ChipCzuk
Offline
Manchester, UK

Hi to all you cm.o users,

I've been hanging around this site for a while and have picked up many useful tips from a number of users with regards to customising and modifying old hardware to be used in the production of music. I have built up quite a collection of modified gameboys and commodore computers including, mostly, commodore 64's, vic-20's and commodore 16's. I have been adding second SID chips, audio out ports, reset switches and pots to the commodore 64's,
reset switches and audio outs to the vic-20's and audio out's to the 16's and also various back-lights, audio outs and other mods like keyboard ports and slowdowns to the gameboys. I have so far been selling some of these on eBay and sometimes I get a little pocket money from them but sometimes I barely, or just don't, get what the components are worth. I noticed that akira's modded c64c sold for just 70 quid on ebay ( http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/14967 … -software/ ), which I think was way under-valued, and I was thinking about starting a web shop based in Manchester in the UK.

Ideally I would like to stock this shop with high quality, warrantied 'instruments' and offer repairs for people at reasonable rates. I have also come across a great deal of games, mostly for the gameboy, whilst buying machines on eBay and was also thinking of having a section of the site to sell these, and any other peripherals I've obtained (joysticks and so on). All items for sale would be tested, repaired if necessary and working. I'd even be up for selling other peoples stuff if the site became trusted, to ensure that they received an honest and fair price.

So, I was wondering if this would be of any interest to any of you folks on the forum and what your thoughts would be. I use components from many of you (Thursday, Nonfinite, Kitsch) and I still would but I think that there may well be room for something like this in the UK. I would also be happy to ship to Europe or even further afield if my products were requires overseas.

Please let me know if you think this would be worthwhile, if I'd be stepping on anyone's toes or even if there is anything else the community would like of such an enterprise.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Alex.

Evil Scientist
Offline
Bristol, UK

Personally I like modding things myself, I find it to be a really fun satisfying part of chipmusic. I used to mod Game Boys to sell on ebay but there doesn't seem to be so much of a demand for it nor does it seem to be that easy to get unmodded GBs on ebay at a decent price any more.

And as far as parts go, i'm happy enough ordering anything I need from Kitsch, i'd never buy individual parts from someone that had just ordered a load from Kitsch, it annoys me when you see things out of stock on Kitsch-bent because someone's selling them for an inflated price on ebay UK.

But if you find a way to offer something unique then i'd say go for it.

Good luck anyways!

ChipCzuk
Offline
Manchester, UK

Hi Evil Scientist,

Thanks for the input. I too love modding things myself, so much so that I have more modified stuff than I can use which is one reason I was thinking of setting up a shop to sell some of it on. I agree completely with you about not re-selling other peoples components. I was thinking more along the lines of complete chipmusic instruments with warranties and support for those folks that don't mod or are reluctant to try taking a soldering iron to their precious hardware. I know it's ambitious but I was thinking of making some instrument of the sort of quality lukhash used to put out, like c64's with a mix of keyboard key colours to represent the keys on a piano and maybe even built in SD drives etc.

Thanks again,

Alex.

Last edited by ChipCzuk (Sep 10, 2014 9:37 pm)

Afrowolf
Offline
United Kingdom

So long as you don't do that incredibly shitty thing of completely buying out a overseas worldwide shipping competitors entire stock and selling it on to the UK chiptune community at an incredibly high markup...

*Loud cough*

Then I'm pretty certain I'll end up purchasing from you. smile

Seriously though, glad to see more UK distributors setting up shop and facilitating the passion.

kitsch
Offline
matt's mind
Afrowolf wrote:

So long as you don't do that incredibly shitty thing of completely buying out a overseas worldwide shipping competitors entire stock and selling it on to the UK chiptune community at an incredibly high markup...

*Loud cough*

who in the world did that?  i think i missed that episode....

(seriously.  just for my curiosity.  PM me if you'd rather not blurt it out.  this seems pertinent to my interests in that I don't want to contribute to such dickery)

Apeshit
Offline

.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 17, 2019 12:25 am)

ChipCzuk
Offline
Manchester, UK

Hi Ape,

That's a good point, I hadn't considered it from that angle. I think my first gameboy back lights were through a guy in the UK (fretwanger if I'm not mistaken) and they got to me nice and quickly and were top quality lights.

Anyway, this is drifting off topic as I do not intend to sell components, just the finished product and maybe take orders for custom builds.

Alex.

Alpine
Offline
UK, Leicester

you seem to be more focused on selling pre-built things, rather than actual parts. I would be very unlikely to use something like this, I prefer to mod things myself, and I rarely do it anyway (and it's usually aesthetic rather than practical.) There's already that other dude over here who sells gameboy related stuff, so it would be nice in terms of diversity to have shops selling more than just gameboy stuff. Although, I'd rather just have a UK reseller of Kitch/ASM stuff for similar prices, because I hate the waiting time it takes for stuff to get here from the US

Afrowolf
Offline
United Kingdom
kitsch wrote:

who in the world did that?  i think i missed that episode....

Ah, saw the title, remembered some painful things and evolved into full blown blind nerd rage, evilscientist summed it up before me and I didn't even notice.  Forgive me.

Evil Scientist wrote:

And as far as parts go, I'm happy enough ordering anything I need from Kitsch, I'd never buy individual parts from someone that had just ordered a load from Kitsch, it annoys me when you see things out of stock on Kitsch-bent because someone's selling them for an inflated price on ebay UK.

Same went for ASM cases.
It hurt to see the price of postage (within the UK no less) being more expensive than the cost of shipping directly from overseas AND the silicone buttons/cases themselves.

I've said this time and time again I have no qualms against the original sellers themselves, they have a business to run, and if someone wants to wholesale, then I'd be a dick to tell them not to, I just wish the UK resellers weren't so cheeky in the prices they set, and the sense of no choice for anyone. I wanna happy medium wherein everyone has a choice, and all establishments are sustained.

I can't imagine the frustration over stock for people living in the USA however, hot damn.


Staying on topic, I think the warranties are a brilliant idea, especially for made to order type things. Before I decided to suck it up and start building my own systems, one of the things that stopped me often was the fear of "what if, when this arrives, it falls completely to pieces and I have no idea how to fix it? It's modded so I can't go to the original manufacturer and/or the guy who made it sold it 'as is'!"

Even though I know quite a bit about gameboy stuff now, I couldn't imagine opening up one of my A500's and I wouldn't want to even look at my A1200 for fear of breaking it just by doing so. So for more of the rarer systems, I'd recommend formulating some sort of service where you can send in units for work. I'd recommend a solicitor or something to write up a waiver for you though, in case someone sends in a bunk machine and it dies on you.

Apeshit
Offline

.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 17, 2019 12:25 am)

Afrowolf
Offline
United Kingdom
Apeshit wrote:

We have a pretty efficient system with wholesalers for most of our products. When we're putting products into production, our wholesalers add their order on top of our existing order. Thus increasing our own quantity higher than it would've been had they not ordered. So in reality, they reduce how often we go out of stock. This isn't the case for certain products, because we're deliberately selling out of some in anticipation for newer models.

Also bear in mind that these guys pay somewhere around 30% in duty fees, and the express shipping fee on top of that. Considering this, it's pretty difficult for us keep the MSRP universal.

For this particular case, I completely retract my previous statement.