Sintech-Shop in UK opened
Hello Spectrum-friends,
our Sintech-shop made now the first step into UK market. We would welcome anybody to just have a look in our shop and write your personal opinion here or to us personally.
We have already still a To-Do-List or things we should improve, but basically it is now possible to order from our wide stock of hundreds of Spectrum-Hardware items and thousands of software games and utilities, some of them never appeared on the UK market before.
Just have a look: www.sintech-shop.co.uk
I know here are some guys who hate every piece of commercial activities around the Retro-stuff, but I just want to mention that we are here for now 16 years...we are Retro ourselves. Our main business are things like Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, iPhone etc. But we don?t forget our roots and still support the Spectrum as good as we can.
Don?t be too hard with your comments if something goes wrong, although the shop in UK is running by an UK-Spectrum-friend, it is still a lot of work to adapt our German shop to the UK market and some steps still need to be done. There are more differences than we thought. However, it is important for us that all shops in UK, Czech Republic and Germany (www.sintech-shop.co.uk, www.sintech-shop.cz and www.sintech-shop.de) use the same shop-system, which makes it more difficult.
Regards
Thomas
our Sintech-shop made now the first step into UK market. We would welcome anybody to just have a look in our shop and write your personal opinion here or to us personally.
We have already still a To-Do-List or things we should improve, but basically it is now possible to order from our wide stock of hundreds of Spectrum-Hardware items and thousands of software games and utilities, some of them never appeared on the UK market before.
Just have a look: www.sintech-shop.co.uk
I know here are some guys who hate every piece of commercial activities around the Retro-stuff, but I just want to mention that we are here for now 16 years...we are Retro ourselves. Our main business are things like Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, iPhone etc. But we don?t forget our roots and still support the Spectrum as good as we can.
Don?t be too hard with your comments if something goes wrong, although the shop in UK is running by an UK-Spectrum-friend, it is still a lot of work to adapt our German shop to the UK market and some steps still need to be done. There are more differences than we thought. However, it is important for us that all shops in UK, Czech Republic and Germany (www.sintech-shop.co.uk, www.sintech-shop.cz and www.sintech-shop.de) use the same shop-system, which makes it more difficult.
Regards
Thomas
Post edited by Speccyman on
Comments
Sure, thanks. We have here 7% in Germany. I will inform my British partner to change this about books.
Regards
Thomas
Well, some are heavier, some not and we have to calculate also the package. We calculate with 200 grams per game, I think that?s a good average. I won?t check the weight of all our thousands of games...
As the price for up to 2 kgs is the same, I guess it won?t change anything.
Let me know if there are German comments still somewhere. A few we are already working on, but maybe we didn?t find everything.
The bags are enclosed in the postage price.
Sure, we are VAT registered in the UK as well as in the other shops.
It changes a lot.
At 200grams a game you will deliver 10 games in 2Kg. At the true weight (and please tell me ANY single cassette game that weighs more than 75grams) reality says that you can package 30 games in a 2kg package. (I can normally get about 33 games including packaging into a 2kg package)
If you have a standard charge for up to 2kg then I would consider that to be very expensive in comparison to the true postage cost.
I also find it very hard to believe that you have to add 140grams packaging to EVERY cassette. Yes I understand having a packaging charge but this method means you charge for packaging for every game and not for the total packaging.
Why not use a realistic weight for the games and just have a standard packing charge, although you will lose your (what I consider excessive) profit on the postage it will be far fairer on your customers.
Well, we acutally have games like for example LORD OF THE RINGS with book which is nearly 1 kgs. But we decided not to check the weight of every of our thousand games. However, we have 200 grams as a middle range. We actually have the same price for parcels up to 5 kgs. You pay 4 UKP for this. And if you get below 5 kgs it is still just 6 UKP. So I think it is hardly useless to discuss about it unless you have an order for more than 25 games (25 x 200 gramms = 5 kg). If you really want order 26 games, I advise my collegue to make it postage free.
We have a deal?
