
History of Egghead Software Stores - eigenvalue
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/egghead-com-inc-history/
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kolanos
Have fond memories of Egghead in the 90s. Their focus may have been corporate
sales, but they still had a large selection of computer games in the stores I
frequented. Likely would have not come across some of my favorite games at the
time if not for Egghead.

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valuearb
Ah, I remember when seeing your software on the shelf of Egghead meant you’d
made it.

Of course we had to give up 50% of revenues, and then pay them tens or
hundreds of thousands of dollars on top of that for “co-marketing”, all while
spending $10 a unit on packaging and disk duplication, while providing an
expensive phone support team.

I guess I don’t miss it that much, come on Apple take your 30%!

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GeekyBear
It's odd to me that people seem to have completely forgotten what the
experience of selling your software in brick and mortar stores was like.

Most of the time, you also had to work through a software distributor middle
man (who took a cut) because the large chains wouldn't deal with you directly.

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valuearb
Yea, I forgot about Ingram MicroD. They took 50%, and when it came time to get
paid,

“We don’t cut checks on Tuesday, only on Monday”

“Oh I know what she said about cutting checks on Monday, but Sarah is out till
Thursday”

“Oh, Sarah is back but we only cut checks on Mondays”

“I don’t know who told you we cut checks on Monday, we only do that on Friday.
Sarah? Sarah doesn’t work here any more”

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eigenvalue
I randomly remembered going to this store as a young boy and wondered what had
happened to it. This led me to read the rather sad story of the company. Seems
like there are some good lessons there-- for one, don't make low prices the
major focus of your company unless you have some structural reasons why your
costs will be lower than the competition. If they had instead focused on a
higher-touch, more consultative sales approach at a higher price point, they
would have been able to better withstand the competitive threat from computer
superstores like CompUSA. Also, it makes you realize how little margin for
error there is when you are in a low-margin, hyper competitive business. Their
mistake of stocking up heavily on Windows 3.1 really hurt them.

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anjel
I recall they had plenty of 2nd rate software in very expensive packaging, and
a lenient return policy.

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jzer0cool
Visited this very store in Menlo Park.

Mac user at the time.

I would walk between Egghead and large bookstore, Kepler?. A bookstore,
reading about cool easter eggs in Mac OS 7.1. Tried new sega games at a nearby
game store.

At newegg bought a virus software for $60. It was first software ever bought.
Looking back. LOL.

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WalterBright
Huh. I had always assumed newegg.com was a re-boot of Egghead.

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pessimizer
Same mistake I made when I first found newegg. Was that intentional? I
certainly gave newegg some unearned goodwill until I found out that they were
unrelated.

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WalterBright
I give newegg my goodwill and business anyway because their website makes it
easy to find what I want, and the prices are competitive. They've earned it.

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sk5t
Are you a time traveler from 2010? IME Newegg has allowed itself to turn into
another marketplace wasteland.

