Building custom PCs for profit?

[ethan4096]

I'm 15 and I'd like to make some cash while managing school and sports. I love building PCs and figured I could help people by building PCs that will fit their exact budget and perform better than the ones at Best Buy for the same price. I figured I would make an ad on Craigslist explaining what I do and charge $50 or so depending on how complicated the build is. For example, if someone wanted custom water cooling, I would charge more, but if it is just air cooled, I would charge $50 and maybe even less.

Two questions,

Is this a good idea? (Do you think it is a good way to make money)
How would you go about getting the parts? (i.e. have the customer buy the parts and give them to you, build it, and give it back and charge the labor fee)

EDIT: These PCs could be for gaming or general use or whatever

 

[genthug]

It's a fine idea, but I don't know that I would make the undertaking at 15. A) I'd be worried about you posting things on Craigslist at the age of 15 (please don't take that the wrong way) and B) a lot of people looking for someone to take this over would be worried about putting it in the hands of a kid (again, please don't take that the wrong way). You'd also have to have a system where if a part breaks during building, you best hope you either have enough to replace it, or that the company can RMA it.

Customer buys the parts, gets them to you, you return a built PC.

 

[USAFRet]

1. Convince me. Why should I pay you $50 to build a PC?
2. "peoples exact budget" People do not know what they want. Or if they do, they'll just assemble themselves.
3. Warranty. What happens when something breaks? Can I call you at 2AM?

What do you personally bring to the table for this $50 construction fee?

I am NOT trying to rain on your parade. But just a few things you have to think about.

 

[ethan4096]

1. Convince me. Why should I pay you $50 to build a PC?
2. "peoples exact budget" People do not know what they want. Or if they do, they'll just assemble themselves.
3. Warranty. What happens when something breaks? Can I call you at 2AM?

What do you personally bring to the table for this $50 construction fee?

I am NOT trying to rain on your parade. But just a few things you have to think about.

I'm asking people to pay me $50 to build a PC for the reason I mentioned earlier, I can build computers that perform much better than ones from Best Buy (I use that as an example because that is the only place to buy a computer in person where I live) at the same price. This also means you can get a PC that performs the same as a Best Buy one for less.

If someone has a budget to spend on a PC, I can get them the best performance for that amount, or if they don't I could find out what they are using it for and put a build together to match. For example, let's say someone is just doing some basic multitasking work and they just need something that performs well and they'd be willing to spend $600. This prebuilt shows up on the front page of Best Buy when you go to the desktop section.

Lenovo PC

So they think, "well it says i5, 1 TB, and GT 730, sounds like it must be pretty good." It isn't necessarily a bad PC, but it is overpriced (it's hard to imagine that they charged $650 for it at one point). I just spent a bit of time putting this together to show what I would put together for that price.

PCPartPicker Build

I would round that off to $610 for a profit of about $45. This one is far superior in my opinion and it costs much less (only $10 more including labor).

If something breaks, I'd be willing to handle the RMA if applicable, and if it is not covered, I would charge $10 to replace it plus the part cost. I wouldn't pick up the phone at 2 AM, but I would be happy to help the customer get their computer up and running as fast as possible. If it is a problem that requires someone beyond my skill level to fix, I's refer them to a computer repair specialist.

Later, if the customer wanted to upgrade, they could either buy the part and I would install it and charge accordingly, or they could give me the old part and I could give them credit for a new one.

 

[USAFRet]

I know you 'say' you can. But I'm entrusting several hundred dollars to an untrusted entity.
BestBuy and Lenovo are known entities. You, OTOH, are not.
You need to build up a local rep. Word of mouth. Fix your dad's friends system. Then his friend. Get a name in the area.
Then you'll have something to bring to the table.
As said...convince me.


And that Lenovo system at BestBuy also includes the OS. Add $100 to your build.

