Computer wholesaler - recommendations?

[Fred]

I worked as a maintenance electrician in a factory for 26 years (+ 4-year apprenticeship so 30 years working total). Back injury resulted in medical retirement over 9 years ago so been receiving Incapacity Benefit since then. Had a DSS medical almost every year, the outcome of which has always been that they concur with my GP and hospital consultant and agree that I'm not fit to work.

Now the government have changed the goalposts and despite my condition getting worse, surprise surprise, I'm now classed as fit to work. 56 years old with 10 years of bad (and worsening) health and cannot do any physical work, ie, gardening, shelf-stacking, anything I've been used to anymore means that I'm not the ideal candidate for an employer. The only other thing I'm good at is computers so I'm thinking my only option is to go self-employed as a one-man-band computer repair chappie doing repairs, upgrades etc.

I live in Lancaster so does anyone know of any computer parts wholesalers who would supply what would essentially be a small-volume business with parts a few quid cheaper than the high street in order to make a small markup? Do you have to tell your mortgage provider that you're going to be using the spare bedroom to run a business?

TIA

[tinnews]

I think you'll find that life no longer works like that, especially in the computer hardware business. There are several quite big 'computer parts' suppliers who offer fairly reasonable prices across the range of what they sell (e.g. Lambdatek, CCL) but I guarantee that for any particular item you can find another supplier (often on eBay) that is cheaper.

Don't expect to make money on 'mark up', make the money by charging for your time.

[Fred]

OK, cheers Chris - makes sense when you think of it :-)

[whisky-dave]

I doubt you'd be able to make much from this type of job, computer parts arev quite cheap and unfortunalty get cheaper with time in general so keeping a stock is a bad idea and will lose you money. Also unless yuo are realy experinced in this sort of thing you won;t do well as time is money, a lot of computers can be brought with reasonable warrentiews anyway and by the time they run out it's usually cheaper to buy a new computer. Laptops are the latest computers and taking tehm apart is very tricky and time consuming. There's also lots of students and hobbist about that do favours for other like I do myself, so dispite all the wealth of PC problems out there few are willing to pay good money for them to be fixed by a PC repair chappie when they can go to a Pro company, not that a pro company would be better they're just more likely to BS a person into investing in a new machine.

A few local small shopes advitise repairing PCs from =A330 ....

By the sound of it you couldn;t offer an specail home service either to entice customers.

Do you have to tell your mortgage provider that you're going to be

I don;t know, but it's not the sort of info I'd volenteer unless I considered what I was doing as dangerous to the property or those in it, but the Tax man might be intersted if you're claiming it as a buiness expense, but again I have no experience or knowledge of that side of things.

[Fred]

I know what you mean but computers are the only thing apart from my trade that I know enough about to be able to even think about making some money from, and thanks to our caring government it's this or starve/lose the house/end up on the streets. I can't see any employer choosing me over a fit, healthy, 20 or 30-something for a vacancy.

My injury isn't a debilitating one in that I don't need a wheelchair or even a walking stick (so maybe I could do that home service after all) but it's the constant, all-pervading pain that I'm left with that's the problem. I get very little sleep (a very broken 3hrs/night), I'm on prescribed ketamine and morphine and just the relentlessness of it has left me a shamboling depressed wreck of my former self - but I didn't want to bore everybody with all that. The point is, I don't know how to do anything else so I can't see any other way of making money.

>> Do you have to tell your mortgage provider that you're going to be

I was more thinking along the lines of having to have insurance to cover other people's computers at my house and/or any mistakes I might make, so as the insurance people will have to know I'm assuming the mortgage people will too - or maybe I've got that all wrong.

Thanks for your reply Whisky :-)

[John Rumm]

You basically have several classes of supplier for this sort of stuff...

The big disties like Ingram Micro, Computer 2000 etc. They will deal with small businesses.

The smaller specialist distributors focused on particular market segments. Midwich would be a good example.

The system builders - specialist companies that build computers to order and supply parts.

The big online retailers like ebuyer, dabs etc, plus other suppliers like CPC.

Lastly ebay...

The first lot (Ingram et al) are probably the least useful. They are a little cheaper than the other places - but delivery costs are usually high. Add on a 2% credit card fee and for one off orders[1] of most run of the mill bits, ebuyer will get it to your door cheaper. However on high ticket items they are better, good online tech info, and good search tools - quite good for finding the right laptop.

[1] You don't generally want to hold stock - it ages and loses value too quickly.

The specialists again are handy now and then for that hard to find laser printer drum, or funky ceiling mount for a display.

A good system builder is very handy for most "new" machines since they will let you target customers with a differentiated product. You also know what the build quality will be like etc. They take the hassle out of the time wasting exercise in sourcing and building stuff. We have tried a few and found a good one that we have used for many years now called Spire based in Dorset. (Drop me a line, and I will send you contact details if you want)

Next you get ebuyer etc - probably best for lots of small bits and commodity items.

Finally ebay etc for those hard to find components and spares.

However, as the others said, don't expect to make any money on hardware sales directly - margins are wafer thin. They are really only a "add on" to facilitate the sales of more consultancy. Consultancy will make some money, software development more.

Not usually. It does not affect their risk. Your insurer may not cover business equipment kept at home, but you are unlikely to have that much anyway.

