Is there any money in building PCs?

I would have ot say building computers is one of my big interests, in technology in general, I read 4 tech columns daily (well, I read them more often to see if they've updated, but no :() and basically it's what I like to call my hobby.

I've been thinking for sometime, I'd like to build computers for people - have it friendly and informal, so I'd go round their house or phone them to talk to them about what they wanted and what they wanted to spend, then suggest a system and see what they thought.

I wouldn't want to make massive amounts of money because one day I'm going to be an accountant :p (I'm at university at the moment) - it's just my hobby really. As a student, I don't often have enough money to upgrade my own computer, so I feel I'd enjoy being able to put them together for other people!

But obviously I can't do it for nothing, because if someone decides they don't want it and I've just built a system for £500 then I'm £500 down. I was thinking 10% commision or so.

But then I'm competing against Dell and then it just seems like I don't have any chance whatsoever. What do you guys think? Does anyone do it? I know the market is fairly saturated, but it would be for pocket money mainly (like £100 a month income would be lovely), but then again I can't compete on price, and I don't have any qualifications, I'm just an enthusiast.

no there is no cash in it what so ever.

just about anyone can build a pc.

and the reason you will never compete is beacuse mesh or someone will be able to buy 100 160 gig hdds and get them alot cheaper than you can for buying 5 or 10. dont bother its been done and doesnt work unless your a shop or something.

And also people trust people who work in pc shops or for a real company, although you may know more than some of them, you have to respect how naive and stupid alot of people are when it comes to pcs :)

That's a shame. What about PC consultancy then :p when I can tell people what PC to get.

if you can build yourself up a client-base, then you can earn quite a turn. I can make about 50 in a good month, nothing in a bad month :)

thats for fixing people's PC's, not building them:)
i also advise people on how to best upgrade their machines :)

In a word, No.

:(

Also think of the support.....can you offer it, and can you offer a warranty? chances are if you're building it for people, they don't really know about PCs.

It's not really worth it....

no

simpley - no

You can make money from it, but it's not easy to do, requires a special approach/situation and isn't for the mass market.

In general, I'd agree with the consensus ... you probably can't make enough from it to be worthwhile, and you'll let yourself in for support and product liability issues that can be a nightmare. I wouldn't do it.

Join a company that does it and work your way to the top? :)

there was bugger all money in it about 8 or 9 years ago when i worked for a local store, so i'm sure there is even less in it now.

The only exception might be if you find a niche market, something like high performance customised gaming machines. Although again, you will have to support it, and being high value highly complex systems this could get costly very quickly.

Anyway, i used to think building PCs was great. I loved going it all those years ago. It gets old really quickly though. I always had hands that were scratched to hell, really dry skin from packing boxes and the chemicals they use in producing electronics.

You cant compete with the bulk buying power of big companies to get stuff at a price where you can make a profit.
Fixing them tho, if you can get a cllient base, then you can make pocket money.

Unfortunately no. Even if you build someone a PC the moment they get a virus, slowdown, spyware, unwanted program then the likelyhood is that you will be facing a phone call and bang goes the money/time equation.

As has been said above, the individual simply cannot complete with the big boys. There is very little market for the specialist high end market and even then your margins would be tiny.

Many of us have thought about it but have been wise. It's best to use your skills to help family and friends with repairs and upgrades etc.

its best to either start a business doing it i would think, or going into that feidl if your really good

Your best bet would be to focus on tech support, the service industry is where its at lol, also word of mouth advertising works really well if you offer a good service, people are always going "my pc isnt working... ...Well i know this guy..."

Yea, wasn't looking at it as a career, more a helpful summer job, as of easter I'm not doing anything until october, and don't wanna be stuck doing a mcjob.

be aware that if you do damage or lose data - especially on business machines your going to be sued.

yeh, the reason i dont do it fro my mates is beacuse if the slightest thing goes wrong its my falut, so if you do something like ikonia said your fooked.

I dont think there is money to be made building the things but
there is from fixing them and the like.

As you are at uni you can put up signs saying you can give
advice and fix problems or windows reinstalls. Advice wise
spec up a machine and make them order it from say scan.

What you charge should be based on what you know and how
well you can sort it. If you go and fix it and take ages because
it stumped you for a while you shouldn't charge so much.

As you are a student and it will be unofficial then I suggest
£10 and hour min £15.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kumagoro

I dont think there is money to be made building the things but
there is from fixing them and the like.

As you are at uni you can put up signs saying you can give
advice and fix problems or windows reinstalls. Advice wise
spec up a machine and make them order it from say scan.

What you charge should be based on what you know and how
well you can sort it. If you go and fix it and take ages because
it stumped you for a while you shouldn't charge so much.

As you are a student and it will be unofficial then I suggest
£10 and hour min £15.

---

its wiered because i prob know not a vast amount morethan you abd we charge 47 pa and people pay it no problem.

Assuming yours is a real company though you are insured pay
tax have over heads etc.

I think that as its students he will get more business charging
a fair price if he gets lots of business then the price goes up.

Through personal experience I found that the vast majority of people want you to fix their pcs for nothing or almost nothing.
Telephone calls are either timewasters like that or some salesman wanting to help you 'improve' your business by handing over several hundred quid for some 'service' he is flogging.

There's no money in building computers.

There is pocket money to be made from repairing PC's.

Have a structured price per hour and only charge for the time it takes to fix the problem. People will be much more receptive to asking for help again if you are open with how you spent your time and therefore their money.
People have this idea that PC repairmen are all rogue traders so if you make people feel comfortable and they feel like they received value then they will spread their advice and your number onto others.
When i lived in halls i constantly had crates of beer in my room as i asked to be paid in beer/other or food as this made it feel less business like for me. Personally i asked for £5 - £10 per hour or equivalent, however its hard to charge any more when you are both students.

I usually work for free tbh, just doing odd work for folks that need help.

If they *insist* on paying, i'm not going to say no, and set a rate of £5.50p/h, which isn't much apparently, but it makes me some money every so often :)

Lots of people seem to struggle to setup broadband with wireless on laptops.. Have seen several people in pcworld complaining about that one

support is where the money is at. i got paid £30 for replaceing a laptop screen which took the whole of 30mins and i keep getting referalls from that one customer. some stuff i dont as for a charge. especially when it is something new. although i do sometimes get a hypocondriacs pc and for them there is a standard no fault charge.

Building, no.
Support, yes.

I don't build systems for anyone other than friends and family who I would end up offering support to anyway. It's just not worth the hassle of doing your best to put a system together for about the same price as a big vendor for an absolute pittance profit and then be called on everytime something goes wrong.

Even building niche systems offers very little because there are already bigger operations than your one man bandit building them.

Now offering support to the people who's 14 year old son has gotten their pc riddled with adware/spyware/malware from his extracurricular web browsing is another story. You can quite happily make £25 or so from each customer every few months for a system clean up and patch and also make a few quid offering solutions.

i do the same as monkeyville. payment is accepted in the form of beer or single malt whiskey depending if they are still students or not :)

i used to do it a lot more than i do now and i would get phone calls from people i had done it for who only every phoned for one reason... tech support. drives you nuts after a while. i began answering the phone "hello, noah's tech support helpline" to them, that got the point across :P