At least six times a year, the College of Du Page turns into paradise for computer buffs as well as a gold mine for vendors who want to eliminate excess stock, and it’s all the work of Lake County’s Jay Robinson and Vic Weisskopf, who saw an opportunity and decided to access it.
They stage a show that is similar to a flea market, but it involves mostly new computer merchandise.
Computer Central, as their show is known, has the distinction of being mentioned in an August 1992 Business Week magazine article about computer flea markets as being among the most reputable shows in the nation. It also provides a showcase for vendors while being a bargain warehouse for buyers.
“People selling there know a lot and rely on repeat customers. They aren’t going to misguide you,” said Steve Peskaitis, 18, president of S&S Publishing in Lemont, a computer software publisher and reseller. “People on the sales floor at retail stores often don’t know a whole lot and can give misinformation. People at computer shows are building it; they know their stuff and can tell you more.”
“It’s like a big banquet,” said Carl Rodig of Arlington Heights, who attends the shows. “You can get demonstrations of new things, and the prices are great. You can look around and see everything that’s available. It’s very few people with junk and lots of new dealers competing. It’s a buyer’s market.”
Robinson, 60, of Lincolnshire is president and managing partner of the shows. Weisskopf, 51, of Deerfield is vice president and pretty much lets Robinson handle the enterprise, because he’s busy with his other business, Admiral Security Services of Lincolnwood.
Robinson, who grew up in the Humboldt Park area of Chicago, was a college dropout. Weisskopf, originally from St. Louis, graduated from Washington University there.
Neither started in business as a computer enthusiast. In fact, the two met as collectors of miniature trains. Fast friends for more than a dozen years, they began their relationship while staging train shows.
“We did train shows for a couple of years,” Weisskopf said. “We were toy train collectors together, promoting swap meets. But it was a lot of work and did not provide us with much money. What we did was provide sitting space on Sundays for disagreeable train people. Our wives and kids helped, selling refreshments and taking tickets. It was a real job setting up and taking down tables. We were just a little meaningless nothing, and we knew that. We wanted to do something else.”
“After 20 years in the office supply business, I’ve finally figured out how to compete,” Robinson said. “Victor helped me. He has been my tutor, my master and my mentor. We met because of toy trains, but we started the shows because of his interest in computers.”
Since 1965 Robinson had owned his own office-supply business, Pact Office Equipment in Chicago, Northfield and Deerfield, but he sold that 15 years later to buy a muffler shop. He sold that business in 1986.
“After six months of doing nothing, I chose to do computer shows; it worked out real well. Computer Central started as a part-time venture out of my home. Now I am able to make a living from it.”
Robinson also runs a business on the side that brokers computer supplies to corporate America.
It was in the first half of the 1980s that Weisskopf became interested in computers. While on a trip to Wisconsin, he saw a magazine called Computer Shopper, which contained ads for equipment. Two ads caught his eye. One was for a computer show out East, and another was for a flea market on the West Side of Chicago.
He persuaded Robinson to go to the Chicago show. “There were retail computer stores,” Weisskopf said of the flea market, “but their prices were very high, and it was certainly not a user-friendly environment. It had a lot of junk, but we saw it had possibilities.” Weisskopf went to an East Coast show, however, and liked what he saw. “When I came back, I told Jay this was something we could do.”
Calling phone numbers from the Computer Shopper ads and from the Yellow Pages, they contacted dozens of people, including a 24-hour software shop in Milwaukee.
“We told him (the owner) we were organizing a computer show and gave him a date a couple of months later,” Weisskopf said. “Realizing we had made a commitment to do our first show, our pace escalated. We then made hundreds of calls, basically selling hot air on the phone. The Milwaukee man became a vendor.”
They placed a newspaper ad and contacted every computer club they could find in grammar schools, high schools and colleges throughout Chicago. In addition, they circulated flyers at train stations and inserted notices on computer bulletin boards.
Their first show, held on a Saturday in mid-December in 1984, was at the Rand Park Field House in Des Plaines, a space where they had held train shows.
