Small high street PC shops

Depends what you are selling, as others have said, you can't sell high end stuff because it just goes out of date too quickly.

My Uni sells small/basic computer items, like memory sticks and CD drives.
It would be worth checking if the uni close by does the same.

Personally, i buy most stuff online. Small places offer no advantage.

Online > Large PC Chains > Small independent. I usually find what i need before i hit the small independents. :p
 
I don't like them. My experience has been of staff talking down to me and them trying to sell me a product which I didn't ask for.
 
Trifid said:
I don't like them. My experience has been of staff talking down to me and them trying to sell me a product which I didn't ask for.
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Yea, the only one that I know of in central brighton I wouldn't touch with a barge poll.

When skt939 was established and it was well known that it is replacing 754 I asked another one why they didn't have 939 in stock. He said it was because he didn't want to sell his customers something that could possibly not take off and be a dead end, or something to that extent. Yet he was still selling 754.
 
3 near me (well 2 now)
1 closed down because no one went to it.
other 2 both overprice and think people have no idea what they are talking about and talk down to people, and 1 of the 2 i rarely see people at so it wont suprise me if it closes down soon (and its on a road which not many people go past), the other seems to be doing OK though i think. only goto them if i need something quickly like a wireless card or hard drive, for everything else i just buy online.
 
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There's certainly a market for small independent retailers based purely on high levels of customer service and the fact computers are so complicated to the majority, there's peace of mind when dealing with someone local when things go wrong.

However, for shifting hardware, there's no comparison to the big players. It's still worth opening a shop, just see it more as a service than a retail outlet.
 
Tefal said:
how did you manage to build ocuk up from a small start spie?

Or did you have quite a bit of money put away to start it up?
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This is my (outsiders) take on it:

Ignoring the obvious stuff that most sales businesses will need (well run, good relationships with suppliers, well presented blah blah) for me what set OcUK out from the crowd was that they catered for a very rapidly expanding niche market, at a time when there were few players.

The clue is in the name: Overclockers UK. When I first noticed OcUK (mid'99), it was down to word of mouth advertising about the new Athlon chips. OcUK were offering guarenteed pre-overclocked cpus (500 @ 750mhz was very popular) which a lot of gamers wanted ready for the release of Quake 3 Arena and games like that.

Now, at the time overclocking was still a relatively abnormal, but was getting more and more mainstream by the month, fuelled by tales of success thrown about on the rapidly expanding internet. So a lot of people wanted to get in on the act but maybe weren't too sure about how to go about it - pre-overclocked chips (complete with golden fingers device) offered a nice safe option and way of saving money.

Furthermore, very few online stores at that time offered specialist overclocking aids (powerful fans, fancy cpu coolers, Arctic Silver, watercooling, Vapochill etc). So again by offering these products earlier than most, OcUK was able to steal a march on the competition.

As Spie has already intimated, he was also 'lucky' enough to launch around the time that the internet was really taking off in the UK, when unmetered internet came on the scene and people were starting to take online shopping seriously.
 
Sounds like it's just me who found them useful. Misc computer cables for like 10p each. cheap Ethernet cables. 2nd hand psu for when yours went bang and you had to wait for RMA. I still think by a university as long as you stock the right thing you can make a very good living.
 
If you were to go ahead you'd have to go high-end parts (gamers mice etc... ) and high storage capacity drives.

Most university students have money to burn on this stuff with their loans and all will be happy with large HDD's and blank DVD's. You can make a killing off them.

There's also one small item that can rake it in for you, it's a plastic wallets the size of CD's that are adhesive on one side. They stick to the back of folders or typed projects easily and you can charge ~60p each. Every student who types up a project and has to provide a disc (the whole computing section plus others) want something like this.

Teesside Universities Union shop sold thousands of these per semester.
 
AcidHell2 said:
Sounds like it's just me who found them useful. Misc computer cables for like 10p each. cheap Ethernet cables. 2nd hand psu for when yours went bang and you had to wait for RMA. I still think by a university as long as you stock the right thing you can make a very good living.
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Thats great, he'll only have to sell 14,000 cables a month to the local populace to pay half his shop boys wages for a week;)

You cant do it, you have to carry stock and if you dont have the money you have to carry cheap rubbish stock that you cant sell to people like me and you because we wouldnt touch it.

Its the price of stock thats the killer, unless you get it on sale and return (which you wont do with PC componants) you are flushing money down the toilet daily.
 
The most important thing would be image.

If you appeared "cheap and tatty" then you're on the backfoot from the start.

I think if you offered data recovery and sold the right items you could make a decent living off the students :)
 
i would def use one if it was decent, though tbh any of the ones around my area stock out of date stuff, over priced and i know more than the people working in the shop.
 
Asking on here is going to give a biased opinion, as most will be building their own systems anyway.

I joint manage an independent IT company which is split with retail (i.e. what you are looking to do) and B2B. The real money making for both comes from labour (especially on the B2B side, but laptop and system repairs do well as well).
It is hard to compete with the Internet for pricing, but it depends who you are targeting. Some people just don't like ordering online and having to wait for deliveries or do not want the risk (although tiny) with fraud etc so don't mind paying a bit more. Others just need something same day or simply prefer to buy from a local company.

As you already have a services side to the company, you'll find it easier. The ones who just start up a shop and nothing else fail quickly. They have come and gone around here. Our company has been around since 1992 and is going well. The nearest Uni is 10-12 miles away.

Any other questions, just mail me :)
 
atpbx said:
Thats great, he'll only have to sell 14,000 cables a month to the local populace to pay half his shop boys wages for a week;)
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But it's uni students. many need certain things for there courses. Supply the right stuff at the right price and you can rake it in. especially if you get a name for yourself in the right courses.

A set price data recovery service no data no fee.
Set amounts for diffrent mdeia. Buy some professional software and away you go.
As NokkonWud has said sticky cd/usb holders or full folders with space included.
printing dissertations and binding.
Printers and printer consumables.
network and broadband installation for all those student houses.

There's lots of niche markets around a uni.
 
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Only used as last resort or if urgent replacement is necessary. Student area = good for repairs. Stock on essentials like paper/blank media/cartridges, etc...Potential for advertising yourself to students/sponsoring a society or something to bring people in.

Although, not IT related at all, I would have said open a second hand bookshop for people to sell and buy core textbooks. You'd only need courses' reading lists to find out what's "hot". I ran a non profit making one at uni - did well whilst I was in charge. Possibly create an online database of stock - I could see that bein gpopular with students.
 
Thanks for your help guys.

The place has been there for 20 years and is still going strong (we're looking over the figures tomorrow though). It's a bit grotty inside at the moment, but IF we did go for it we would change that.

Things we'd be looking to do:

Data recovery
Dissertation etc printing & binding
Sales of PCs, Peripherals and media, usb sticks etc
Repairs
Home networking
Printer consumables

We also need a base for our services company. First year turnover was near £200,000 and running it from home is becoming a bit much, especially with more staff etc now.

Thanks again,

Mal
 
good luck :) have 2 mates who run seperate stores in Dunfermline, both seem to do well selling overpriced not uptodate hardware :)

but keep an uptodate price list handy and order on demand for customers :)

some would more than happily buy something from a local shop even if they have to wait rather than trust mr citylink :)
 
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