[Coco] We NEED a Centralized Location

[Carlos Camacho]

Hello Joe,

It can be daunting for people new to the platform to find products that are
available. There have been some helpful sites made over the years, and in
general, when asked for the thousandth time where XYZ is sold, veterans are
happy to respond!

Some thoughts on your 'one stop shopping' plea. CoCo products are offered
under some scenarios....

1) people who need a product and realize if they build a few, they can
lower their own cost. They really don't have the time to market or support
the product.
2) people who developed a product and the demand warranted that they
produce 'runs' (small batches) from time to time.
3) people who are very consistent in developing products and make runs more
often.

Most developers don't keep inventory but announce they have X number on
hand and people throw their name into a hat.

Back in the day, the market was large enough for distributors to have
inventory on hand. Not very possible today. And you aren't dealing with
distributors but manufacturers in a sense.

My view is that most developers love the developing of products, but aren't
into or have backgrounds in the marketing and commerce side. There are some
retro sites that take the load off the developer in that sense, though in
order to turn a profit they can't focus only on the CoCo. With maybe Cloud
9 as exception. (Thank you for feeding my book fetish Mark!)

Your post is rather timely for me as I kicked off the Color Computer Store (
colorcomputerstore.com) at CoCoFest 2018. The website will be launched this
summer. I have 20 years in digital marketing, and 12 in ECommerce. (Have
run $10 million to $90 million a year online stores.)

My focus will be CoCo only. I'll have my own products for sale and the
ability for developers to login and add theirs. (manage stock, take back
orders, etc) Very professional, very simple...because that's the way I
roll. lol.

This is truly the best time ever to own a CoCo... great hardware, high
level development tools, and soon, super duper easy Amazon-like ordering. ;)

Cheers,

Carlos Camacho
Color Computer Store