Computers can be cheap!

[Deleted User]

Fifer wrote: »

Or £1200 for a 486DX2 with no monitor - a computer auction bargain! It did have twin floppies mind.

When I was a teenager, one of my neighbours paid £2k for a 286 machine. It's so scary that my £25 Raspberry pi completely outclasses it..

Anyhoo - there's a good reason that most little shops that built PCs have gone bump - it's no longer very cost effective (since you can't buy the parts in the quantities that Dell ect can)

atrixblue.-MFR-.

ringo_24601 wrote: »

When I was a teenager, one of my neighbours paid £2k for a 286 machine. It's so scary that my £25 Raspberry pi completely outclasses it..

Anyhoo - there's a good reason that most little shops that built PCs have gone bump - it's no longer very cost effective (since you can't buy the parts in the quantities that Dell ect can)

there will always be a market for custom PC's, refurbished PC laptop tablets.

small shops are not being squeezed by dell or pc world who wish to dominate that secotor of the market, its the overheads that kill them shop rental, liability insurance, buisiness use car insurance,water, gas, electric, coucil tax, phone, broadband,and licenses from different software companies, if you cant generate the buisiness and popularity within the location then your not going to meet your overheads, and thus not viable to stay in trade, location is also key, theres no point being next door to PC world, theres no point being within a 3 mile radious of other small pc shops that are well established either.

i think the buisiness model your trying to achieve is already been tapped into wihtout success OP ive not seen many survive past 12-18 months where i live.

you can buy many pc parts in bulk with trade discounts as long as your VAT registered buisiness.

youll be in competition with online competitors aswell, overclockers, aswell as novertech offer barbones, motherbourd bundles, retail box and oem box processors, aswell as custom builds upgrades and reasonable finance schemes.

those who wish to rent and cannot afford to buy a PC will be those who have no money, so rental agreemants are often not adhered to by some customers, then theres fuel costs to deliver and retreive the pc laptop or tablets upon rental termination of refusal to return, youll also be face with those who will give you false information to obtain goods from you, so you have to have a stringent check inplace to ensure they are who they say they are driving licenses are often not updated with correct addresses etc.

esuhl

twix9 wrote: »

Hello everyone, I'm here for a bit of support. I'm starting up a business in the North-East, and in order to do so I need funding. One of the conditions of my funding is proof of a demand for my product, so here goes:

I don't get it... you're trying to work out if there is a demand for cheap computers...?

Are you concerned that people might actually want overpriced computers? Or that computers are just a niche fad that won't catch on?

There's nothing new about the idea of selling computers, so you're coming to quite a crowded and established marketplace. But good luck...

aerostar

The other thing to look at in your prices is the cost of the operating system, Big boys pay a very small amount for Windows, even OEM suppliers are nearly £60 plus Vat that makes up a fair proportion of the cost of a cheap computer.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

aerostar wrote: »

The other thing to look at in your prices is the cost of the operating system, Big boys pay a very small amount for Windows, even OEM suppliers are nearly £60 plus Vat that makes up a fair proportion of the cost of a cheap computer.

OEM builders editions can be bought with a harddrive and is more cost effective to obtain a OS this way, many charge the going rate of an OS and this where the big profit scale comes in the builders make double their money back in just 2 or 3 upgrades.

if i were to build a custom system to wich im currently investigating, im going to buy 2 SSD's and OEM builder win 8 pro 64, not only will it be cheaper than buying it retail, it will also serve me time over when i need it.

banger9365

we have two pc shops where i live and a very well know online retailer for parts and pc world ,
and i can tell you the two shop sell tack ,you say cheap no i say crap
you can go to pc world and buy better and cheap for the price with !!!!y world warranty's ,yes we knock pc world but they are cheap for every day pc's and to build one for the same money is really no ,and i have a trade account with the online retailer and once you but that operating system on thats the killer ,how do you beat this for surfing and email for a desk top http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/compaq-cq2910ea-desktop-pc-17392833-pdt.html with an operating system,
my HTPC that was built on the cheap was over £300

kwikbreaks

I suspect some independents avoid the hefty operating system cost by installing pirate versions...

Certainly I gave up rolling my own PCs quite a few years back as it simply couldn't be done for the price of tailor mades. I'd have thought the only reason now to home build would be a high end specialist machine. I really can't see a small scale operator being able to compete with the big boys on standard machines.

sabretoothtigger

The premium to be sold on products like this is your own labour. I'd just piggy back the ultra competitive low margin computer parts business, the real juicy part that might employ you is your own personal service to people.

To call out a real person from one of these big brand names is hella expensive so you are a great local alternative.
Trying to compete on physical parts is unlikely to be profitable from what Ive seen, more likely you would succeed by tagging that to your success in labour provision and call out fixes

Quite a few clever people like doctors lawyers, will just buy a computer and chuck it away if theres any hitch to using it.
Its less hassle for them to just buy a new one with warranty, same kind of culture to people who buy a new car every 3 years I guess when modern cars easily do 10

System

interesting the op hasn't replied to this at all - and we've not seen gino on here recently either, I wonder..........:)