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Discussion Is the PC business good for making money?

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Revshots

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Say if I start a at home business where people come and buy PC's, say I build a $450 PC and mark it up about $50, is that going to be good for money, especially since most people may be like "Why would I buy that for $500 when I can go to WalMart and buy a $300 eMachine?"
"Well the eMachine uses crap parts."
"Why would I care?"
*The customer leaves, meaning no money*
 
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That's funny because I was thinking of that earlier today. That probably would be a good business for people who don't know how to a build a PC themselves. So they wouldn't go to Wal-Mart, you just let them know the computer they will buy wont be able to preform the tasks that they want to. You could ask them what they use the computer for a build it for them. The only problem I would think of is you need to have enough money to buy the parts for each customer. And you need to get advertising out about it, so you will get noticed.
 
Jason

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The only problem is gaining the trust aspect. People may be handing over hundreds or thousands of dollars of pc parts to some person.
 
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People will listen if you say "They have crap parts" because frankly, everyone thinks PC building is something you learn from a University or takes some sort of education. You have to be convincing that you'll give them an amazing computer for the price range. Most people, however, don't know you can build computers either. So, people would just buy pre-built towers from Best Buy or Newegg.
 
Revshots

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That's funny because I was thinking of that earlier today. That probably would be a good business for people who don't know how to a build a PC themselves. So they wouldn't go to Wal-Mart, you just let them know the computer they will buy wont be able to preform the tasks that they want to. You could ask them what they use the computer for a build it for them. The only problem I would think of is you need to have enough money to buy the parts for each customer. And you need to get advertising out about it, so you will get noticed.

If they could prepay you would not need any money.
 
joeykeys268

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Say if I start a at home business where people come and buy PC's, say I build a $450 PC and mark it up about $50, is that going to be good for money, especially since most people may be like "Why would I buy that for $500 when I can go to WalMart and buy a $300 eMachine?"
"Well the eMachine uses crap parts."
"Why would I care?"
*The customer leaves, meaning no money*
my friends uncle does that and he seems doing alright but the problem is theres no way to get as cheap as big companys pay for parts.
 
InfectHead

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There are a lot of net noobs in the World still, the target audience is huge for it. Maybe we should start a business together? ;D
 
trtl

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If you want to just make a PC business that just makes and sells custom computers, you won't get anywhere unless you manage to get lucky like CyberPowerPC and similar companies. (Which FYI would not be operable with a single person) The thing with selling custom builds is you don't buy the hardware wholesale, while OEMs are able to, which drops the price exponentially. In the lower end market, you WILL NOT be able to compete with OEMs. The cost would have to exceed 500-600 to even be better value with custom builds nowadays.

If you want to be successful, you would mostly rely on fixing computers, with custom builds as a side profit.
 
Revshots

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If you want to just make a PC business that just makes and sells custom computers, you won't get anywhere unless you manage to get lucky like CyberPowerPC and similar companies. (Which FYI would not be operable with a single person) The thing with selling custom builds is you don't buy the hardware wholesale, while OEMs are able to, which drops the price exponentially. In the lower end market, you WILL NOT be able to compete with OEMs. The cost would have to exceed 500-600 to even be better value with custom builds nowadays.

If you want to be successful, you would mostly rely on fixing computers, with custom builds as a side profit.

Yeah, I'll fix computers and sell computers as a side profit.
 
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People will listen if you say "They have crap parts" because frankly, everyone thinks PC building is something you learn from a University or takes some sort of education. You have to be convincing that you'll give them an amazing computer for the price range. Most people, however, don't know you can build computers either. So, people would just buy pre-built towers from Best Buy or Newegg.
Story of my life. No one in my family trusts me to build a computer. I can see where they're coming from though. Giving 15 year old 600 dollars to build a computer doesn't seem like the wisest choice. Oh well, haters gonna hate.
 
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You can if you know what you are doing. The hard part is getting known. We have paid thousands of dollars for advertisement for our computer shop.
 
joeykeys268

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Story of my life. No one in my family trusts me to build a computer. I can see where they're coming from though. Giving 15 year old 600 dollars to build a computer doesn't seem like the wisest choice. Oh well, haters gonna hate.
same problem here
 
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Story of my life. No one in my family trusts me to build a computer. I can see where they're coming from though. Giving 15 year old 600 dollars to build a computer doesn't seem like the wisest choice. Oh well, haters gonna hate.

