@Bodie

You're not happy with it

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Site admins are people too..pooff!

@Bodie

Quote:

I could have sold you my whole system .

Why ?

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AmigaOS, the last hope...

@Bodie

I don't know if you're serious or not, but a couple people have offered to build me a system or sell me one whole. All I want is the mainboard.. I have the rest of the parts and the skills to deal with assembly.

Last edited by PolygonSoup on 20-Apr-2005 at 10:33 AM.

@PolygonSoup

When it comes to Gunne I can only say .

OTOH It's a little hard for him to give me the runaround, I know where he lives .

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Ralf.
Amigaone G4 XE / AOs4 beta update4
Post+1

I probably shouldn't respond to this but I remember what is was to be a classic Amiga dealer and to manage a small computer store. I don't know if what's going on here is what I assume but I think you have to cut the dealer a bit of slack.

First of all dealers have to order a WHOLE BUNCH of product.. That usually means they don't get to buy one at a time, they just buy in quantities.. Considering the small size of the market today, I would consider it a reasonable practice for a dealer to do something called " just in time stocking" to control their existing inventory. When the market is small and you have to pay salaries, you have to invest your money into stock of machines and hope they sell. Sometimes the manufacturer doesn't send you as much product as you order or send it on time. You also have to pay for day to day operations and hope the sales are enough quantity to keep the store open and pay your help. This can be difficult for small dealers like we are talking about for Amiga products.

To get around this problem of not being able to stock things and stay open, you are sometimes required the customer to pre-pay and they sit on the money until the product arrives and the shipment can be fullfilled. This is standard practice. It doesn't make the dealer any less professional, it's more about economics and keeping your store open to handle the business in the first place.

$800 might seem a lot for instance for a product, but when you have to buy a minimum order that costs you $20,000 or more and you have to pay the manufacturer for these. They won't just ship you one at a time.. You are investing your own working capital, or money you use to pay salaries and keep the place open to take care of the orders and you have to eat too. You might be able to get one or two from another dealer that has extra stock, but it's something you won't tell your customer because it's a stock problem and you don't wanna send the customer somewhere else.

People buy computers once, it's always good to buy from someone who has them, but for whatever reason in the supply chain shipment is stalled, in small dealerships the Amiga size you just can't expect the same kinda thing as buying from a warehouse that has a ton of machines in stock..

The nice thing is as the market expands these conditions change, the dealers start having more working capital because of increased sales and they can afford to have a lot more product on hand. You also don't wanna stock beta boards or boards that may loose value while stocked or boards you might have to update or fix.

@DonnieA2

You've experienced it so I won't argue with you there. Personally I would
accept the " just in time stocking" way from a dealer.

Anyhow if "just in time" would mean waiting more than 4 weeks to get an A1
(and maybe 1 extra week for assembly if it would be a complete system)
then there is really a big risk that some customers loose interest.

In this small market if we are going to get it to grow then every potential
customer needs to be "caught" and not allowed to slip through.

I know I wouldn't because I am determined to get
me an A1 soon, but maybe others that aren't as stubborned as I.

_________________
AmigaOS or MorphOS on x86 would sell orders of magnitude more than the current,
hardware-intensive solutions. And they'd go faster.-- D.Haynie

@PolygonSoup
Quote:

@wegster I emailed Gunne. I feel the Scandinavian love for the Amiga.

Good deal, I expect he'll do ya right!

PS- if you get the complete mini system, I want pictures! (I love that thing)

Last edited by wegster on 21-Apr-2005 at 12:53 AM.

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Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@DonnieA2

Yes, your comments are valid. I've been there myself, for an order larger than quoted, and experienced some 'interesting things' (no, not A1 orders )...but while what you've said is at least partially true (stocking based on pre-payment in some cases), parts aren't (ie, most dealers I believe are 1-2 people, so salaries aren't a huge issue when someone is owner/operator vs 10 employees etc), and some pieces are 'missing'- some dealers will claim to your face they have a board and are ready to ship it to you the next day, and it then doesn't show up for months.

There are obviously some _good_ dealers as well, but as always, YMMV.

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Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@DonnieA2
I understand where you're coming from, but no, I don't need to cut anybody any slack. I'm not throwing names around or slighting some dealer in particular.. all I'm offering up is another tale of woe when it comes to acquiring AmigaOne hardware. I'm not the first either, but here's why...

Customer: Do you have any XXX in stock?
Dealer: No but we'll have some soon.

...days and/or weeks pass...

Dealer: We got XXX in stock, are you still interested?
Customer: I sure am, here's my order!
Dealer: Great, we'll get it out to you!

...days and/or weeks pass...

Customer: Hi, just wondering where the shipment is and why I haven't been charged yet, thanks.
Dealer: Huh? It shipped. I'll check and get back with you.