The turnout at the first show was beyond their wildest expectations. “The field house had 3,500 square feet of usable space; we couldn’t move, fall down or turn around,” Robinson said. “It was a sellout. When the show was over, we received a standing ovation from the vendors. The experience was, by and large, unique to them.”
“I tried to duplicate what I saw on the East Coast and seem to have succeeded in doing that,” Weisskopf said. “We had a show platform. Now we had to create a vendor base and an attendee base. Those two things are symbiotic, so we found ourselves in the situation of trying to promote both. You can’t have vendors without customers, and customers won’t come without the vendors. Jay maintains the mailing lists and sends announcement cards.”
As competing shows started up, the two got themselves on those mailing lists and were amused when they received hand-addressed, letter-rate flyers from show sponsors. But they learned from the mistakes of others as well as from their own.
One of those errors, Robinson said, occurred “because of the lousy experimentation we did in advertising and promoting the show. It took a substantial number (at the gate) to attend before we made a profit.
“After every show the four of us (Weisskopf, Robinson and their wives) go out for dinner and discuss how to make it better,” he said. “It’s hard to go to bed before the show. My mind is going over what I have missed, what I have forgotten. What if my car breaks down? I’ve got thousands upon thousands of dollars riding on this, so I concern myself with things like this. Half the phone calls on the Saturday (before the event) come from Vic. A lot of time and effort are given to the show. That’s partially the reason why it is so successful.”
Quickly realizing that they were outgrowing their first location, they moved to the Holiday Inn of Itasca, then to the Arlington Hilton in Arlington Heights. Due to overflow crowds there, subsequent shows were held in the Rosemont Horizon’s 12,000-square-foot Sky Line Room before moving to the present location, the 40,000-square-foot College of Du Page gymnasium.
From the first show in 1984, Computer Central was the largest of its kind in Chicago. And in nine years of doing these shows, it has outlasted its competition, though other shows still come and go.
At its latest show, Oct. 31, Computer Central drew 2,400 customers and 80 vendors, Robinson said, double the turnout of just three years ago.
Planning shows is always a gamble. The owners never know what to expect.
“We take the dates we can get,” Robinson said of the gym’s availability. “We scheduled a show for one Sunday in January in 1986. Never did we think the Bears would be playing in the Super Bowl. Events like that happen so infrequently, we thought the show would be negatively impacted, but it wasn’t. In fact, a number of vendors sold out by 11:30 a.m. We were flabbergasted! Vendors didn’t bring an adequate amount of merchandise.”
Robinson and Weisskopf pride themselves on their commitment to excellence. “The first seven years it was a very interesting part-time job. In the eighth year we became an overnight success,” Robinson said jokingly. “My approach is we are going to do this very slowly; there is no fast fix. I look at the vendors as my partners in business. The customer is the man or woman who pays an admission fee. That’s who we need to satisfy.”
The vendors pay $80 per table and are supplied with electricity, if they make it clear that they need it ahead of time. Robinson estimated that sales total $250,000 to $300,000 per show. Computer Central’s take comes only from customer admissions and from the fees charged for tables.
“I was at his first show in a field house in Des Plaines,” said Miriam Campbell of Skokie-based Disk Movers. “We buy large quantities of diskettes and needed a place to sell off our excess. We were very impressed with the show and thought it was a good idea. It’s become a secondary marketplace for us. To us, the greatest value is to sell more volume, get exposure and get a lot of leads-not just consumer leads but corporate leads. If you want to come to the best show with a large variety that will cover everything of interest, an impressive, large show with quality vendors, this show speaks for itself. It’s a classy show.”
Carmen Arias, the manager of ASP, a software and hardware supplier in Arlington Heights, also has her plaudits for the Weisskopf/Robinson team’s efforts. “If you were to ask about the top of the line, it’s Computer Central. It has stability, is well known and has an easy-to-get-to location. There are constant, repeat customers who return and know we’re going to be there. They may not come to see us in Arlington Heights, but they know we’ll be at Computer Central.”
“A person would normally have to go to stores and flea markets for about a month for the variety of products they can see at this show in a couple of hours,” said Don Kordas, a computer technician from Glendale Heights. “It’s the best place to save a substantial amount of money and lends itself to help those who are knowledgeable to save significant amounts of money.”
