Broadband Tech > General Questions > Selling custom built PC's, your thoughts.

reply to Kilroy

Re: Selling custom built PC's, your thoughts.

reply to Duramax08

reply to battleop

I guess what I am referring to is leaving the customers at work. I spend 2-3 hours every night working on something from home and enjoy it but I won't deal with end users.

My tolerance for stupid has gone to zero. I eventually got to a point where I was tired of dealing with people who could not find the start button or they scream at you for not calling them back because I didn't reply to their email about their email not working.

I still have some tolerance for someone who is not computer savvy but they are willing to listen. If don't have time for someone who won't listen or they are a know it all.

reply to Duramax08

doing revises on all the builds to make it more appealing.

reply to Duramax08
If you really want to spend your free time building and selling PCs against the likes of Dell, you're better off just getting a part time job at one of those discount electronics stores that hobbles together systems from last-generation parts. You'll get paid better, too.
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Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Islamic religion?

reply to AsherN

reply to Duramax08
I still have an article about some guy in Texas that was doing this during college from his apartment many years ago. They tried to piece together how he managed to sell his computers so cheap by pricing individual components. Last I heard, Michael Dell was doing OK.

So give it a shot. Some people like to buy local from someone they know they can get their hands around their neck if they have issues. If it doesn't work out, you won't lose a lot of money. You'll learn a ton about business in the process and maybe find some better way.

reply to Duramax08

reply to Duramax08
This is not a good idea. Look at it from the average buyer's perspective (someone with little tech knowledge). He just wants to buy a name brand computer from a well established and reputable store. Perhaps he may even search online to find good deals. The computer is an appliance to him. Why would he buy from an unknown source, if he could even be made aware of your site? On the other hand, why would a tech savy person buy from you, when he can build his own rig or at least know where to get a better deal from someone he knows will be in business in the future?
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CRUNCH THIS!

reply to Kilroy

reply to Duramax08
Dura - as much as i hate to discourage your entrepreneurial spirit, you are about 15 years too late. back in the mid to late 90's it paid to build your own vs. buy whatever HP Compaq Dell or Gateway was selling - now all those companies wish they could drop their PC divisions, and do what IBM did - get into pure consulting work.

Online savvy buyers reading maximumpc and tomshardware already build their own, non-savvy buy whatever their local office or electronics stores sell, and business people only buy business supported products from HP and Dell. As others have posted, if you have one pain in the ass buyer out of five, your profits are shot to hell.

I actually know a guy who even today builds clones and sells them, but that's in another country where tax and import laws favor parts over finished goods. So unless you plan on moving to Lebanon, I suggest you explore another Ecommerce options.

One last issue - the desktop PC is dying... replaced by tablets smartphones netbooks, whatever you wanna call them. Once a google based retina display tablet comes out, even I'll be retiring my 5 year old HP/Compaq desktop PC and enjoy seeing my data live up in the clouds.

reply to ROCINANTE
And yet there are five custom PC shops within five miles of my home.

Dealing with the general public can be aggravating but you get used to it. His customers are more likely to live nearby and are willing to bring their PCs to his shop if it can't be solved on the phone.

Don't compare the little shop on the corner to Dell/Gateway/etc. I buy my meat from a little butcher shop down the street and not from the big name grocery stores. I get better service at a cheaper price and a better product. He can do the same.

I guarantee you those "custom pc shops"
make most of their money on data recovery and
cleaning virus/trojans off people's hard drives,
doing modest upgrades that non techies can't
like adding harddrive space, ram, and video cards,
and they are probably in very low rent space.
the only reason they even put a "custom pc"
on display, is to exude their technical prowess,
not to actually sell any of them.

reply to Duramax08
You will become your clients own personal helpdesk.

"I can't get to [insert website]? Why not?"
"My computer keeps trying to go into Safe Mode. What's that?"
"How do I burn a CD?"
"I can't play music on my computer. I swear I didn't do anything. What's happened?"
"I accidentally deleted a file. Can you get it back for me?"
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Not only does Jesus save, but he makes nightly off-site backups.

reply to howardfine

reply to Packeteers