...days and/or weeks pass...

Customer: Hi. Not happy here, what's going on?
Dealer: Huh? It should be there. I'll check and get back with you.

...days and/or weeks pass...

Customer: Hi, just wondering what's going on and if you can give me tracking info.
Dealer: Huh? It should be there. I'll check and get back with you.

...days and/or weeks pass...

Dealer: Did it show up yet?
Customer: Hi, sorry I can't wait anymore. Please cancel my order.

Why would I do business like this? Nobody should have to deal with that. The toughest part is the fact of being told up front it was in stock. In stock means in hand.. not 'expected because we filled enough orders to buy some stock.' It's even harder not to operate under that assumption if, after the order was placed, shipping is said to ensue immediately.

So from my perspective, I wasn't treated like I should have been. I was never given any real information on the order, just timely replies to my emails. Amiga dealers are nothing special, and shouldn't be viewed any differently from any other vendor.

Last edited by PolygonSoup on 21-Apr-2005 at 01:23 AM.

@Manu

Quote:

You've experienced it so I won't argue with you there. Personally I would accept the " just in time stocking" way from a dealer.

You know, I would consider the practice acceptible too, but only if the information was offered freely before the product was said to be in stock. That said, being acceptable doesn't mean I'd place an order.

@PolygonSoup

Good luck man! Gunne seems to be good, probably kgrach at revanche is also good.

@PolygonSoup

Quote:

PolygonSoup wrote: @wegster I emailed Gunne. I feel the Scandinavian love for the Amiga.

Gunne is a good guy, one of the more stable pillars holding up this entire platform. I believe he has been buying quite large batches (relative to the size of the community) of both the Pegasos and various A1's, and if he say he has something in stock, then it's no bullsh!t.

BTW, is he the only one still having A1's in stock? Sometimes I get that impression ...

@thread:

I know that dealers in today's Amiga market are not the same as they once were, during the golden days, however some sort of respect, communication, availability, and last but not least...honesty simply must exist, towards the customer! I feel that most of the dealers out there simply feel that we need them more than they need us. This is true to some extent, but I don't like this fact abused, and it looks like most of them do.

I am very close to bursting to the forums about a certain issue that I have with a dealer, but I am trying to remain calm...

I'm not going to mention any names yet, but here's the gist of it.

Remember when the AOneXE DMA/USB fixes became officially confirmed as exisitng? Ever since then, my XE motherboard is sitting at a dealer...fixed...but I'm waiting for the dealer to find time to charge me, and ship the board back to me. Basically, for about 4 months now I've been told "I've been busy", that is if I do manage to reach a certain person over the phone, which in itself is a daunting task.

So...we've got a fixed board...busy to ship it out and charge me...

There's more, but I'm not going to get into the very details yet.

@x56h34

i'm sorry that you are having problems with a dealer. i hope it turns out well.
it seems that a lot of people are having these kinds of problems. i hope that amiga eyetech and hyperion as a team can come up with a solution beneficial to all users.

_________________
Win•dows: n. A thirty-two bit extension and graphical shell to a sixteen-bit patch to an eight-bit operating system originally coded for a four-bit microprocessor which was written by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.

All I can say is that I'm glad other folks are around for discussion. Sometimes you just have to vent, and I'm glad you all listened. I've ordered a board from Gunne, it's shipped and I've tracked it online. Hopefully it'll make the trip across the pond by the end of next week.

Postscript on the original order: The first dealer and I had another exchange, we just amicably chalked it up to a failure somewhere in the buying process. Everybody reading this should know that I certainly don't hold anything personal against the dealer. Putting frustration aside we agreed that something, somewhere didn't turn out right, but they were going to change some things in the way they handle the ordering process.

So what's my point? Keeping names out of the mud is probably the best thing we can do is such a small community. If something's broke, fix it. If something goes wrong, make changes to keep it from happening again. So now that it's all settled down, to the dealer I say thanks for the communication. I'll try again with you in the future.

Last edited by PolygonSoup on 22-Apr-2005 at 07:47 PM.

@PolygonSoup



Good deal!

_________________
Are we not done with the same silly arguments and flames yet??!

@PolygonSoup

Good deal. I too have to give credz to Gunne / GGS-Data, he´s the man.

He delivered my Minuet µA1 on less than 3-days. Got it on friday before the weekend
before new-year, boy was i happy (best new year in a long time).

Thank you gunne. Now i'm just waiting for my Total Amiga #20.

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-Good Gurus Always Meditate

@Olle

Quote:

He delivered my Minuet µA1 on less than 3-days.

While I had to wait 5 months for mine

****#####***

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@Olle

my ended up in the 'tull' as they call it,

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@PolygonSoup

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