Selling self made PC's?

[Robert8x]

Hello,
Over the last few years ive built quite a few PC's for myself or friends etc. I was thinking about maybe starting to buy new parts and build PC's and then sell them on Ebay or something like that. I would be able to take the hit of buying around 3 £500 PC's upfront, then selling them for around £550/600. Just wondering if this is a worthwhile idea? If so how would warranties and stuff like that work?
Thanks, Robert

 

[USAFRet]

Hello,
Over the last few years ive built quite a few PC's for myself or friends etc. I was thinking about maybe starting to buy new parts and build PC's and then sell them on Ebay or something like that. I would be able to take the hit of buying around 3 £500 PC's upfront, then selling them for around £550/600. Just wondering if this is a worthwhile idea? If so how would warranties and stuff like that work?
Thanks, Robert

This question comes up quite often.

If you can buy them for £500, I can as well.
Why should I pay you £550/600 for the same system? What do you bring to the table?

Many issues appear.
Warranty - Many parts warranties are not transferable. You, the initial purchaser is it.
Warranty - Can I call you at 2AM when something breaks?
Warranty - How will you handle replacement parts?
Legal - What happens when your custom system eats the owners doctoral dissertation, and he sues you?
Competition - You're competing with billion dollar companies. Dell, HP, Dixons, BestBuy, Amazon, etc, etc, etc. Convince me why I should buy something from a no name dude.

 

[Robert8x]

Some fair points, but many people I know just simply wont build their own PC, they will buy some trash 'gaming pc' and waste the money, where as if they bought something like a self made one they would get more for the money.

As for warranty i really dont know how I would get round that one...

The other companies dont really bother me as they either charge too much for the specs, or its under powered for the money.

 

[USAFRet]

Some fair points, but many people I know just simply wont build their own PC, they will buy some trash 'gaming pc' and waste the money, where as if they bought something like a self made one they would get more for the money.

As for warranty i really dont know how I would get round that one...

The other companies dont really bother me as they either charge too much for the specs, or its under powered for the money.

The warranty and the included OS are the 2 main issues. You'd need to factor in ~£90 for the actual OS.
And at the £500, level...you're not really looking at selling a hot rod gaming system. People there are buying for price.

 

[g-unit1111]

Hello,
Over the last few years ive built quite a few PC's for myself or friends etc. I was thinking about maybe starting to buy new parts and build PC's and then sell them on Ebay or something like that. I would be able to take the hit of buying around 3 £500 PC's upfront, then selling them for around £550/600. Just wondering if this is a worthwhile idea? If so how would warranties and stuff like that work?
Thanks, Robert

This question comes up quite often.

If you can buy them for £500, I can as well.
Why should I pay you £550/600 for the same system? What do you bring to the table?

Many issues appear.
Warranty - Many parts warranties are not transferable. You, the initial purchaser is it.
Warranty - Can I call you at 2AM when something breaks?
Warranty - How will you handle replacement parts?
Legal - What happens when your custom system eats the owners doctoral dissertation, and he sues you?
Competition - You're competing with billion dollar companies. Dell, HP, Dixons, BestBuy, Amazon, etc, etc, etc. Convince me why I should buy something from a no name dude.

Plus there's also accounting questions:

1. How many systems will I have to sell to break even?
2. How many systems will I have to sell to turn a profit?
3. What about operating expenses?
4. When you actually start making money doing this, where do you invest your money so your business can grow?
5. What about hiring and paying employees?
6. What about renting an office / warehouse and selling enough systems to even make rent?
7. What about logistics of acquiring parts, setting up machines / people to produce systems and shipping of completed systems?

 

[USAFRet]

Buy for £500, sell for £550. (you can't, but we'll go with that)
£50 'profit'.

Parts selection, ordering, receiving, unboxing, assembly, OS install, testing, shipping, advertising, after sale support, accounting...
5-10 hours per system sold?

Working the counter at McDonalds is starting to look rather attractive...