Taking Orders over the phone - Now taking them online

bookduck

ejones999 wrote: »

From a buyers point of view I would not buy from you if you did not offer credit card payments.
This gives me protection should a dispute occur or you go belly up.

As a business, I would not buy from you either because I would expect an engineer to visit quickly and be up and working asap. If it is a small company they should be very local. No return to bench either, I want a visit. I want a first time fix the majority of the time or a fully working loan PC. Would want like for like replacement, so no incompatibility issues.

Price is not everything, but does count. Every day that the Pc is not working I will loose revenue and also still have to pay staff. A few hundred pound diffrence is small change to an established business.

I'd probably go for Dell, possibly Fujitsu, Viglen, Mesh - biggish and long standing players.

Think there is very little money in hardware these days.

buglawton

Yes and the big boys obtain serious bulk discounts on their Windows licenses. This fact alone causes quite a few small PC builders to give up (as one I used to know did - he moved into breeding tropical fish instead). If you have the skills it is worth considering opening a PC support co, as here there is plenty of demand and no (or little) stock to carry.

Idiophreak

It's gotta be worth getting an online shop sorted out - I don't think they're hard/expensive to set up these days and it makes your outfit seem a lot less amateurish

commadus

Thanks for the input. The devices are UMPC - Dell etc dont (as yet) build or make these devices) Ultra portable PC's suitable for service engineers etc.

buglawton

I agree with Idiophreak about the online shop. You can even get a Configurator option bolted on (I use Cubecart and am well happy).

epz_2

commadus wrote: »

Thanks for the input. The devices are UMPC - Dell etc dont (as yet) build or make these devices) Ultra portable PC's suitable for service engineers etc.

what like the asus eeepc for £200, that market is going to be a bloodbath next year, if i recal the reason asus got such a weird device out was intel did the reference design to fight the olpc and any chinese child labor factory can bring something out something similar.

frankly im holding out for a 10" umpc with a touch screen that rotates all the way round to use as a ebook reader and hopefully one of intels new 9w processors so it doesnt need a fan. 4 gigs flash is fine though as nas's are cheap.

commadus

Well the ones I am looking at bringing in will have HSDPA connectivity (well in February when they ship)

And they will cost less than the equivalent smartphone sim free.

buglawton

It does sound like an on-line shop will be needed - how can you offer a phone only orders system for an apparently off the shelf (with a handful of selectable options) item like this? If you have something that can beat the Asus eeepc (which is shipping with XP too) it would indeed make industry news.

commadus

After reading the above I have come to the conclusion that I do need an online shopping cart.

Now the tough question how do I proceed from here?

1) Go for an all in one shopping cart, website, ecommerce solution?
2) Develop my own shopping cart and then integrate into a payment provider?
3) Buy an off the shelf shopping cart?

One more point how would you integrate the shopping cart/ website with an accounting system?

isofa

If it's business to business sales and large value amounts, then don't worry about credit cards payments, invoice and ask for payment via BACS. However if they are small transactions, you might want to look at offering it as a payment option.

I always build in the cost of banking charges, electronic / BACS payments are cheap, but cheques cost a fortune to cash, so avoid where possible. Haggle with the bank for more free or discounted banking, I got almost 3 years with mine And don't be afraid to switch to another bank for another years free transactions!

Get a signed agreement to supply, like an official order from the client business first, so then there is at least a legal set of documents if they refuse to pay.

However if you are selling to end-users and consumers, then definitely set-up a merchant account and offer credit card transactions, I'd never buy anything high-value with a debit card nowadays, in fact, I rarely use my debit card. Credit cards are more secure with their protection for purchases.

If you can get into the market and make a profit in the next couple of years, do, because it'll either soon be awash with cheap clones, or it'll die and they'll be no custom left.

Good luck, running a business is sometimes fantastic, sometimes a nightmare!