Do any of you sell computers on ebay?

dan1903 said:
yeah a few people have said this, but I already work at MnS on saturdays, and honestly I would rather eat my own nutsack than work extra hours there :rolleyes: I have to work for stupid, irritating, and down right incompetent managers who like nothing more than to exert the minuscule amounts of power they hold in their sad lives, not to mention I have to deal with whiney old customers who can't accept when they have made a mistake. rant over... :D (
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Well thats the real world m8 im afraid
 
i like many others here have looked into building PCs to sell. forget ebay, try local newspapers, i did awhile ago sell a cheap rig without OS in local paper for 60 quid profit. just make sure you keep invoices from overclockers so customer knows its brand new.

all i can say is start local, you never know it may kick off for you!! goodluck
 
rather than doing it on the bay, you would find it better, and cheaper, to just build, or get built, your own webstore. that way no ebay fees. the problem with this is people would assume you were a store and expect decent after sales service.
 
frostyste said:
i like many others here have looked into building PCs to sell. forget ebay, try local newspapers, i did awhile ago sell a cheap rig without OS in local paper for 60 quid profit. just make sure you keep invoices from overclockers so customer knows its brand new.

all i can say is start local, you never know it may kick off for you!! goodluck
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yeah this sounds like a much better way of doing it, might try it if I have a couple of hundred saved up. Not as much exposure as ebay and would probably take more time to sell, but if I only sold it to someone locally then I wouldn't have any import/customs or VAT to pay. And support would be much easier, I could just drive to their house and collect it, the islands only 9 by 5 :D
 
What if you tried GUmtree instead? Eliminates fees and 99% of the time its people who are local who will pick up. I have been wondering the same thing, jobs are scarce up here :(
 
in my experience, tooo many people can, or atleast think they can, build their own pcs, the people that buy prebuilt ones, want them cheap, like supermarket cheap. so having a business selling custom/bespoke machines will possibly make you cash, but not enough to give up your day job.
 
paradisiac said:
the people that buy prebuilt ones, want them cheap, like supermarket cheap.
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I disagree with this. Not all people who buy prebuilts want cheap ones (although that population is rather large). You can probably split the population into several groups:

1) Stack high, sell cheap lovers: Want it cheap and cheerful
2) ePenis: Has the money, wants the best (all the gear, no idea..)
3) Nervous researcher: Knows what he wants/needs but doesn't trust him/herself to build the system

Population 1 is well served by highstreet shops and the generic stuff. You cannot compete with them on cost and these people don't care about the quality you've added.

Population 2 is a gold mine. You can sell these people the best of the best simply by showing them the reciept!

Population 3 can be found on this forum! They know their stuff and will choose (or appreciate) quality parts.

Populations 2 and 3 are the ones you need to target. Do some research - where do these people get their parts / computers from? Where is their e-presence? What magazines do they buy?
 
pcAnywhere said:
I disagree with this. Not all people who buy prebuilts want cheap ones (although that population is rather large). You can probably split the population into several groups:

1) Stack high, sell cheap lovers: Want it cheap and cheerful
2) ePenis: Has the money, wants the best (all the gear, no idea..)
3) Nervous researcher: Knows what he wants/needs but doesn't trust him/herself to build the system

Population 1 is well served by highstreet shops and the generic stuff. You cannot compete with them on cost and these people don't care about the quality you've added.

Population 2 is a gold mine. You can sell these people the best of the best simply by showing them the reciept!

Population 3 can be found on this forum! They know their stuff and will choose (or appreciate) quality parts.