Regards
Thomas
Do you mean parcels upto 5kg are £4 and parcels above 5kg are £6 and if you order 26+ games postage is free?
I think it's up to 4kg is ?4 and up to 5kg is ?6.
I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
--Raziel (Legend of Kain: Soul Reaver 2)
https://www.youtube.com/user/VincentTSFP
Besides that I am still rather confused, If I buy say 180 which is a single cassette game I get charged ?4 postage because it up to 2kg?.
To answer all questions:
We now have only two postage costs: Below 5 kgs which is 4 UKP and more than 5 kgs which is 6 UKP. However, I take your advices and tell my partner to check if we can offer a lower postage for small orders only. However, it depends on what UK parcel companies can offer us as we want send out only as insured and trackable parcel. It is demand of the people nowadays that they want track any parcel, even if there is just a screwdriver for 3 UKP inside. We really have this experience.
I wonder why we always speak about the cassette games. We have much more, we have also a wide range of hardware. Is there so big interest in the software? We sold lots of Amiga software, but not many Spectrum games in the last years. Also other UK retro - shops confirm me that there is only low interest in Spectrum games. So why change our system just because of the Spectrum games which have anyway low interest. Or is it just some principle that you want see them offered for a low postage price although you would anyway never buy a game? Just want know if somebody is interested at all, because I think if a game is worth this postage or not can only decide a real customer who really wants the game. Just image the situation, we sell a copy of "Way of the Exploding Fist +". The buyer is a collector, he was searching for this game everywhere and he wants it so much. It is our last copy and we would offer a cheap postage rate of 1 UKP per letter. He buys it and is happily waiting for it...and waiting...and waiting...but it is lost in the post. It is not trackable, it is not insured and what is the worsest: It was the last copy, it is lost forever. All his quest was for nothing. To avoid this we send as insured parcel. I don´t know any safer way and I just believe that our customers are exactly these guys who are searching for a game a long time and simply will pay 3 UKP more to have it safely.
Of course this opinion can be discussed. We are discussing it also internally some of my partners are thinking about a way to offer the customer to choose wether he/she want insured parcel or just a normal letter. In case we will offer a cheaper postage for parcels below 1 kg, we would really have to check the weight of every single game. We even would have to check and maybe write in the shop which one is a single cassette game and which one is a big box. I am really afraid that we would never get paid for this service. It is easier for us just to list every game for 200 grams, in some cases this is true, in some it is more in some less. Overall it is ok.
But still much more interest is about our hardware and I think most of the hardware we anyway have to send it as a parcel and 4 UKP is a good price for it. So let´s talk about the hardware, not the software which anyway have only minor interest.
If anybody here really wants buy more than 26 games, contact me and we make it postage-free. This is a special offer to WOS-Forum-Readers.
Regards
Thomas
Cassette games because you're advertising on a site dedicated to the Spectrum.... Why would we want to talk about the Amiga games- good machine tho it is.
Well, but Spectrum is Hard- and Software, or not. We sell much more hardware than software for Spectrum.
The transport of an insured parcel is still safer. We never had any lost insured parcel, but I remember when we used postal service for a small device for Playstation 2 we sold in hundreds, about 20% was lost. Maybe it was as this small device (SLIDE CARD) was thought to be money in the envelope. We used thicker envelopes (jiffy) and then it was better, but still about 3% were late and one of 1000 was simply lost. It is still a small number what is lost, but when it makes me always angry and surely the customer too.
However, I take your advices and also I wrote before that we are thinking about a cheaper postage way which will be not insured. I think it is what the people want and finally we do what our customers want us to do.
But when I started this thread I was asking if you can test the shop and check for problems. I didn?t want to discuss about postage prices neither I will about other prices.
Regards
Thomas
Don't have the publisher details
Don't have a cover illustration
In the first case this means somebody, your famed collector for example, doesn't know if he is buying an original release or a re-release which, to a collector, makes a big difference.
In the case of the cover illustration it means the same collector doesn't know which cover the title is being supplied in. For example Alchemist by Imagine has at least 4 different covers and your collector may want a particular one already having the other 3.