 

[Justiceinacan]

I already started this at 16, my "customers" have been only local (idk how much I should trust shipping a PC, they're fragile, but I shipped two cross country so far and it worked okay)

I used two PC stores as my motivation : Alienware, which is easy to out-do because I noted that each of their PC's is at least $500 more than it is worth (usually way more) and the systems have crap for cooling. I wanted to build the high-end seekers a machine they'll enjoy at a decent ish price (locally, again) And I used best buy as another. I noted some office type desktops had an i7 6700 (K) on them! Which I found crazy. I made some parts list and originally started with some flyers near this "gaming hub" downtown (it's basically a nerd lounge, haha) and I got a few who were interested. It was simple enough for me...

As for building fees, I went with $30. I used similar logic to you, in the brochure I left on the bulletin board at said lounge. Basically "The Alienware you're eyeing- Runs too hot, awfully expensive, and likely has software on it already, slowing you down. I can build you something better."

I made an alternate email and left that in the brochure as a contact to iron out details. For instance, one person contacted me and said "I need something that blows away my AMD rig right now (9590, HD 7870 x2) I was looking at an Area-51 from Alienware and it looked promising. Can you really build me something better, cheaper?

I asked him which one, he was looking at a 6800k + GTX 970.
I then went through the process ; You know that in most games, you won't need 6 cores? The i7 6700k has fewer cores, but they're stronger so they'll likely help you.
You mentioned 4k a little while ago. I think you'll like having an NVIDIA GTX 1080 with you if you ever want to make the jump to that.
Do you really need 4 TB HDD Space?

Etc. Etc.

My simple procedure said that parts and labor are bought after funds are exchanged, so I used paypal (cause it was simple) and he paid for the rig + build fee, etc. and I ordered it and got to work. About 2 days later I drove it down to the lounge, and later that night I got the email (wow this is so amazing)

Here's a few things to consider
-As brought up before, why pay you $50 to build? At least make your reasoning very clear. It's evident to me that build > buy because I love building and all my builds have worked great for me.
-Why wait for a long time to ship parts, wait for you to build, THEN you either ship it or bring it down yourself when I can get one right away out of best buy?
(kinda same reasoning + patience)
-Make sure you have a clear payment method. I used paypal for these people at the lounge because I noted that younger people tended to favor it. I built a couple home-office desktops for older people who just gave me a check. Choose one and do a little research on how it works if you don't already know.
-Warranty? They probably won't know what the parts are, so you either need to make it clear "I do not fix your PC after it becomes yours" etc. or something clearly. I simply say "if something happens in the first 3 months then call me and I'll try my best to get it proper (usually you can return faulty parts, be careful who you choose and make sure you can do that if it's the case)
-If you ship across the country, shipping a large PC and insuring that package is expensive! That's mostly why I decided to keep it local except for a few special cases.

I encourage you to dive deeper into this, I find doing it more fun than earning minimum wage cashiering for grumpy customers at a supermarket or something. But do know what you're getting into.

 

[anonymousdude]

You're forgetting the cost of the OS, which is the edge the manufacturers have on you. You immediately have to knock off $100 on any budget for it. So for a $600 dollar budget you really have $500 and at that point you would possibly have a similar or worse performing build than a pre-built. Of course that depends on the pre built. If the budget is less than that then money can get tight to make a build. I've personally ran into this problem with friends that have wanted me to build them a low priced pc. As much as I hated saying it I told them they would probably be better off buying the prebuilt. Of course I told them which pre built to buy so they at least got a decent deal.

Other concerns would as other have stated craigslist and warranty. Be smart and safe on craigslist and make sure the customer understands the terms of you "warranty".

 

[deadfish]

Study for A+ certification now. Get your parents to pay the voucher fee.

Offer to resolve computer problems people have for 50% less than geek squad or whoever else. From there you can explain to them that they need to upgrade this or that... explain how you can beat the local price. Get a signed contract of exactly what you are going to do for them.