mc4c+@andrew.cmu.edu (Mark Choi) (06/06/91)
Well: It is finished... . Reprinted below is the opening letter from my catalogue. So as not to rankle anyone, the actual catalogue will not be posted here, at least not by me. I hope that this letter is acceptable. I don't see any reason for it not being so. I apologize to anyone who gets upset though. I post it here, as I have not yet finished compiling my mailing list yet. I have all your names, but I need to get them into a format with which I can do a group mailing, so I do not have to send each one out by hand. ASAP, though. If anyone else wants on, send me e-mail, and I will sort you out from the flood and put you one the list. Man, this is getting time consuming for a hobby! :( Anyway, so here it is: O.K.: Hi out there. I just finished the damn news brief, and unlike my original intent, it did turn out to be a catalogue. I am not one to call a spade anything other than what it is, so, this is the Damn Catalogue. Why that title. It took me hours (days) of boring tedious work, strained my eyes, and almost drove me nuts. I compared prices with the ratail, and with "real" mail order houses, to try to get you folks the best deals I could muster. I spent eons staring at increadibly small type, went through vials of eye drops, and I learned some things. #1. ComputAbility has really good prices. #2. Damn, the mail order folks have low margins! Sometimes I was not able to go lower, othertimes, I even have to pay more than them! I do think that in general you will find that this is a good service for you, with the lowest prices you can get. Why else would I do it? Well, here are the specifics. Everyone seems to want me to start this as a real business, do it full time or something, hire staff, etc. There have been lots of calls for accepting credit cards, shipping overseas, doing periferal stuff, like music equipment, and other big time requests. Remember the spirit of this, though! I am a socialist! :) I have no intention of going into the retail business, as I find it immensly boring. This is not my job, but a favour. I saw how dealers were dropping like flies, how there were no more big glossy magazines in which the mailorder houses could advertise, and generally a complete inability for many of you to get Atari stuff, and I saw a chance to help out, with some connections I had made back when I WAS concidering being an Atari dealer. But this is just a hobby. I can not make the promises of the big folks, I can not provide as timely of a response. But I WILL TRY to do my BEST. So... I am looking into the possibility of accepting credit cards, but at the moment, it will have to be money order, cash or personal check (I am not responsible if you send cash of course :( ). I will see about overseas shipping, but I will have to talk to my bank about how it would be arranged, all that stuff about checks drawn on US funds and such, but I think I can work it out by the end of next week, if I get the time. Now, shipping will cost $3.00 for most software orders, regardless of quantity. So if you buy 15 things, it's still $3.00. I would prefer it if you did buy in groups, as the prices of many things, especially of the games are such that I may take a loss on many single purchases with small orders. I can do this sometimes, if there are a lot of multiple orders. This is because I have to order a minimum amount not to be charged an additional fee. So, if one person orders a lot, or several folks order less, I'll be O.K.. Here's keeping my fingers crossed. On hardware, it will depend on the weight, as I refuse to do some sorta percentage thing, and make money on the shipping too. The only one who will make out from the shipping is UPS, or Fed Ex (yes, I will next day air, for a bit more!). What is this handling charge BS anyway? Shouldn't that be included in your prices? Why profit twice, except to make your prices seem lower? This has always irked me. Anyway, I'll have to see about overseas shipping rates. If there is something that you want that is not here, I can probably get it. This is by no means a comprehensive list (what, you think I'm nuts?) and so just e-mail me if you want something else. My real time number is (412) 422-3983 if you need to have it. What you want me to get an 800 number too. Man you DO think I'm crazy! (But it would be sorta cool to have my own 800 number though. Hmmm... .) O.K., lastly, I have not gotten the new edition of my pricelist, never mind typos, so some of these prices could be wrong. I doubt anything will go up. If anything, they will go down. I think just about all of it is right, though. But if something seems just too crazy, like DEGAS Elite for 15,000.00, then drop me a line, and I'll fix it, and give you the real price. And if someone is selling it for less, tell me, and I'll look into it. So, with no further ado, here it is: love ya all -mark-