# Pine Store Community Pricing & Online Retail Stores

DevFeed: [Pine Store Community Pricing & Online Retail Stores](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/pine-store-community-pricing-online-retail-stores-34826.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://pine64.org/2020/12/02/pine-store-community-pricing-online-retail-stores/>)

Published: 2020-12-02T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Community blog on PINE64](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/community-blog-on-pine64.md>)

Topics: [foss](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/foss.md>), [Linux](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/linux.md>), [Hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/hardware.md>), [Support](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/support.md>), [Wiki](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/wiki.md>)

Tags: [community](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/community.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [foss](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/foss.md>), [hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hardware.md>), [linux](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/linux.md>), [pine-store](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pine-store.md>), [pine64](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pine64.md>), [pinebook](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pinebook.md>), [product](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/product.md>), [retail](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/retail.md>), [software](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software.md>), [store](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/store.md>), [support](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/support.md>)

## AI overview

PINE64 explains that new online retail stores planned for 2021 will operate alongside the existing Pine Store, whose community-oriented pricing and device sales will remain unchanged. The strategy is intended to serve general consumers while preserving the existing community-focused model and reducing pressure on support staff from software troubleshooting requests.

## Source excerpt

In 2021 you'll see online retail Pine stores open in Europe, North America and possibly also worldwide at a later stage. Let me start by making one thing clear - the current Pine Store isn't going away and the pricing in the Pine Store will remain unchanged. You'll always be able to buy and pre-order your devices from pine64.com at a community-oriented price point. The retail stores will function alongside the Pine Store, not replace it, and offer a different customer experience. In this blog I'll explain the rationale behind this strategy. PINE64 is not a business First things first - PINE64 is a community, not a business, and the Pine Store's sole purpose is to serve this community by providing FOSS development-friendly hardware. Sales numbers and revenue are not, and never were, a driving force behind this project; making the next fun and often experimental device was and still is. Some devices, such as the original Pinebook, were even sold at a loss at times - simply because we knew people wanted one. Seriously. Victims of our own success Our strategy was always clear - work with developers to design a product, have partner projects and community developers work on the software and sell the device at a community-oriented price point. This approach has proven to be a great way forward for us, and one that, dare I say it, ultimately distinguished us from the other FOSS-vendors and manufacturers. That said, we're slowly falling victim to our own success. News of our devices have reached people outside of our target audience, and enthusiast-grade products now frequently end up in the hands of non-technical customers. I have just been looking at the incoming support tickets these past weeks, and the majority of incoming queries are by people who are not comfortable troubleshooting software problems, have little Linux experience, and do not understand the nature of our devices. In a nutshell, they are general tech-consumers unfamiliar with the intricacies of Linux, FO