Small high street PC shops

I worked in a small high street PC shop for 2 years or so, and would really never have used it were it not for the staff discounts. The experience turned me against them in general - the practise of marking up a USB cable from 82p to 10 quid or so didn't sit too well with me. That said, there was a definite market for it in the town where I grew up - small conservative market town in rural essex, with a lot of wealthy people wanting to get online or do work from home, and no idea how to go about it, so perfectly willing to throw wads of cash at someone to do it for them :)

I'd say there would be a market that close to a campus, as long as you did market it towards students, stocking things they're likely to want, as has been said. I would just add that I don't expect students to have the loyalty that the customers from my old town had. If we fixed their PC or gave them good advice, chances are they'd come back when they were looking to update their machine. With a student, even if you rescue their dissertation the day before it's due, don't necessarily expect them to come to you when they want a new machine if they can get one for less from Dell or such.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do anyway :)
 
what i would try to do if i was you (we have 2 local pc shops here and 1 of them does this) is to have it as a small internet cafe as well.
You jsut need about 5 pcs and a £30 (max) a month ADSL ISP, make sure the PCS and burners and have 2-3 spots free for people to bring their own laptops to use.
Do not make it the primary focus of your business but, have it as an extra as you really want to have as many different ways of getting people in.
 
I'd steer well clear of the idea if you want to stop yourself going bankrupt! It's just far too risky.

The internet marketplace has pretty much killed off any chance of 95% of small PC hardware shops surviving. To be a success you need to appeal to a wide customer base by stocking everything they might possibly want at sensible prices. Because you'll be buying in very low volume you're going to really struggle to sell at those competitive prices which will scare off most technically savvy buyers. You're only remaining target demographic is the customer who doesn't really know about the insides of a PC, and you tend to find that those types would rather entrust their PCs to larger well-known companies like the purple shirt brigade.

I've seen all the problems of running a small computer shop first-hand as I used to work in one. The first company I worked for was based in an enterprise centre on the outskirts of a local town so benefitted from cheaper rent than a high-street shop, but still only just managed to scrape by. This was back in '96 before the internet really boomed and shops were the only source of hardware, so they could get away with larger profit margins. The best money we made was providing maintenance contracts for local companies.

My advice: concentrate on your IT services business. The big players like IBM have realised that there's no money in hardware any more, hence why they're now an IT services company! People are willing to pay much more for quality knowledge and skills than they are for computer hardware.

Andy
 
the flipside of this is I've seen a few minor independant high street retailers buying stock in bulk from etailers and doubling up the price to sell on. one guy i knew found a nice stockist of 1 gig micro sd cards and bought an initial batch of 200 @ £3.67 each incl del. he then knocked em out in his small store and market stall @ £11.99 each.

He makes a nice living and has minimal overheads as he keeps the barest levels of stock and usual buys online once someone has placed an order with him.
 
Spie said:
I hit the Internet at the right time, with the right idea. All expansion was funded organically. It would be impossible now without a big wedge of cash.
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I always remember asking Pete who you were and he said you were the internet geek (in a nice way).
How little he knew for such a clever bloke.
 
Same here - I consider them less than optimal. Usually have a limited range and only push what they have in stock. Can compete with PC World as at least you know what a computer is!;)
 
cant say I really use them to be honest. Only really use them is if I actually need the item there and then, and cant be botherd to wait for online postage.
Do 95% of my shopping online for electrics.
 
Forget selling things, maybe the odd few bits and pieces that regular students might need (CD wallets, blank disks, USB cables etc). I would offer repairs, data recovery, spyware removal (gotta be a common one), making recovery disks. Say you charge £20/hour, I'd also offer a student discount @ £15/hour.

Keep a few hard drives in stock and a few "old" P4 laptops because you'll have a few people coming in who have just spilt beer on their laptop and need a replacement desperately.

As for other shop ideas, I've often wondered how well gaming centres/LANs would do in this country. They are very popular in asia and central europe.
 
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Solari said:
The ones near me tend to be "Give me your monies and I give you fast P3 with internets!" :D
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lol I know the type of places. It's quite funny to go in pretending to be a complete computer noob and listen to the crap they come out with.

I don't think I'd do to well running a repair shop. I'd be too honest and end up losing money :p
 
1st, second and 3rd computers were from the highstreet, due to dad paying... 4th, paid for myself, was bought in parts online, to gain the money for the parts i sold my old pc to a high street retailer...

1st time buyers, or people with little or no knowledge on pcs usually go to the highstreet for help... if you do do highstreet trading, get contacts, i.e. people who do home callouts. get them to reccomend them to your shop for new computers n parts, and you have that persons cards in your shop for people to pickup... etc.. try help yourslef by helping others, dont be cheep, dont be expensive, be fair and make sure people like you and want to come back to you...

good idea though, just find a prime location and next to a uni is one, try to advertise within the uni and the halls of residency... works a charm and youll be bundled... have a big *** sign showing people who you are, and have signs around you pointing peeps in your direction, would work i thinksss...
 
AcidHell2 said:
what you want to do is if it goes ahead, ask current OcUk students what they need for there courses.
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Along that line...

I'm an art student. Things i need that are computer related are printer inks (i'm not buying no fancy inks... the local one sells 'compatible' ones for £3 a piece so i always go there). they also have a wide variety of blank cd's/dvd's that they seel for around the same sort of price as online shops, generaly around 50p-£1 more expensive than online. They have network stuff, dvd cases, folders, specialist paper, memory pens, keyboards, mice and cheaper things like case fans etc. They also off to dremel cases and drop a fan in which is handy, they'll also install cathodes etc, which a lot of people like.

I'm not going to buy such things online because i usually need them when they run out, because i don't generally print things unless i need to and the inks don't run out till half way through printing so as you can guess online ordering is out of the question.

Maybe do something a bit more niche like doing printouts for students who can't afford their own printer but lose things like network printer cards for use at uni? Maybe sell cheap compact printers for students rooms? Offer to print out things like a cd full of images onto t-shirt printer paper so the student can just iron them on, something people love doing for nights out.

Maybe even ask the students what they want? Spend £10 on a multibox of mars bars and put a sign outside saying "free mars bar for completion of every questionairre". Students love freebies, and it generates interest/knowledge of the shop.
 
it's weird that the day you ask this question bbc news technology do a video about how electrical shops are facing web-boom warning.

tbh i wouldn't bother, i don't know the exact situation but as spie has said you will never make a really good lifestyle out of it and is that something you really want?
 
sell compatible ink cartridges, and charge double what you get them for, will still be cheap as chips
 
timmy1988 said:
theres one in northern ireland i use for smaller parts, firewire cards etc. they seem to get a good bit of business from the general public who have no idea you can buy parts for computers and put it together yourself :)
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One of the chains around here actually sell some parts for less than what I've been able to find anywhere on the net.

Just don't buy hard drives or ram from them, because they're the most common upgrades, they over charge for them.
 
There were a couple very close to me when I was at University... However I wouldn't use them personally.

Most students who just need a computer will probably go to the large highstreet store or order from someone like Dell.

When I put together a computer for Uni I got everything from Overclockers and I think most people who know what they need from a computer are going to buy online.

Local University computer shops seem to be using heavy advertising to students during freshers weeks and such to get them to buy then.
 
I wouldn't waste your time or investment. Look at the situation I'm facing now. As Spie says, without a big wedge of the green stuff you aren't going to go far unless you get lucky. :(
 
i agree with NokkonWud kind of, in the sense that you would need to stand out amounst the crowd, for example OCuk sell high performance part mainly, but there is also a shop down the road from me which is cheap (back of a lorry type stuff) so i go there also.
 
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