How do so many Amiga shops survive?

[wrath of khan]

I recently bought an aca 030 from amigastore.eu, its been going since 1999 apparently. Vesalia it seems have been in business since 1987, that's when the a500 was released.

Surely sales must have plummeted over the years, yet vesalia are still here?
Then there is amigakit and gentle eye and a few more...

It's quite something to think that all these shops are still around and this is surely a testament to the amiga itself.

How on earth do they all manage to stay in business? I know there is NG amigas and so that is another market to make a little money; i do wonder if sales figures for say indivision or the aca 030 from Jens have ever been mentioned.
I've heard it said some pieces of hardware can sell 400 to 1,000 pieces?

Well kudos to Amigakit, vesalia and all, I have more stuff to buy for my a1200 and with individual computers and hobbyists, there is always new stuff coming.

[wrath of khan]

Well, now that we have the web, stores don't need an actual location or even maintain a lot of stock (they can just serve as go-betweens). Also because of the web a small store can get their business from customers worldwide. All of this wasn't the case even 10 years ago when all the bricks and mortar Amiga dealers were closing.

That makes sense, yes, with the internet sales can be made all over the world. I guess some of these shops might be operating out of peoples houses?

[wrath of khan]

amigastore.eu has a retail presence.  Although I think they probably do most of their business in non-Amiga stuff.  Sorry, I can't read Italian but there's some pictures on this link!  

http://amigastore.eu/es/contactenos

Cool. I never saw the pics. Look's like a dedicated retro store. There is a commodore sign on the wall. Edit: they are located in Lorca spain.

I remember power computing in the uk. I got my a1200 from them. I think they are defunct now.

[wrath of khan]

It is not easy at all surviving in the Amiga market.  It is a very small marketplace and we are very fortunate that we have some very loyal customers who keep us going through good times and bad, of which we are immensely grateful for their support.

We run this business with dedicated full time staff and we do not do anything else except the Amiga business, so we are reliant on the revenue to pay our for our offices, staff and overheads.  Any profit we make gets re-invested to make new Amiga products so that we have something new to sell in future years.

During the last year or two, it has become a lot tougher to stay profitable due to increased competition in the tiny Amiga market- there are a lot of part time new Amiga "dealers" that have started selling similar products to us. We respond by developing new Amiga software and add-ons, peripheral hardware that will hopefully distinguish us from people who do this in their spare time for some extra cash. We have found over the last 10 years that there have been lots of dealers start-up, sell the more profitable products, then fold.  Our inventory is mixed, containing products with reasonable margin and many with minimal margin. However, we recognised that it is better to stock both types of product to deliver a wider range and service to the Amiga community.

The biggest benefit of working in this community is that it is our passion outside of work too and it is thrilling to see new exciting products delivered and made available for Classic Amigas such as the A1200.

@ral-clan



We have a real office unit with a walk-in customer counter with almost a 4000 square foot area.   Local business taxes for the building are very high for this commercial space as you can imagine.   We have dedicated service area with benches where we repair Amiga's and a warehouse where we stock pile Amiga parts.

We generally have to buy 3 years of stock of main product lines because it makes sense to manufacture in a larger quantity to keep prices for customers down.  It is not generally possible to operate Just In Time stock control in the Amiga market as we are dealing with obsolete hardware.  This all results in capital being tied up for many years before it is sold to customers.

Interesting. You guys are a real asset to the Amiga community.
It seems you had just run out of stock of the aca030 so i purchased it elsewhere. I did buy an easynet pcmcia card from ye though.

I will require more stuff in the new year and i will direct my business to ye.
I have my eye on a cdtv pad and the wireless gamepad device...and a cd drive etc.

I shall have to get my a500 to ye for repairs and a sprucing up at some point too.

Its quite something to have 3 fulltime employees in an amiga business in this day and age.

Where does the majority of your business come from? Classic systems or Ng systems? I'm guessing classic.

[wrath of khan]

@wrath of khan

I appreciate your orders- thanks.

Your are correct: most of our business comes from Classic.

NG customers usually buy the system from us then go to a local PC shop and spend their money there for peripherals, so it is a small proportion of our sales.

Classic customers use our services for repairs, upgrades and software.

Good to know.