Word: coleco
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Shortly before Connecticut-based Coleco Industries introduced its Adam home computer in June 1983, the company's stock shot up ten points in a week, going from $41 to $51. The product looked like a winner. It would cost only $600 at a time when comparable equipment sold for about twice as much. With a gentle jab at a competitor, Adam was going to bite the Apple. But sales foundered when the machine turned out to be plagued with glitches. Even a price cut to $499 and several new features were not enough to save the product. Coleco President Arnold...
...oven and the videocassette recorder, air packages have become such a convenience that people now wonder how they ever got along without them. Overnight delivery is also an exploding, $5 billion-a-year business. One of the fly-by-night companies, Emery Air Freight, ships Cabbage Patch Kids for Coleco, couture dresses for Bloomingdale's and personal computers for IBM. During the Christmas season, the boom time for shippers, Federal Express will carry almost 500,000 parcels daily. Last week the company said it shipped some 7.9 million items during November, up more than 50% from a year...
...Chicago: 'Those two products are absolutely the biggest the industry has ever seen." Shipments of Cabbage Patch Kids and ancillary licensed products, including a board game, storybooks, decals and patches, will reach $1 billion in 1984. More than a year after they appeared and despite the fact hat Coleco, their manufacturer, does not even advertise them, the dolls are still in short supply. That does not hurt sales; in fact, it helps. Says Margaret Preble, a sociology instructor in Virginia: "The shortage gives implied status to those who can get a doll." An official of Toys "R" Us says...
...instructions are bad business as well as a torture to read. A maddening manual can cripple sales of products that might have been successful. Coleco lost $35 million in the fourth quarter last year partly because people flocked to return the initial version of its Adam computer, which the company offered for $600. In a statement to shareholders, Coleco blamed much of the consumer dissatisfaction on "manuals which did not offer the first-time user adequate assistance." Observes Joseph Sugarman, president of J S & A, a mail-order house that specializes in high-tech merchandise: "Very often, items with...
Meanwhile, two other companies making home computers are trying to regroup after disastrous performances. Coleco's Adam, the big hit of last year's show, was plagued by production problems and sold poorly after going on the market in October. The product has been rolled out again at a price of about $750. Atari, which lost $539 million last year on video games and home computers, announced last week that it will introduce a new home machine this fall that will have a larger memory...