Considering starting up a PC business...

[waggy]

Originally posted by: gregor7777

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
I did it very, very successfully up until about this time last year.

Do yourself a favor and DON'T DO IT! Seriously. Don't. I'm out of the business and I still have 400 active warranties floating around out there, somewhere. People are assholes. They'll treat you like sh!t.

Competing with Dell and the other big names is very easy - it turns out that only the high end IT people seem to have any sort of brand loyalty towards Dell (which is odd, really). Sell one good product to one person, and they'll sell two more for you. That's prettymuch the way it plays out. Word of mouth about ridiculously performing systems at "low prices" is rather effective.

Don't do it. It simply isn't worth the money (and the money was VERY, VERY good - $200 margin on a machine, at least 1 machine per day)

$200 a day might be nice for a teenager, but it's barely even a decent income. There are a lot of other things you can do to make the same or more with a lot less effort, and even one hour or two of technical support on any of those machines greatly reduces that margin.

Not trying to put you down or anything; just pointing out that it's not VERY, VERY good; rather, ok.

are you insane? $200 a day is what $52K a year. tha tis not decent?

thats not bad actually. good amount when you are your own boss.


Edit: ok i agree it is not decent if you live in LA or something. but hell $52k a year in most places is good.

Yes, but it that's just the profit on the parts and software, one still has totake into consideration rent or hosting fees, utilities, labor, warranty, taxes, liscensing and a whole host of other expenses that could acount for a goodly chunk of the 52,000 p/year.

very true.

but as he said that is $200 PER MACHINE and at least 1 per day. so the amount of pay goes up. hell get a business or two and it goes way up.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: gregor7777

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
I did it very, very successfully up until about this time last year.

Do yourself a favor and DON'T DO IT! Seriously. Don't. I'm out of the business and I still have 400 active warranties floating around out there, somewhere. People are assholes. They'll treat you like sh!t.

Competing with Dell and the other big names is very easy - it turns out that only the high end IT people seem to have any sort of brand loyalty towards Dell (which is odd, really). Sell one good product to one person, and they'll sell two more for you. That's prettymuch the way it plays out. Word of mouth about ridiculously performing systems at "low prices" is rather effective.

Don't do it. It simply isn't worth the money (and the money was VERY, VERY good - $200 margin on a machine, at least 1 machine per day)

$200 a day might be nice for a teenager, but it's barely even a decent income. There are a lot of other things you can do to make the same or more with a lot less effort, and even one hour or two of technical support on any of those machines greatly reduces that margin.

Not trying to put you down or anything; just pointing out that it's not VERY, VERY good; rather, ok.

are you insane? $200 a day is what $52K a year. tha tis not decent?

thats not bad actually. good amount when you are your own boss.


Edit: ok i agree it is not decent if you live in LA or something. but hell $52k a year in most places is good.

Yes, but it that's just the profit on the parts and software, one still has totake into consideration rent or hosting fees, utilities, labor, warranty, taxes, liscensing and a whole host of other expenses that could acount for a goodly chunk of the 52,000 p/year.

very true.

but as he said that is $200 PER MACHINE and at least 1 per day. so the amount of pay goes up. hell get a business or two and it goes way up.

we made more, but it was never a guarentee, and keep in mind htat you have to pay employees, pay for calls if you go ther onsite route, and rent...

 

[tech249]

To actually answer your question Gregor, here are a few vendors:

Ingram Micro
Techdata
ASI
D&H Distribution
MA Labs

If you can buy 1000 pieces at a time, you can buy direct from most manufactures like Intel and AMD.

Now my two cents. Newegg, ZipZoomFly and Tankguys prices are going to be close if not better then these distributers. Five years ago I sold computers and did network service. Now I only do network service. Occasionally I will assemble a PC for a client or maybe buy a cheap Dell and resell it but it isn't worth the time.

Tech support sucks. How ever long you decide to warranty this PC is how long people aren't going to understand that the OS is not under warranty. They will call because spyware, viruses and their games don't work. Trying to beat into there heads that you only warranrt the HARDWARE is very difficult. The last few years I did this I would have my customers sign the warranty stating that they understood that any support on the OS isn't covered and would incur a charge.

If your anything like me, try it. You will wonder forever if it "might" of worked, could that of been your big chance? Just keep your day job and try not to position yourself to lose to much. Setup a corp to help with the liabilities. Best thing I did was talk to a lawyer an accountant before doing anything.