I realise that you say mail for details but this isn't a very friendly way of approaching things. I would rather buy when I can see what I am getting.
I have to say that personally I am very happy with your prices, both postage and goods.
As you ask about 3 times the price per game and 4 times the postage than the preservation team shop does for the same item I think your pricing is excellent.
Sure, you have great prices. Really good job. We cannot do this. Our stocks are old, very old. We bought them in the 90s when every company did give up on Spectrum. For example we bought the whole last stocks of Hit Squad, Codemasters, Alternative Software, Domark and few others. However, we paid for them a higher price than you sell it. If we would make photos we would even spend more money for it (time is money). But it would surely sell better. When we bought that stocks (it was thousands) we did get only lists with names, no publishers. In that time it was simply not common to write the publisher in the games lists. Of course when we bought from Domark or Codemasters it was obvious, but many other stocks we bought from other shops and it was not obvious and so it was not included in the list. Nor I did find in all the years the time to update this neither to make photos. I know I should do it.
However, I think we spoke to each other once personally on a retro-show in London, guess it is 3 or 4 years ago. There is no reason we have to fight here just because we are competitors, let us be friendly and be happy that we have some same products. I think we are even not really competitors, Sintech got still Spectrum products because we know were we have our roots. But we live surely not from the Spectrum software sales.
Most of our stuff is new and it might attract some people, but I am also sure that your games are in exellent condition and people should of course buy simply where it is cheaper.
Important is that they are still available and we are both here to supply. Or not?
Kind regards
Thomas
Postage - Read the forums here, there are a lot of people who feel very aggrieved at rip off postage rates (especially on Ebay) and prior to the above your rates were extortionate in comparison to actual costs.
Listing publishers - I feel this is fundamental especially where you have titles released by more than one publisher - A very large number of titles on the 8bit machines were released as full price titles and then re-released as budget titles. Listing the publisher avoids raising your customer expectations as to which version you will deliver.
Cover scans/photos - This is far more important to a collector who wants to know the condition of a title, at the moment you don't even list if a title has a cover or is just the tape.
Publishers and covers don't take a long time to do and would take less than a weekend to do - I know this from experience.
I consider these to be valid statements from you first question of what do you think and how can we improve - not fighting.
P.S. The vast majority of my stock is "new" - there are still vast amounts of never sold tapes available for a number of machines.
I agree with you totally with everything. Just not that our postage prices are extortionate in comparision with real costs. You see, we offer a service of insured parcel which really have this price. We don?t charge 4 UKP and then send it in a letter. But we should maybe really offer a possibility to choose a cheaper postage as a letter.
List publishers and pictures is important. We know it. We have 3500 products. But I simply doubt that we would ever earn the money with the Spectrum software to cover the costs of just listing all publishers and make photos. I also doubt that it is a business for you. There is no money any more to make with Spectrum, either for me nor for you. You will surely sell more, but you have more work.
In Germany about 50% of the stuff we sell is for Nintendo Wii, other 30% are mostly Playstation 3 while 20% are for our Apple iPod parts. So it is quite clear where we concentrate on. When I did start this question in a Spectrum forum, my aim was not to push software sales, but just that people who I trust in being keen computer users can test our shop. Even without buying you can test a lot. When we opened in Czech Republic we did the same and asked the Spectrum community there and we did get many suggestions what to improve. So I was hoping to have the same sucess here.
But exept the complaints about the lack of possibility to post a single cassette game cheaply, I had no new suggestions. It is a pity.
However, I am still glad to have at least any response and as said we are currently thinking about how to include a cheap postage into our system. This is not easy as we want give the customer a choice if he want it insured or not. Weight is not everything, I surely agree that a single cassette game for 2,49 UKP is not worth being sent as a parcel for 4 UKP. But what about a single cassette game for the same weight but higher price and quite rare. The customer will maybe demand a safe way. So we have to offer a system of choice, which will be programmed new as it is now not included.
Regards
Thomas