Computer Business, Need advise:D

[Pingu2003]

Sorry, I dont even know myself, I have changed it now.
Alex

whats the £450 for?

[TAKTAK]

whats the £450 for?

GFX cards?

:|

[Pingu2003]

well they are ~£620

[alex.morris09]

Something else I missed, manwithnoname reminded me. Ebay users aren't all honest, whats to say you ship the system to them and they say it doesn't work, and manage to get a refund? What happens if it is broken in transit, takes a long time to get the money back from a claim, if the claim is accepted, and even then, shipping fees for a £1800 items will be atleast £100 if you want it insured (DHL anyway..)



A business account on ebay would help, but it's still got a monthly cost, payable if you sell nothing. A way of receiving money through ebay without using paypal, not going to happen, it's against the T&C, and people will be reluctant to bank transfer £1800 with no protection.

A trade account with an e-tailer will only give you a 1-2% discount from experience, you need to apply for one, which is difficult getting accepted, they want a regular supply of parts.

£700-£800 is still too high for what you're aiming for, you will struggle.

Wow, well, you seem to have successfully out me off quite allot, is there anything I can do in this business area, even ifs only £40 a week. I enjoy it, I like to think I'm good at it, and it would be allot better than my job now

Thanks
Alex

PS: I am new to these forums, I notice in your thing at the side you have been thanked by people, how do I do this?

[alex.morris09]

well they are ~£620

Yer minus the equivalent cost of the 4850, I don't want to be to optimistic now do I.

[TAKTAK]

PS: I am new to these forums, I notice in your thing at the side you have been thanked by people, how do I do this?

Thanks feature doesn't kick in until 25 posts

And if you like tech, then stick around

[PeterStoba]

Wow, well, you seem to have successfully out me off quite allot, is there anything I can do in this business area, even ifs only £40 a week. I enjoy it, I like to think I'm good at it, and it would be allot better than my job now

Thanks
Alex

PS: I am new to these forums, I notice in your thing at the side you have been thanked by people, how do I do this?

I didn't mean to put you off, just warning you that it is difficult and not very likely to suceed. I hope it came across as helpful and not trying to put you off.

as for the thanks, you need 25 posts, the more you post the more you can do - http://forums.hexus.net/welcome-hexu...r-rewards.html

[alex.morris09]

Thanks feature doesn't kick in until 25 posts

And if you like tech, then stick around

Ahhh lol, I might have to. Thing is atm I don't own a PC, I did but I needed a laptop, I went for the MacBook lol


But still, not bad.

[alex.morris09]

I didn't mean to put you off, just warning you that it is difficult and not very likely to suceed. I hope it came across as helpful and not trying to put you off.

as for the thanks, you need 25 posts, the more you post the more you can do - http://forums.hexus.net/welcome-hexu...r-rewards.html

Wow thanks

Free shipping at Scan !

Cheers, If i remember and i get to 25 posts I'll thankyou lol

Cheers
Alex

[TAKTAK]

Wow thanks

Free shipping at Scan !

Cheers, If i remember and i get to 25 posts I'll thankyou lol

Cheers
Alex

+ the SCAN support forum is on HEXUS, so you see the SCAN guys on here all the time anyway

[Funkstar]

I enjoy it, I like to think I'm good at it, and it would be allot better than my job now

For £40 a week, i think you would start to hate it, and that would be a shame

Personally, I think if you want to make money from your hobby, the best thing to do is start fixing peoples PCs for an hourly rate or something similar. You can then build up a customer base, one of which would probably ask you to build them a bespoke system. You can then either build to order or even tell them what to order, and you assemble it for them for a fee.

Much less hastle and a lot more opertunity for you to make sure they know where they stand as far as support and waranty is concerned.

[scaryjim]

Personally, I think if you want to make money from your hobby, the best thing to do is start fixing peoples PCs for an hourly rate or something similar.

Couldn't agree more with this.

I've played the self-employed in IT game. It's virtually impossible to turn enough money from selling systems. Quite apart from anything else, you'll be spending at least £80 per machine on Windows: the big OEMs get huge discounts and can virtually throw Windows in for free. Support is the one where you can genuinely turn a profit. Of course, at 15 you don't really need to be concerned about turning profits, but if you start doing odd jobs for friends, family, etc. it'll give you a starting point if it goes well and you decide to try to make something more of it in the future.

If you really want to get into building, then your best shot is personalised custom builds, again for friends and family (and perhaps their acquaintances / friends). This is pretty much exclusively what I did for people when I was self employed - they told me their requirements and their budget, and I put the two hands together (you'll find a lot more people know how much they can afford to spend than know exactly what they want their computer to do!). It means you'll spend a lot of time balancing performance and price, and occasionally buying components you're not so sure about to fit within a budget (that's when you come into the Hexus forums and say "Is this PSU really as bad as I think it is?" ), but you might be able to scrape £20 - £40 for yourself out of each build, plus you get to know that you provided a really good service to your "customer".

EDIT: I also recommend reading other people's posts properly before replying, since I've pretty much said exactly the same as Funkstar just with a lot more words!

[moogle]

Personally, I think if you want to make money from your hobby, the best thing to do is start fixing peoples PCs for an hourly rate or something similar. You can then build up a customer base, one of which would probably ask you to build them a bespoke system. You can then either build to order or even tell them what to order, and you assemble it for them for a fee.

+1

Much more feasible to start this way than the way you were planning to do.
Might not build as many systems but at least you'll be building some and getting some money

[Pingu2003]

For £40 a week, i think you would start to hate it, and that would be a shame

Personally, I think if you want to make money from your hobby, the best thing to do is start fixing peoples PCs for an hourly rate or something similar. You can then build up a customer base, one of which would probably ask you to build them a bespoke system. You can then either build to order or even tell them what to order, and you assemble it for them for a fee.

Much less hastle and a lot more opertunity for you to make sure they know where they stand as far as support and waranty is concerned.

no offence but i wouldnt let a 15 year old near any of my pcs

[Funkstar]

no offence but i wouldnt let a 15 year old near any of my pcs

I didn't see that, doesn't change my opinion though. I know when I was 15 I was fixing PCs for friends and family. I bet a lot of other forum members were the same. Besides, you aren't likely to be Alex's target market

[jim]

I looked into it myself, and just didn't bother. The only way to make money building/selling PCs is to rip off people who don't understand - and that isn't for me.

If you have a look at Scan 3XS systems, you can compare the parts that they put into the machine with the final price for the build, and when I last checked it was around £100 on top of the parts to build, test, ship and insure it for one year.

I realise that it's quite tempting, but think about all the problems you could have. If a part breaks, you'll have to retrieve it, return it to Scan (at your own return postage cost), wait for a part to come back etc. You'll also have to post the machine to them at your own cost (which will be astronomical when you don't have a contract). I know a fair bit about my PC's, and it's been broken since October with me able to do very little, generally at the mercy of Scan. If that was a customer, I'd be in serious trouble.

The repair/maintenance route is far better, and one that I'm seriously considering. I currently wipe malware from friend/family PCs for nothing on a very regular basis, and it's very easy to do, and very easy to charge for. Furthermore, you'll get some people buying new hardware, but giving up on fitting it, and wanting someone to do it for them, and then maybe if they're getting a new television set up, they'll ring you up first before they ask the retailer to send someone round for three times the price. It's dead easy money if you can get it, and certainly a lot less stress with no warranty to honour.

As for the 15 year old thing, in my experience people are more happy to let a teenager look at their PC than most household appliances - there's some kind of mysticism about PCs which the older generation informs me only kids seem to understand