Frim
Elio Addict
It's kind of insane (very insane actually) to challenge the meaning of 50k reservations. No mater what happens with reservationists, it's a confidently representative number in the marketing industry, meaning plenty of people will step in should some portion of that fail to materialize. That's the nature of this type of segment of the full customer population. The nature of all in is that EM makes money if a customer exists.
I'm just confident that cynical talk will get worse as Elio Motors gets closer to 'making it'. After Elio does 'make it', the trolls will not go away, just move into areas they feel they can succeed at.
BTW, a customer base in this context would be people who buy for the 'base attributes' or primary target market of the product. Secondary attributes or alternative customers would be a market segment of the product marketed. In this sense, the base is also a segment of the total. You could also use market segment to indicate a part of a total population, or part of those who who buy any category of product, so the term segment and base are generalized terms, where one should mention what population you are using them in context with. To be explicit in statistics and numbers, you would always be sure to explicitly identify the population in scope and any useful subgroups.
Generally in marketing a product the customer is a targeted subgroup of the general public purchasing behavior. i.e any one person may buy more than one item. The base would then be the people motivated by primary product attributes or reasons, and a segment would be secondary reasons not related to the base motivators. So you have to keep in mind a person might buy a product for multiple reasons, but might also buy separate ones for each reason. (this is why the analysis is about purchase events over time and not as much about a head count )
So I can guarantee there will be someone that buys more than one Elio for more than one reason. Like me, I want three. Myself to commute, and one for a adult child who needs to commute, and one for a new teen driver. When the value-to-purpose is high compared to the price, these things happen more easily.
Here's a thought, in the future, how often do his and hers Mustangs get purchased vs his and hers Elios, given that two new Elios cost less than one used Mustang?
A Troll was a troll before there was an Elio. Our success is proportionate to the number of trolls we can attract.