According to attendee Don Riggin of Elgin, “I get to see a lot of new products, a lot of bargains, discount items and software, (many at) bargain prices. You have so many vendors at one location, you get to shop around and talk to other people, get ideas and see what’s going on. I go for the entertainment as well as shopping.”
“It’s a good way to get software,” said Paul Brady of Roselle, who has been attending since it was in Itasca. He suggests that people buy “the out-of-date software, register it, upgrading it at the lower price and save a lot of money. I’ve won more times than I’ve lost. But,” he cautioned, “don’t jump at every good deal. A quick romp through before it gets too crowded is wise. Get there early with a list of what you need and have in mind what you are willing to spend for it.”
Robinson and Weisskopf credit their wives in helping make Computer Central a success.
“(Jay) does the layout at home,” said wife Jill, “and we would double-check together to make sure that various vendors have their space. Through the years, Barbara (Weisskopf) and I have been sounding boards for our husbands, indicating what has worked, what needs correction. We have continued to perfect it through the years. Periodically, someone will make a recommendation. If it happens to be something they’d like to see differently, we take it very seriously. Less than one-half percent of all attendees have a complaint.”
“The shows have had a wonderful impact on our kids,” said Barbara Weisskopf, whose children are now 23, 21 and 18. “We began when they were small, and we needed all the help we could get. They were running concession stands, making hot dogs, etc., and learned how to run a small business. They sold magazines we were trying to promote and learned to go up to total strangers and how to be entrepreneurs. They’ve been guards, cashiers, worked wherever needed.”
Now scheduling shows a year to a year and a half in advance, Robinson and Weisskopf seem to have things down to a science. Robinson arrives by 2:45 a.m. each Sunday to make sure all the tables and electricity are in place, available for the vendors. By 7:15 a.m. Weisskopf arrives.
“Some vendors arrive at 5 or 6 a.m., just waiting,” Weisskopf said. “The idea is to keep them moving through that door. It’s my job to make sure everybody gets in, gets unloaded and the show is ready to start by 9:30. Some have come to every show for nine years, and we know them by face.”
“I see the show changing to meet the needs of a growing computer society,” Weisskopf added. “In addition to being a selling show, it is also becoming more of an information-based show. The Chicago Computer Society is coming in and giving free seminars now. We are trying to bring in manufacturers to talk about their new products and future products and answer questions for the public and bring in more information and services. Up until now, manufacturers have looked at flea markets with disdain. In today’s cost-effective marketplace, they can talk to about 2,000 targeted PC-interested people at a nominal cost.”
Robinson concurred. “Our real growth will come from those who find it increasingly more difficult to garner a customer base and make their businesses grow,” he said. “Once (vendors) get to Computer Central, they have tremendous exposure to their target market at a nominal cost. They also come eyeball to eyeball with their competitors and have the opportunity to adjust their prices or react. They don’t have the opportunity to do that with an ad.
“We have worked hard to be reputable, credible. Vendors keep coming back, and the show is getting bigger. Rather than make a claim we can’t support, we won’t make one. We cater to a market that’s more subtle than obvious, a market that recognizes the advantages of subtleties, little bits of information in a concentrated time frame and space,” Robinson said.
“Most people who come to Computer Central are not neophytes,” Robinson added, but it can be helpful to the uninitiated if they simply browse around to find vendors who interest them, then call on them later at their stores. One thing the vendors don’t have time for during the intense time of the shows is to educate new computer users, he explained.
Most of those who do attend, both sellers and buyers, “know what they are talking about. Those who attend want to prosper as businessmen or grow as computer users. If a vendor does not take care of a customer, they are gone. The money saved and information are incredible, but the buyer still needs to beware.”
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Computer Central is running a show from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. today at the College of Du Page gymnasium, at Park Boulevard and College Road in Glen Ellyn, on the southeast corner of the campus. Admission is $6, or $5 with a coupon from a newspaper ad. For information, phone 708-940-7547. The first show next year is Jan. 23.
