Looking for Options to Sell Retropie Consoles

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  [Deactivated] on 21/01/2017 - 22:37

  +1

  What is the market like for this Niche?

  Are other people already doing it and selling the product, you would have to compare prices, the market and see how much you could do the same unit for, just remembering the bigger stores would pay 5-8% in fees to ebay due to their sales per month

  Seems pointless to reinvent the wheel when your dad is up against a myriad of already established retropie sellers but if its something he enjoys doing he could go down the road of restoring old consoles and selling them, bringing them back to former glory, nothing beats the feeling of restoring something to original condition and having it work after tinkering

  Edit: Saw them on Ebay, pretty cool idea but others are selling them already with big established shops
  they go for about 159 delivered which isn't bad considering

  Ebay is not a good place to sell at the moment due to the high fees / final value on both sale and Postage (greedy)

  You could go down the gumtree road but its a lot of work to manage your free ads and would be a pretty tedious system in the long term

  Not to dampen your spirits but I feel its an already saturated market for the Retro / Rasperry Pi creations and you'd be hard pressed going against everyone else using the baseline hardware, unless you can create something unique to the RPi market it would be a pretty hard slog

  I personally own a 3D printer and design and print designs for people, I do quite well for it as I design the item on my PC and send it to my printer, costs are cheap, it keeps me busy in my spare time and I enjoy a challenge, not many people own a good enough 3D printer so its a niche area I do really well at until mainstream costs come down

  It may pay to sit down with your dad and brainstorm ideas, think of ideas and perhaps get a kickstarter project going

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    [Deactivated] on 21/01/2017 - 23:15

    thanks i think it is a great advice. i thought of getting a 3d printer, but seems like a lot of tinkering if you go with the generic ones posted here on OZB, which my dad my not be very capable of. printing those NES and SNES syle cases for raspberrypi is a cool idea and they actually go for a premium.

    i am ok to help him setup the software etc. he can lead the assembly and distribution side of thinngs. just to keep him busy and make a buck or two along the way. i would be happy as long as he doent make any losses.

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  spackbace on 21/01/2017 - 23:03

  +4

  Facebook buy/sell

  Mums n dads don't realise how cheap they are to make up, so they'll happily pay $100+ to get one. Being able to just pick it up the same day is a big advantage too

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 21/01/2017 - 23:15

    thanks never tried facebook. do they charge to list items?

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      OverburdenedWarrior on 21/01/2017 - 23:21

      +1

      Nope, it's free to list on. You can mass advertise by joining a few buy/sell groups and advertising to them and the direct marketplace as well. As stated above, Gumtree would also be an option.

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  [Deactivated] on 22/01/2017 - 11:19

  The problem is you're selling to an already high seller market

  Just remembering the upmark in price covers their time, staff and delivery costs
  Issues with returns and warranty etc

  There is a lot to just running a store online
  People are more savvy and are going to buy from a recognised seller with good feedback over a new seller 9/10 times based on experience

  Not to say you can't do it if that's what his heart is set on, I just think you're going to be making next to no money once you factor in start up costs just to break even not to mention the huge market for these retropis

  I made one myself as I am quite experienced with computers but the point I'm getting at is I'd never sell them in bulk because I'm competing against bigger fish who can get cheaper boards in and better pricing

  If you want to do it listing on gumtree and Facebook is all good and well unfortunately seller protection methods are limited and you will have a myriad of time wasting questions / sales fall through and issues (not to say eBay doesn't but people who don't pay get punished by a strike marked against their account)

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  punkindrublic on 25/01/2017 - 15:33

  The big issue as I see it is that because it's illegal to provide roms with the Retropie hardware, potential customers would primarily be tech savvy ones who'd know where to find old game files and put them on the system.

  I'd love to do the same thing just for fun and the satisfaction of getting people into old games and the potential of low cost hardware like the Pi. However, there's no way I'd provide the games to any customers, or even 'advise' them how to obtain them - you never know if your next inquiry is a regular guy on the street or a Fair Trading official/police officer/copyright lawyer.

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    [Deactivated] on 25/01/2017 - 16:47

    Thanks including Roms or advising about is a big no no.