time getting the post office to understand what I wanted insuring).

Surely you can have a disclaimer against unreasonable claims ie: I will only take liability for damaged parts and labour to replace them and not for vehicle down time etc
 

Offline baljemmett

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #31 on: October 10, 2011, 02:19:24 pm »
ok so where do I go for insurance, I spoke to an advisor about starting a business and he avised against using the post office and to find an insurance company oriented to the industry (I did in fact have a hard time getting the post office to understand what I wanted insuring).
Yes, you want to go with a broker who knows what they're doing and specialises in professional/business insurance.  If nothing else they'll understand what you're talking about!

For my professional indemnity I use Caunce O'Hara (found originally just by looking at an IT contractors' advice site and picking someone from their list of brokers!), who it seems offer product liability cover as part of their manufacturers' insurance.  A quick Google also finds outfits like Simply Business who appear to offer a comparison service for product liability quotes.
 

Offline ivan747

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Re: how do I market a product and manage liability ?
« Reply #32 on: October 11, 2011, 12:57:08 am »
Well maybe you need to engineer a LCD screen with an OK button and present the disclaimer to the owner before the unit is operational.  :)

What if the LCD warning fails?  ???

Dave.

You include a paper manual printed with size 7 fonts.

Now keeping this serious, I am also interested in the topic, specially in regards to Lithium Ion batteries (you know, they cause nasty fires). I was thinking about reading the warranty in similar products to mine (a Lithium battery powered prototyping platform). The nearest products comparable to my prototyping platform are cellphones. The only difference is that mine gets "modified in any way" much more often than cellphones.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2011, 01:18:56 am by ivan747 »
 


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