I hope when the time comes I will be trusted because my PC I wanted is about $600 plus the monitor, mouse, and keyboard. So it totaled to about $700. I'm only 16, but I did a ton of research so I hope I will be trusted to make it.
 
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Does advertising help?
You could always just advertise on this site or you could also go local and post on craigslist. There's also other options like Youtube, Google Ads, or you could go even more advanced and make your own website.

I would just say advertise on sites like this, it seems like the best choice.
 
joeykeys268

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Problem is a lot of people today escpecially those who dont know anything about computers go why get a gaming pc when i have my xbox or why get a pc instead of a mac. If your doing repairs and building on a side you should be able to make money but you have to advertise to get out there
 
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Problem is a lot of people today escpecially those who dont know anything about computers go why get a gaming pc when i have my xbox or why get a pc instead of a mac. If your doing repairs and building on a side you should be able to make money but you have to advertise to get out there
You are right about people buying an Xbox 360 instead of a PC. But there are a lot of differences between PC and console gaming that you can compare.You could tell them the advantages of playing games on the PC, like Steam having sales, many games are only accessible on PC (MMORPG's), you can multitask with you computer while playing games, and the list goes on on the many differences. You just have to convince them to play games on the PC rather than a console. And besides, if they want a Mac you can tell them that many games are not even available on Mac and it isn't really gaming computer anyway. Sure they could buy a Mac for their internet browsing and computer needs, then buy an Xbox 360 to play games on. But then they will be paying about $500 for the Xbox 360, an HD TV (if they want to play in HD), and maybe a few games. Plus their Mac computer which will be another $500 or more. This is why you tell them to buy a $700 gaming PC with everything included from you and they have their games and internet all in one machine. Besides, I have played Xbox 360 for many years, and I know how greedy Microsoft is in the Games Marketplace if you compare them to Steam.
 
joeykeys268

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You are right about people buying an Xbox 360 instead of a PC. But there are a lot of differences between PC and console gaming that you can compare.You could tell them the advantages of playing games on the PC, like Steam having sales, many games are only accessible on PC (MMORPG's), you can multitask with you computer while playing games, and the list goes on on the many differences. You just have to convince them to play games on the PC rather than a console. And besides, if they want a Mac you can tell them that many games are not even available on Mac and it isn't really gaming computer anyway. Sure they could buy a Mac for their internet browsing and computer needs, then buy an Xbox 360 to play games on. But then they will be paying about $500 for the Xbox 360, an HD TV (if they want to play in HD), and maybe a few games. Plus their Mac computer which will be another $500 or more. This is why you tell them to buy a $700 gaming PC with everything included from you and they have their games and internet all in one machine. Besides, I have played Xbox 360 for many years, and I know how greedy Microsoft is in the Games Marketplace if you compare them to Steam.
i have an xbox also and they are very greedy but some things people would argue is how its one big social network type system, you can message, voice chat, etc and some are to stubborn to see how pc is so much more expansive. Also Macs are s**ty machines ( dont even deserve to be call computers) they are over priced to hell and you pay a lot more for less preformance.
 
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i have an xbox also and they are very greedy but some things people would argue is how its one big social network type system, you can message, voice chat, etc and some are to stubborn to see how pc is so much more expansive. Also Macs are s**ty machines ( dont even deserve to be call computers) they are over priced to hell and you pay a lot more for less preformance.
Yeah I agree with you on the Macs.

I know Xbox has a big social network making it easy to communicate, but PC has that too if you use Steam. You can add friends on Steam, instant message, and voice chat. There are also Steam groups you can create, something Xbox doesn't have unless it's game specific like Call of Duty Elite. And even if you do use an app such as Call of Duty Elite, you are going to need to use your computer to access most of the features. Also, if you don't like Steam there are many other things like Xfire, Skype, and many others that I can't even think of. You can use all of those to create groups and chat with your gaming "buddies". And everyone knows that most people have or are going to want to get a computer if they have an Xbox. They are going to want to use Youtube if there into that kind of thing, Halo and Call of Duty sites if they want to access their stats, and forums like this so they can talk about their Xbox 360's. So basically everyone is going to want to have a PC if they have an Xbox 360. So I say, why not just get a gaming PC instead of an Xbox 360?
 
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