So you are assuming that you get a good pair without issues or customs confiscation. Right now, I think it's about 1 in every 5 shoes that get's confiscated. And it's 1 in 1 shoes that has electronics failure. Add in the cost of having either broken shoes (and ordering a new pair) or being able to have them fixed. The price is WAYYY higher than the $300 or $499 to actually get them...
The "rule of thumb" in manufacturing is 7x the manufacturing cost of the product so even at $499, he was making good money per pair. The additional $210 is to cover a replacement pair and or customs seizure and includes the shipping. So the 210 price is what he needs to sell for, and he would still be making a profit. Everything else is cream on the cake.
The Chinese currency is the RMB and where $1USD buys about 6.3RMB.
So I do find it interesting that he was offering replacement pairs when the V3 was listed at $499, but now claims that he needs an extra $210USD to do the same deal, yet is prepared to drop that to make a sale.
At the time I bought mine, the warranty was just 30 days and I only think he offered that because of the amount of chatter here. The V2s certainly didn't have anything and maybe you got a $5.00 discount off the next pair.
The most expensive part of these shoes for him would be international shipping in that ridiculously big box. Because shipping companies like use both weight (and these shoes are light) and cubic volume, the size of the box ups the price. If I was to ship that box to the US, I am looking at about $120 to do so. Ship the shoes in a bag and it is about $30. Big difference.
Quotes to ship that Tube Bag are close to $300, due to the size.
What is the real issue with the shoes? In most cases, the batteries die due to being cheap, nasty products. The wire breakages are a separate issue and won't be covered by any warranty or exchange program.
Customs seizing shoes is really luck of the draw. They are counterfeit after all. Of course none of us want that to happen and is good that that sneakerahead have covered forum members in the past. How long they continue to do that remains to be seen.
I think he needs to go back to the original plan and IF you need a replacement pair, you pay the fee to cover them at that time.