Building Computer as a second Income.

The money is in building computers and cramming them with keyloggers , spyware.Then capture your customers bank details. Profit!
 
Hxc said:
There's no money in it.
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You cannot compete with the big PC manufacturers price wise. I would guess most people on here build their own PC's because they can choose all the individual components and they enjoy building their own, overclocking etc.

Plus if you are sellling to newbie PC's users you life will be a nightmare. They will do all kinds of accidental configuration changes then ring you up saying the PC you sold them is not working properley etc.

Just not worth it in my opinion.
 
mglover070588 said:
Don't do it:
1) People will want an illegal Windows.
2) People seem think that as you built them a computer then EVERY SINGLE TIME EVER that it goes wrong YOU can be called over to fix it, for free!

Honestly, if it BSOD 12 months after you built it, they will ring you up saying wtf.
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This.

Besides, where's the market?

You can't compete for PCs for people who just want a PC that works and wouldn't know what any of the components are anyway. These people just want to go somewhere and buy a PC straight away. You can't compete on cost and you can't compete on convenience.

You can't compete for high-spec pre-built PCs either, which is a small market anyway, for the same reason.

You're looking at people who want a custom-built PC to their spec and have someone else build it. A tiny market, because almost everyone who can spec a PC for themselves can build it too. It's not like it's difficult and few people will think it's worth waiting for someone else to do it and paying them. Enthusiasts (and someone who's speccing their own PC is very likely to be an enthusiast) generally want their new toy straight away, not in a couple of days.

Then there's cost. On the scale you propose, you'll be buying parts at retail, so you'd have no cost advantage over your customers. You can charge solely for the labour and they're not going to pay much. Businesses that sell parts often offer a cheap or even free building service as a means of promoting the sale of the parts - how are you going to undercut them?

So...small market, no margin, lots of hassle. Why bother?
 
schizo220168 said:
spie seem's to do quite well from it.
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He's not paying retail price for the parts. He also has employees who do the building and he's already paying them anyway. In effect, it's still a matter of selling components. The convenience to customers of having them assembled (which is a minimal cost to OcUK) gains some sales of components.
 
Unless you can offer true custom jobs i.e water cooling/custom case work and are extremely good at overclocking you may as well set up a business where people pay you a fiver to kick you in the nuts.
 
AtreuS said:
The money is in the support not the hardware unless you are selling lots like ocuk.

You will also find you are competing with people who put pirated windows and office on for free, and so to the end user who does not care, is significantly cheaper then you! .... "being legit" means nothing to the majority of people it its going to cost them 170+ quid for windows and office.
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you only need windows openoffice if free
 
randal24 said:
Stick an ad in the local paper to do support, go out to people's houses and charge a fixed hourly rate.

My g/f's brother does this and makes a respectable wage from doing so, he's got a good client base and covers everything from new installs of store bought PCs, builds, upgrades, home theatre setups, networking etc.. Something you should be more than capable of doing too if you're building PCs.

This way you get to supply based on requirements, and configure/install without the hassle of being solely responsible for the hardware. i.e the onus is on the vendor to provide that.
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^^^ this stacks of cash easy money.. assuming you are good..
 
I'd love to take on my local pc store, it's not a huge place, they have no stock 90% of the time but the two guys seem to be kept pretty busy. They're also completely useless and sell machines as new with second hand parts in and dodgy windows licences (they also sell linux CDs/installs claiming it to be 100% windows compatible when it's kubuntu with a windows vista skin on).

They still get plenty of business though, I already get about and do local repairs (mostly on machines they've sold) so I reckon it's something I can edge into on the side, still feel it will be akin to slamming my nuts in a drawer though.
 
Hairybudda said:
I'd love to take on my local pc store, it's not a huge place, they have no stock 90% of the time but the two guys seem to be kept pretty busy. They're also completely useless and sell machines as new with second hand parts in and dodgy windows licences (they also sell linux CDs/installs claiming it to be 100% windows compatible when it's kubuntu with a windows vista skin on).

They still get plenty of business though, I already get about and do local repairs (mostly on machines they've sold) so I reckon it's something I can edge into on the side, still feel it will be akin to slamming my nuts in a drawer though.
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And once trading standards come and investigate them for selling dodgy windows they will be gone, no competition eh *wink*
 
If you want to do this, you need to find a niche. e.g. ready-installed home cinema machines or RF free machines for hospitals. As others have said, you won't be able to compete with the big boys for general purpose or gaming machines.
 
mglover070588 said:
Don't do it:
1) People will want an illegal Windows.
2) People seem think that as you built them a computer then EVERY SINGLE TIME EVER that it goes wrong YOU can be called over to fix it, for free!

Honestly, if it BSOD 12 months after you built it, they will ring you up saying wtf.
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True
 
If you do for some reason go ahead and do it, get a mobile that you can turn off :)

Otherwise expect 11pm phone calls with problems :)

Andy
 
Can't mention the competitor name, but I can buy a pre-built PC with 2.0Ghz CPU, 1Gb RAM, 160Gb hard disk, DVDRW, LAN/audio etc - for £150, with 12 months RTB warranty.

You couldnt build a box that cheap, so why try to compete?

I miss building PC's for people :(
 
no one will pick you over someone like OCUK, or Dell because they will be much cheaper unless you buy in bulk, and that would mean a lot of money and time, and it could all very easily go wrong.

Dont bother. Get a job at a computer company, doing build-ups?
 
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