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History of Egghead Software Stores
- eigenvalue 6y agoI 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.
- anjel 6y agoI recall they had plenty of 2nd rate software in very expensive packaging, and a lenient return policy.
- kolanos 6y agoHave 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.
- WalterBright 6y agoHuh. I had always assumed newegg.com was a re-boot of Egghead.
- pessimizer 6y agoSame 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.
- WalterBright 6y agoI 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.
- sk5t 6y agoAre you a time traveler from 2010? IME Newegg has allowed itself to turn into another marketplace wasteland.
- valuearb 6y agoAh, 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%!
- GeekyBear 6y agoIt'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.
- valuearb 6y agoYea, 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”
- jzer0cool 6y agoVisited 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.