Pc Building for £££££

Hi there,

Not sure if this is the right forum section but...

I am thinking of going into the pc building "Industry"

Do you think there is money in buying individual parts and putting them together and selling them as a "Gaming" PC on ebay or something similar?

I'm Talking £600 Pc's, maybe 1 a week, theoretically its profitable, but im just looking for people with experience give me some advice.

Burrell

 

Think long and hard, the greatest issue you must consider is follow up support service because that is what people who don't build their own PCs will be wanting. Can you produce a product better than Dell (as an example), at a cheaper price and then offer a better guarantee/after sales service. You will have idiots that ring you on a weekly basis because they can't get the printer to work, their Facebook account got hacked, they can't scan a document, they have been foolish on the net and have virus infestations that have crippled their system (and BLAME YOU), etc, etc, etc.

 

Not only is that what they will be wanting, if you pre-install an OEM version of Windows on these machines - also what buyers will expect, you are "required" by the terms of the OEM license to provide that support! See Paragraph 7 of the Microsoft OEM System Builder License were it says,

Can you afford to provide EXPERT technical support for 1 year for each machine by selling (hopefully) 1 per week? And Bold Eagle is 100% correct, I am not going to call my clients idiots (because my business survives on repeat business and word-of-mouth advertising), but some of the trouble calls you WILL get are nothing short of idiotic. And you are expected to answer that phone on their time, not yours.

As a system builder of custom PCs, I can tell you there is little profit in it. I can build better PCs than Dell, HP, and the others, but it is impossible to compete with them in terms of prices. This is because Dell and HP can go to Western Digital and buy 500,000 hard drives at a HUGE volume wholesale discounts, and more importantly, they have the sales volume to turn them around and sell them with new computers. They can do the same with motherboards, RAM, PSUs, cases, optical drives, etc. What kind of volume discount are you going to get when you only buy 2 or 3 at a time? Not much, if any. And with next to nothing in profit margin, what kind of markup can you expect? Very little. Dell makes about 700 computers/hours, mostly through cost cutting automation. Dell has the best profit margin in the business and yet they only make about 8% profit on each machine. This means on a $600 Dell, they make $48 profit. There's no way you can make that percentage - at least not consistently. Can you live on less than $50 per week?

If I buy 10 500Gb HDs in the hopes I get enough orders, I am out that "investment" money until I sell every one. And if my client wants 1Tb drives instead of 500Gb, the 500s sit on the shelf. Buying motherboards in quantity is VERY risky because (1) they go obsolete quicky as the makers come out with newer models, and (2) no motherboard offers universal CPU support - you (and your clients) are stuck with a CPU that fits that board. If you buy 10 Intel iCore 7 boards, but your client wants to go AMD, you are hosed. And in the meantime, you have to store all these un-used parts.

Also, there's other overhead (besides the technical support and parts costs). When you buy a computer case, it comes in a flimsy box. It does not have to be a rugged, heavy-duty shipping box because an empty case is not very heavy. But install a motherboard, HD, opticals, CPU and its heatsink fan assembly, and a heavy power supply in the case, and suddenly you don't have a light case to ship, you have a heavy computer to ship, requiring a different, or outer shipping box, at your expense. More boxes if the computer includes things like a keyboard and mouse, or a monitor.

Unless you already have a loyal client base, and a reputation for building quality computers AND provide quality support (and you don't get the loyal client base without that reputation and support), you will not make a living out of building and selling computers.

 

I built PCs for a while for friends/acquaintances/referrals but the money was not worth it, like was said before, the service end of things is was what killed it, even though my machines were better than anything Dell could put out, I couldn't compete as most people don't look for quality or even realize that they are getting quality components.

What do you do when a board goes bad, tell them it will take a couple of weeks for an RMA? Nah, not worth the headaches unless you build the same machine for everybody and have spares. Besides, this does not include malware fixes either. Nope, never again.

 

I have to agree with Bold Eagle

Anything people will consider is why should they go with you if they can go with a known manufacture like Hp Dell etc.

IMO Custom build is better as you get quality parts (No generic psu's that fail and have crappy output) but basic computer users wont understand that.

 

Well, as a custom builder, the reason is simple - my machines are better, in EVERY equipment class category! Period. My machines truly are custom-built, one at a time, for each client based how that specific machine will be used. My systems are fully updated, and fully secured behind a security system built for that client - and not some MONSTER security suite with all kinds of bells and whistles nobody needs, that expires in 180 days.

With a Dell (or any big maker), you can only "personalize" from a very limited list of Dell (or HP or eMachine, etc.) branded options. Try to find out the maker of Dell drives, or RAM. I can't say their stuff is bad quality - it is almost all good quality. But it is not the best in ever category either. With a custom built, the list of suppliers is limitless - so I can pick the best regardless of brand. And the client knows, by brand and model number, exactly what motherboard, PSU, CPU, RAM, graphics card, HD, and optical drive is in that Antec case.

I still can't, and don't even try to compete in price. I don't have their purchasing power. I don't built "budget" machines either. If a someone wants a budget machine, I'll send them to Walmart.

 

The only way you can compete on price with the big guys is when you build top-end gaming rigs, NLE video editing workstations, etc., anything less is not worth the aggro and gamers usually build their own anyway.

Sourcing the best and most compatible components for these highly specialised machines at the right price might cost you 5 - 12 hours for each PC (more if the go ahead is delayed by more than a few weeks), how do you factor that into your charges ... ?