Hello to all you lovely gamers out there!
1st, I want to thank everyone who has been so incredibly patient with me while I play what seems to be an ever-lasting game of catch up since little Oscar was born. You guys and gals have been great, and I sincerely appreciate it 🙂
2nd, and with the previous statement in mind, we are working on a total revamp of the site, some of the products/services, and other features offered here at Rose Colored Gaming in order to provide a better experience for you and so that I can stay on top of what has become a booming little enterprise (again, thank you!).
As of this week (Sunday, May 12th) we won’t be taking on any new custom orders and we will be selling most of our existing products via eBay to simplify the ordering process while we build a proper storefront here on the site. The current plan is to be down for 3-4 weeks. This will also give us some time to build up an inventory of pre-modded Gameboys, Nomads, Wonderswans, Neo Geo Pockets, and any other time-consuming product that we produce. I get so many emails asking for simple pre-modded units, but simply do not have the time to keep up with custom orders AND keep a supply of pre-mods on hand. I want this to change so that there’s always product on hand, ready to ship for those that want it. I just placed an order for a MASSIVE amount of portable consoles from Japan and am working with a couple of fellows who will hopefully be able to help me get them modded with assembly line-like efficiency so that the supply doesn’t dry up.
I have a number of other features for the site that have been on the back burner for FAR too long. Look for:
• New FAQs and How-Tos
• Some promotional and instructional videos
• More photos and a bigger, better gallery
• New products and services
I will add a link to the eBay store as soon as the items are listed and will be posting updates through the next few weeks as things start to come together.
Questions, comments, and suggestions are still always welcome! In fact, I need your feedback more so now than ever. I love hearing from all of you guys and gals (as some of you may very well know, based on my often excited and long-winded email responses). So let me know if there’s anything that YOU think would make for a better experience on the site, purchasing goods and services, etc.
Thanks,
Wiggy and the RCG family
Rose Colored Gaming 
Good to hear business is good. Congrats!
Are you still going to offer custom orders in the future? I never heard back from you about getting my GBA done (100% understand why though).
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Does that count requests that were placed before today that were never answered?
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Well, technically I haven’t been taking custom orders for about the last week or so while I try and catch up with everything. I just decided to make it official in order to get myself a schedule sorted out so that I don’t fall further behind.
But don’t worry, custom mods are my absolute favorite thing to work on, so they’ll be back as soon as humanly possible!
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No problem, I’m not sure if you even got my e-mail since I sent it through the shifties site over a week ago. But I know you’ve been extremely busy as of late!
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Can’t wait for that link! 😀
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When you revamp the gallery. I’d really like it for there to be more higher resolution pictures!
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You got it!
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Hey Wiggy,
I do not want to sound discouraging but eBay recently hiked their fee to a flat 10% for everything. That’s kind of too much for us sellers on eBay. I am myself a seller and cannot help but think that eBay is becoming more greedy by the day.
Apart from the eBay fee, we have to calculate Paypal fee, shipping costs and other charges. It almost makes it impossible to sell on eBay. I recently raised the price (to make up for the eBay fee hike) of an item that was selling very well. Now I haven’t made a sale in past 5-7 days.
I am sure you probably already have eBay experience but just keep in mind for the fee hike and plan accordingly. My two cents would be to develop your customer base with eBay while still sell on your own website to divert the eBay audience to your personal website. This way the buyers will enjoy the comparitively lower prices while those who trust eBay more can always purchase though eBay.
Best wishes!
Aditya
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Thats great wiggy! I’m glad to hear that. Will this affect my micro faceplate shipment? Remember you told me that the black ones were splotched and had to be remade.
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Nope, not at all! This won’t effect any orders already placed. In fact, I’m finishing up the last pile of portable mods right now 🙂
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I think a cool new sevice would be if you started selling replacement cartridge shells (not sure how well this works for consoles other than gba). I would definately buy transparent pink ones for my kirby games, and a blue one for my sonic advance, and a green one for my link to the past (and on and on and on). Even if you just offered this as a custom service it would be pretty cool!
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Would love to see mods that are more console-focused and less handheld-focused…ie console paint jobs and other modifications. Also, instructional videos of any sort, but especially on console mods, would be much appreciated!
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This is something that I’m working on for SNES games right now to use with our future repro releases. Not sure if I’ll ever get to GBA shells.
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Videos are high on my to-do list this month. I’ve got a couple of really great folks to help me out with them as well 🙂
I’d love to do more home console stuff! I’ve got lots planned for the SNES and really wanna hop on the Neo Geo MVS
Console bandwagon, just need to find the time to do so. Never thought modded GBAs would be so popular 😀
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I’m so pissed I didn’t find this site earlier I really want a NES micro faceplate with buttons and an backlit original GBA.
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Don’t worry, faceplates and buttons will be on eBay soon, and I’ll be back with a glut of modded GBAs as soon as possible! I’m not going anywhere, just gotta do some work so the business can grow 😀
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In fact, I’m in the middle of making a huge pile of modded GBAs right now.
I will likely use the local CCAG show (www.CCAGshow.com) as my re-opening since it’s just about a month off, and that is probably the amount time I’ll need to get everything done. I will have a TON of stuff for sale! If you can make it, you should come. It’s a great show and I’ll have some new and unique stuff for sale 🙂
After the show I’ll have the site taking orders again and things should run a lot more smoothly!
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I’m actually working on a eCommerce site for retromodders, and am wondering what kind of functionality would be interesting to people like that?
