Misconceptions

Okay... coming up on year eleven of Alice & I being here doing our part, as best we can, & I've read so many misconceptions of what we are doing here, & how we are doing it, that I felt it was necessary to add this synopsis to the site pages. Those that know me realize that I use the word synopsis loosely because this will most likely end up being another complete chapter! In fact, let me preface this with how we got to this point in the first place.

In 1996 I started planning for my 2000 retirement by selling off whole entities of my business. One of the first to go was the bingo machine business lock, stock & barrel to a long time customer... DBA Pinball Paul. Due to the advent of legalized gambling in Louisiana I had already sold off all gaming equipment & parts. Bingo had outs... and still does... as long as the equipment is 25 years old or older. Next was jukes & parts in a bulk sale. Then pinball stuff sold off to 2 separate companies, electromechanical to one & electronics to another. Then the pool table & accesories complete... still disecting the whole. The video games, still booming, were the mainstay of the business & what I held onto the longest.

It seemed that the few buyers for the video stuff wanted a million dollars worth of parts for a thousand dollars, or less, and I just couldn't see giving it all away to someone who would no doubt demand a premium for each & every part. Another concern I had at the time was that I had seen what happened to my peers' spouses & families as each prematurely checked out :-( Some didn't wait but a day or two before approaching the family with offers of 10 cents on the dollar for their inventory or business. I made up my mind I definitely didn't want to leave my family in that situation.

Some of my ops suggested that I try to sell off the parts myself on the internet & directed me to RGVAC. I reluctantly began reading the newsgroup & offering parts to those who posted items wanted, and that I had, via email responses. Then I started offering advice in email to those that requested it. Before long... sometime in 97... collectors had drawn me out of my quiet corner & into the newsgroup answering Qs where many would benefit from the answers.

In the meantime, a local distributor decided to get into the building of vid games for sale & offered to buy out the last bastian.... video! We struck a deal for all the new video game building materials.... cabs in states from raw to finished games & a majority of the parts to build the newer games of the late 90s... from line cords to fluorescent fixtures to monitors.

Now all I had was a gazillion parts for classic games & electronic components with a 1st refusal offer to buyout this lot in 2000 upon my retirement... at my option. As time elapsed I made more & more friends via the newsgroups & got so many requests to stay on & supply parts & advice, that Alice & I decided we could do just that.

So many were requesting that I buy in new parts & not let my years of contacts & mfr's discounts go to waste, that I decided to buy in only common parts that didn't hang around a long time & that could easily be sold off if I met with an early check out call!

Now, so many years later, Alice & I are still here providing the same service for the arcade game community from our home... now a warehouse in & of itself, & without a single nagging word from Alice! [Reminds me of a time some 35 years ago when I bought a chicken coop warehouse full of trade-in TVs & had to stack them up in our home... every room nearly to the ceiling... and every one that saw them asked why Alice had not yet shot me :-)]

Well... that's how we ended up here & not on the beaches of Aruba as previously planned. Now I'll address the misconceptions that have come to me via email, whether in questions or links to sites or newsgroups.... incidently, I wouldn't even know how to respond in a NG these days as all my time is spent right here behind the keyboard... ball & chained :-) Keeping busy keeps the rust from forming, though!

The first bizarre thing that one emailer relayed to me was that someone had told him that all I do is shop sales around the world & load up on stuff that is on sale & then sell it for a huge profit! Profit! What's that? We strive to break even at the end of each year, and if any sales actually come our way the items are cost averaged into inventory lowering the price you pay, at least till all that stock is gone. Individually, there are many items that are at huge markups & these are the things often requested that are small, take up room in our home, hard to locate once someone wants one & usually accompanied by a list of other small parts which take Alice, or usually me, hours to find. I see why many retailers want you to buy large lots of the small items. These items are only stocked as a convenience to you when buying other parts at wholesale cost... or below.

Once in a while, someone will email me to tell me one of my suppliers has something on sale at a lower cost. I can't determine prices for other people & sometimes their sale price is at my cost from them, but then I have to add on their shipping costs & I also have to add on sales or use taxes, which I pay for you... another hidden cost. Sometimes the supplier will spark up sales on something that hasn't been moving by selling below cost.... no way I can lower to that level, but whenever possible I get as close as I can & simply reorder anything I sold at a loss before their sale ends to replenish inventory.

Lately, I've been getting a few people saying they would buy from me, but that they don't want to wait for me to receive a check from them & then wait for it to clear my bank. I've gotten a couple links to sites that proclaim that we do that. Well.. neither Alice nor I have ever waited for a check from anyone to clear a bank... we'd be a lot grayer than we are if we worried about such trivial things. We both believe a person is honest until proven otherwise.

This year I've had several people place orders for the first time since 1996/7 & when I ask if they've been away from the hobby I get answers similar to this... it takes too long to complete the deals because we have to wait for you to receive the payment before shipping. Well... as anyone who has been with us since the late 90s can tell you, we do cross ship orders for all established regulars in the USA. We have been trying to include Canada this year, as well. You get your order in 2 days where as some places don't even act on your order in that amount time & then take a few more days to actually get it shipped. The cross shipping has had 3 bumps in the road over the past 10 years for short periods of time, but as you can see from the short Bad Trader List it has worked well for the most part & proved out our theory of most people are honest. I take people at their word & often times cross ship a first time order when I get an email saying the check is in the mail. Even on new orders that do require the check to be in my hand, the total time of the completed transaction is 4 to 5 days... from the time you mail the check.

On PayPal... I did get a prospectus in the mail from PayPal & after reading that they would be in control when it came to any & all disputes I opted not to use them. As it turns out, I realized it was a good decision when they notified me that there was a problem with my non-exsistent account! Seems someone was able to open an account in my name! Businesses operating for profit can afford to open a separate bank account just for PP, thereby limiting their capital exposure to PP's whims, but in our case it would only push prices closer to retail & defeat the purpose of our being here. In any event, it's a moot point since LA is one of the 3 or 4 states in which they have been asked to cease operating in. The stories that lead up to this can be found on one of these two sites... Site 1 or Site 2. As I have said before, PP is probably fine for the individual because the most they can be out in a dispute is the amount that is in their checkbook at the time. You might end up in another dispute with your mortgage holder, but no life altering consequences.

Cross shipping negates the need for a third party to have their hands in the middle of your deal, anyway. A recent first time snafu with cross shipping came about when a person on the cross ship list received his order & said he wasn't finished compiling the order yet. If you are on the the list, your package will ship the day you place the order, or the next if it's too late in the day... so if you're building a shopping list don't send it to me before it's done or you'll end up with your partial list being shipped to you. It was mentioned that the items didn't total much in comparison to the shipping charge, but there are more orders shipped under $5 than above $5, so I have no way of knowing which camp you are in. I have shipped one fifty cent resistor across the river from me for a total of $6.50 which the person thought to be a bargain because of the time saved, the gas, the bridge toll & fighting the traffic. On the other hand, I've had people that wanted to keep adding to their order until they reached the maximum they could get shipped for the $6. It's all just personal preference & everyone has their own reasons for their choices.

From time to time I get emails telling me about suppliers that have cheaper prices... I don't always find the cheapest supplier & sometimes the people supplying me actually buy from the places that are pointed out, so I always check these leads. Sometimes they pan out... sometimes they don't & sometimes the next time you go to check the sites you find this:
" Oops! Page Not Found " telling you a little something about shopping known suppliers.

Well... I'm going to leave the book open to this page & whenever I get an email telling me what we are about I'll reply right here :-) Afterall, reading this page might help you to go to sleep on one of those restless summer nights :-)

Happy Gaming....