I'm still in business but I'm 99% service with very minimal product sales. I wouldn't be were I am unless I had first sold computers. My salary is quite a bit better too, no overhead, I work from home since everything I do is onsite or remote service.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
I did it very, very successfully up until about this time last year.

Do yourself a favor and DON'T DO IT! Seriously. Don't. I'm out of the business and I still have 400 active warranties floating around out there, somewhere. People are assholes. They'll treat you like sh!t.

Competing with Dell and the other big names is very easy - it turns out that only the high end IT people seem to have any sort of brand loyalty towards Dell (which is odd, really). Sell one good product to one person, and they'll sell two more for you. That's prettymuch the way it plays out. Word of mouth about ridiculously performing systems at "low prices" is rather effective.

Don't do it. It simply isn't worth the money (and the money was VERY, VERY good - $200 margin on a machine, at least 1 machine per day)

$200 a day might be nice for a teenager, but it's barely even a decent income. There are a lot of other things you can do to make the same or more with a lot less effort, and even one hour or two of technical support on any of those machines greatly reduces that margin.

Not trying to put you down or anything; just pointing out that it's not VERY, VERY good; rather, ok.

are you insane? $200 a day is what $52K a year. tha tis not decent?

thats not bad actually. good amount when you are your own boss.


Edit: ok i agree it is not decent if you live in LA or something. but hell $52k a year in most places is good.

I suspect that the $200/day margin doesn't take into account advertising, travel, warranty work, etc.

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: EyeMWing
I did it very, very successfully up until about this time last year.

Do yourself a favor and DON'T DO IT! Seriously. Don't. I'm out of the business and I still have 400 active warranties floating around out there, somewhere. People are assholes. They'll treat you like sh!t.

Competing with Dell and the other big names is very easy - it turns out that only the high end IT people seem to have any sort of brand loyalty towards Dell (which is odd, really). Sell one good product to one person, and they'll sell two more for you. That's prettymuch the way it plays out. Word of mouth about ridiculously performing systems at "low prices" is rather effective.

Don't do it. It simply isn't worth the money (and the money was VERY, VERY good - $200 margin on a machine, at least 1 machine per day)

$200 a day might be nice for a teenager, but it's barely even a decent income. There are a lot of other things you can do to make the same or more with a lot less effort, and even one hour or two of technical support on any of those machines greatly reduces that margin.

Not trying to put you down or anything; just pointing out that it's not VERY, VERY good; rather, ok.

are you insane? $200 a day is what $52K a year. tha tis not decent?

thats not bad actually. good amount when you are your own boss.


Edit: ok i agree it is not decent if you live in LA or something. but hell $52k a year in most places is good.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. It's an ok income, but not "VERY, VERY good." For all the frustration and volatility of working in the retail/service/support/etc. business it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[gregor7777]

Originally posted by: tech249
To actually answer your question Gregor, here are a few vendors:

Ingram Micro
Techdata
ASI
D&H Distribution
MA Labs

If you can buy 1000 pieces at a time, you can buy direct from most manufactures like Intel and AMD.

Now my two cents. Newegg, ZipZoomFly and Tankguys prices are going to be close if not better then these distributers. Five years ago I sold computers and did network service. Now I only do network service. Occasionally I will assemble a PC for a client or maybe buy a cheap Dell and resell it but it isn't worth the time.

Tech support sucks. How ever long you decide to warranty this PC is how long people aren't going to understand that the OS is not under warranty. They will call because spyware, viruses and their games don't work. Trying to beat into there heads that you only warranrt the HARDWARE is very difficult. The last few years I did this I would have my customers sign the warranty stating that they understood that any support on the OS isn't covered and would incur a charge.

If your anything like me, try it. You will wonder forever if it "might" of worked, could that of been your big chance? Just keep your day job and try not to position yourself to lose to much. Setup a corp to help with the liabilities. Best thing I did was talk to a lawyer an accountant before doing anything.

I'm still in business but I'm 99% service with very minimal product sales. I wouldn't be were I am unless I had first sold computers. My salary is quite a bit better too, no overhead, I work from home since everything I do is onsite or remote service.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

Thank you Tech249, that's was exactly the sort of input I was looking for. I'm still in the very early stages of this, but having an idea of what it may cost hardware wise is one of the pieces of the puzzle.

Any other input from anyone with perspective would be greatly appreciated.