Is it just all the fees that are killing you? I feel like the eBay community actually sucks, I never know who I am buying from. It feels so sterile.
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Here’s hoping you do Wireless controllers this year. My daughter pulled down my snes last night playing Kirby!
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Right now I’m only dealing with PayPal fees. What’s killing me are all the emails back and forth that I have to do in order to sell pretty much anything. They suck up a TON of my time, and I need to change that.
eBay will be an easy temporary solution to the problem while I rebuild, plus it adds exposure. I’ll likely use it even after I get my own store up and running. There’s no bigger marketplace, so it can’t hurt I figure.
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We’re working on it 🙂
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I’d also really love to see an updated rechargeable battery for the Sega Nomad. I’ve seen a few and if it were part of the Nomad X package that would be Awesome!
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That’s the plan 😉
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I’m throwing my money at the computer screen and nothing is popping out!!!!
Awesome timing since I literally won an action on a Nomad yesterday. Can’t wait till you open up for custom stuff again. I now have a Nomad and a Micro just waiting.
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LOL!
I can’t wait either! I JUST got caught up on 99% of the customer mods that needed to get done ASAP, and now I can get moving on some of the other stuff so I can be up-and-running soon!
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Well, personally I found some very nice and courteous buyers over the span of last one year. It’s been a pleasure dealing with people from Europe, Australia and North America.
I have read so many bad things, scams and whatnot. I don’t know, I think video gamers are generally very decent people? It was mostly video games that I dealt with, so I could probably conclude that!
There definitely are some great advantages of eBay. As Wiggy said, the global exposure is one of them. eBay is allowing you to have an already set platform to reach out to consumers globally. I think that’s its biggest advantage.
I worked hard for 12 months and established a business for myself. It took a lot of hardwork to build up the reputation that I have today and that reflects in the feedback I received. What I find kind of unfair is that suddenly the fees have been raised, and raised a lot. For instance I used to pay about $7-8 for a $150 worth of item to eBay. Now I have to pay $15 for an item sold at that price. And add to that $5-6 of Paypal fee, $12-15 shipping and other packaging charges.
What I find funny is that eBay also deducts fee for shipping cost. You charge $10 for registered shipping fee overseas, you pay $1 to eBay and $0.50 to Paypal. You only get $8.50 of shipping. Absurd!
Sorry if it sounded like a rant, it’s not! Just taken part in the discussion.
I also think eBay could be used if ones profit margins allow it.
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I tell ya what, before getting into this business, I was doing lots of car-related stuff. Much like I’m doing with the games, it was pretty much all custom built parts and whatnot. Long story short, I was in a nasty car accident and it totally killed my interest in the automotive tuning scene.
Got back into my childhood hobby of gaming, dug out the SNES and GBA, and got started on all of this. The customers that I dealt with when doing the car stuff were generally impatient, demanding, quite miserly, and not very appreciative as a whole.
My RCG customers have been amazing with almost zero exception. Of the 250+ transactions I’ve had, only ONE went sour with neither the customer nor myself feeling like it got 100% resolved, and believe me, I tried. That’s less than .5% “O_O”
I LOVE you guys/gals! (My customers, that is). You’re seriously just the bestest. You’ve ALL been so understanding with regards to my personal life and how it’s affected my ability to stay on top of orders, incredibly patient while I constantly struggle to tackle the mountain of emails that come in every day, and are so very appreciative of the work once it’s done.
I only hope that I can continue to grow the brand and keep up! I never expected my tinkering hobby to turn into something so big. Who knew that there was such a huge need for micro faceplates, or that the Nomad has a serious cult following who are willing to spend serious, SERIOUS $$$ for some trick upgrades, and that the whole backlit GBA thing (which is truly the bread and butter of what I do right now) would be such massive hit?
I’ve had many jobs over the last 20+ years, but this is the first that I truly love. I mean, I wake up, drink some tea with my wife, and head into my office around the corner from the living room excited to get to work.
Jeez, I’m really rambling here.
Summation: love you guys and I hope to keep bringing new goodies for all things retro!
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I get the appeal of eBay, but like you said it can eat into your margins hardcore.
In fact, before I came across RCG I was looking into modding GBAs, but Wiggy is already doing it right and I haven’t been able to find a way to make it sustainable and keep the margins to my standard.
So I thought maybe I could serve the Retro community in a different way by empowering them to get together and share their creations, and buy/sell/mod/trade their stuff.
I could never compete with eBay as a marketplace, but maybe by focusing it down to a place that retromodders and fans might want to BE at, and not screwing them out of their margins, maybe it will work.
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eBay will just be a way to keep things going a bit while I revamp. I have no desire to use it permanently. Like you said, tough to make enough to cover their ever-rising fees and turn a profit
I love your idea though! Keep me in the loop. I’ll gladly promote something like that on my site. I really think a community like that could be of benefit to us modders AND the customer. A lot of the guys that do this stuff sell via one single forum like benheck, or assembler, or Sega-16, which means extremely limited exposure. Heck, I started on the cover project. Talk about a small community.
Shoot me an email (if you haven’t already). I’d love to chat about it with ya.
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I really wish you had repro e reader cards! That would be fantastic, since they are so hard to come by.
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Hi. I emailed you ages ago about ordering some Micro Faceplates. You responded once, but I never received the invoice. I guess I’ll have to wait for the eBay store?
I was after the Kirby and Game and Watch plates. I’m definitely going to order a handheld too once you have everything running again.
Thanks.
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Yeah, on eBay soon hopefully.
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