Building and selling computers

jd87

Has anyone tried doing this on ebay? Is it possible to make money from it? I think I have the knowledge and know-how, but I only want it to be a bit of a hobby really. I might build one or two a week. Can I compete against the illegal importers, the people selling "refurbished" as new, and the people simply lying about the system specs?

Any experiences?

DaveAshton

jd87 wrote: »

Can I compete against the illegal importers, the people selling "refurbished" as new, and the people simply lying about the system specs?

Yes, you can compete. It might be difficult to start with, but once you get some good feedback the buyers will see you supply what you offer, so they'll be confident about buying from you.

Obviously, you'll have to register as a business (both with ebay and HMRC), but that's easy enough to do.

coldstar

Yes you can compete....but not on price!

You will need to focus on your products quality, reliability and your companies customer service

However dont forget that as you making and selling these systems (even if its just a hobby) you will need product liability insurance in case one of your PCs causes damage to people or property (fire, electric shock..whatever).

cyberbob

The problem yopu will have is getting your products known. With a reconditioned computer people know the make.(be it a sony or a Mac). with built computers to the average buyer they will be an unknown quantity so your Market will be limited to those who know a lot about PCs and the components. If I was you I would try looking at doing a mix of built and reconditioned computers and build up a customer base with excellellent customer service.

boombap

You could try targeting niche markets - ie basic PCs for kids to do homework on that's been preloaded with software that parents will like such as web filters or you could go for PCs that will appeal to online gamers.

Good luck!

S.

NeilJung

I would think that doing it on ebay could be asking for trouble to be honest. You'd be better off building custom made to order systems locally. The components market at the moment does not make it as much a saver when building a system as it once did, and the larger manufacturers are operating on the slimmest margins ever. Factor in the cheap price that they can offer an OEM operating system thanks to bulk deals with Microsoft and your average self-build does not have a lot of scope to make a profit on. Then you have to be customer support for every little niggle and fault that develops, and make no mistake you will get customers who screw up the computers they buy and blame you. Don't expect them to be reasonable or tech-savy. I think you'd find it's not a viable business and not worth the hassle. If you do decide to pursue it though, then good luck.

exup

I bought a book on diagnosing PC problems for use with my studies at college - One of the early paragraphs said if you are going to build PCs as a hobby for friends / family etc then thats ok and you may make a bit of money from it - but if you want to make a business out of it - however small - then its just about impossible to keep it as a hobby and you will end up spending much more on having parts/eqpt to hand - if you dont have the parts to hand then you find you cannot build the PCs quickly enough due to shortages, and if you spend alot on parts then you end up risking them becoming obsolete before you have chance to use them. Its a very tricky balancing act only doing it as a hobby

Hintza

WSould it not be better trying to build PC's for folk on a commission basis.

As for making money surely you can price the parts up and add on your labour and then see if there is any margin?

Just to let you know my last 2 computers bar one were hand made by a friend in the business. When I needed my current PC he said he couldn't compete and just to buy from Dell. Which I did.

You will make more money offering your services as a repair/service agent.