[Fred]

Thanks for that John, very informative. Believe it or not, we have relatives in Dorset and he mentioned Spire (if it's the Spire at Ebblake Ind. Est. that is) to me the other day. Cheers and thanks again.

[Bob Eager]

And it's exactly the model that people like IBM (and, recently, HP) have adopted.

[Tim Watts]

I really would not bother with telling anyone - they'll only try to make you pay more one way or another. Thousands of small businesses run from people's homes without anyone being bothered. The council (re rates/tax) only care if you have a lot of comings and goings.

It might also be easier to do repairs at the customer's site - less lifting of equipment.

Have you thought about having some other services too - like installing WIFI (inclduing securing and testing) and that sort of stuff?

[Tim Watts]

Stay away from DABS - they've gone for a sack of crap since BT bought them. I use Ebuyer and Lambdatek mostly with a few things from Ebay.

[Bob Eager]

I like World of Computers in cambridge for motherboards, etc. And Amazon for CPUs...

[Theo Markettos]

WoC are good, though a little expensive sometimes. But they're ideal here as they're just down the road.

Scan is good too... not the absolute cheapest, but they have a deal where if you make 20 posts to the HEXUS forum you get free postage for orders over £20. And the postage is by DPD next day which means they text you first thing telling you the 1 hour slot it'll arrive in. That's very handy if you're out and about a lot.

Theo

[The Natural Philosopher]

Since I helped Phil start world of computers, I seldom go anywhere else..

But cheap he ain't..for onselling. Not when you put carriage on top.

What may be worth it is to contact people like that as a roving local area Mr install and fixit.

[Fred]

No, I hadn't - but will now! Cheers Tim :-)

[Tim Streater]

It never ceases to amaze me that *anyone* would pay for Windows.

[Tim Streater]

Do your Tesco shop at the same time then.

[tim....]

I'm in a similar position to the OP (though without the injury) and I'm thinking about how to approach this type of work.

So firstly, I don't think the OP should be restrictive in an advert as to what he will do.

Place an ad that offers everything he can think of (though obviously in general terms otherwise it gets too cluttered) and then accept/reject jobs as people ring in.

Most people doing this work offer "no fix no fee", so if you don't know whether you can accomplish the task, you learn on the job. As long as you are competent enough not to make things worse sometimes you will have a wasted half day, and other times you will add a new skill.

The real question is, how many people will ring up with the computer equivalent of making up kit furniture, that you know you can do?

This is where an inexperience PC helper should start, but I have no idea how big a market it could be.

However, I am constantly surprised during my "internet helper" role at my local library with the number of really basic things that I am asked to help with, OK in that location I'm free, but the people have to make the effort to attend. They may pay for me to go to them?

On one occasion someone wanted help writing a letter. I thought that he was going to want instruction in "Word" or help with finding a suitable "cloud" storage system. But no, he wanted me to show him how to type! He was so poor at it that he offered to pay me to do the work in my own time. On that occasion I declined! Perhaps not next time.

BTW what does the OP think that he can accomplish? Here's a test:

I have a Laptop with two faults (yes really).

1) It overheats. Presumably the fan has gone (I didn't know that they had them) Does the OP think that he can fix this. I can't. (As I already use an external keyboard/mouse/screen I have solved it by standing it on end rather than flat, and using an external fan, but this isn't a solution most would accept.) 2) It has become very sluggish even when not connect to the web. I have defragged it, so it isn't that. What is it? I think I know the answer but I don't have the necessary tools to fix it (and I CBA to buy them for a one off), does the OP (a) know what the problem might be, (b) have the tool to fix it?

Finally, the man from Business Link gave me some interesting ideas for building up business. A chat with them may be helpful

tim

[John Rumm]

Yup, that's the one.

[John Rumm]

There are packages out there for this sort of thing (and specialist brokers)

That would take Professional Indemnity insurance - a bit more expensive, and it won't usually cover data loss etc. So possibly less worthwhile. (i.e. if you blow up their motherboard, it might be cheaper to write off the cost yourself than insure against it)

[Fred]

Good plan!

If you've ever spent any time around the checkouts at places like PC World or Currys etc., you'd be surprised at how many people buy a complete system and then pay an extra £49.99 or whatever to have someone go and connect it all up for them - they seem to be completely baffled that the keyboard's purple plug goes into the purple socket, and the mouse's green plug goes into the green socket.

Laptops (in my very limited experience of them) tend to get full of fluff, even to the point that the fan stops turning - yours may just need de-fluffing and a good clean out.

Again, could be heat related but (again in my very limited experience of laptops) overheating problems often lead to lockups, freezes or complete shutdown. My first choices for sluggishness and slowdown on any computer would be to clean out all temp files, temp internet files, histories etc., scan for viruses (virii?)/adware/malware/trojans etc., run a registry cleaner and defrag. Oh, and not forgetting to strip out anything from the startup that isn't necessary. Your mention of "necessary tools" would imply that you think it's a hardware problem but I can't think of any hardware that would cause sluggishness and need special tools to deal with it?

The only laptops I've dealt with previously have needed a replacement ribbon cable from motherboard to LCD panel, another needed a complete replacement LCD panel, a third one needed the LCD backlight invertor replaced and the final one was suffering from the "Nvidia Defect" and was replaced by Currys after two and a half years use. Other than that, I've de-fluffed and cleaned a further three.

Good point, thanks Tim.