Populations 2 and 3 are the ones you need to target. Do some research - where do these people get their parts / computers from? Where is their e-presence? What magazines do they buy?
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i tend to agree with you on that, and probably over simplified my post.
the problem with population 2 is they are few and far between, and a lot of those kind of people will buy the likes of alienware for the brand name, not some guy on ebay.
secondly population 3, they guys that research, yes, the like of OCUK can tap into this market as they can buy components in bulk and therefore sell at a good price, an ebay guy wont. so if people are researching they will know the market value of the components, therefore they will know your markup, which, in 60-90% of instances, if you are not pretty damn good on your labour charges they will either :
1. have a family member that can do it if they buy the parts
2. have a mate that can do it
or
3. use forums such as this to give it a bash

i would not pay more then £20-£30 for someone to stick it together as in reality, its not that hard. yes making sure its stable and everything is worth the extra, which is why i would use someone like OCUK if i was flush and couldnt be bothered as i know they bench test everything before its shipped, i wouldnt however buy off a guy on ebay as chances are they have slapped the bits together and stuck the windows disc in.
im not saying its the way it is, but anyone that falls into population 3 that researches would probably get similar responese from people.

just my thoughts though.
 
@ paradisiac

Yep. Ebay is not a good way to get the population 2 or even population 3 crowd; which is why ebay is not a great idea for this type of venture.

Population 2 (as I defined) is a small population, but it's quite easy to see how this population could be grown by the correct positioning of a product. In essence, population 2 has multiple sub-groups; each could be sold highend kit but not the same high end kit!

Putting kit together takes about 2 hours (unbox, check, build and install OS). So, £30 to £40 quid for 2 hours work is not terrible. If you also allow 48 hours from "order to sent from supplier" you can easily fit in overclock and run for 24 hours stress test.. for another £20 to £30 quid.

It's not a stunning living, but it's possible.

And no, this is not my business model!!
 
pcAnywhere said:
@ paradisiac

Yep. Ebay is not a good way to get the population 2 or even population 3 crowd; which is why ebay is not a great idea for this type of venture.

Population 2 (as I defined) is a small population, but it's quite easy to see how this population could be grown by the correct positioning of a product. In essence, population 2 has multiple sub-groups; each could be sold highend kit but not the same high end kit!

Putting kit together takes about 2 hours (unbox, check, build and install OS). So, £30 to £40 quid for 2 hours work is not terrible. If you also allow 48 hours from "order to sent from supplier" you can easily fit in overclock and run for 24 hours stress test.. for another £20 to £30 quid.

It's not a stunning living, but it's possible.

And no, this is not my business model!!
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if you could build up a brand the way alienware did, then population 2 might be small but you would be minted.
i understand the 2 hours side to an extent, but our newbuilds we do here are normally an hour tops to the stage that the pc i usable. IF however it was an established organisation with a proven reputation for pride in testing once built, then maybe £30-£40 would be justified.
the problem i have, and it sickens me, i put pride into customer builds, making sure cables are tidy, screws are correct fitting etc, but plenty of our engineers dont, and shabby builds go out for the same price as the well built ones. our markup is also sickening, but i wont go into that as its not my company, and the wages are unimpressive too.
my point is, and im sure you will agree, not all builds are done to the best quality, there are people that get lazy. OCUK, and im not just saying it coz its their site, from the pics i have seen of their builds, have pride in their builds, justifying the charges.
i am ashamed by some of the so called 'big brand' pre built systems we work on here. you take the sides off and the workmanship is awfull. but because of the name (and the fact the people that buy them would never take the side panel off) they get away with it.
as a company, then yes, you can make money, quite a bit. as a single person doing it through papers, ebay etc a nice top up to wages every now and then, but not a living.
 
hard drive fails in the rig 2 months after they buy it
they contact you first as you were where they bought it
they don\t want to be told to call a tech support number out of the UK
they want you to fix it as it's 2 months old

what do you do?
 
.temp said:
hard drive fails in the rig 2 months after they buy it
they contact you first as you were where they bought it
they don\t want to be told to call a tech support number out of the UK
they want you to fix it as it's 2 months old

what do you do?
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dont leave them any contact details ;)

this is, unfortunatly a lot of peoples problems, especially as a lot of companies will only honour the warrenty if a claim is made via the original purchaser too (i assume this is incase a refund needs to be issued).
and you also have the problem is proving it wasnt down to your error if blamed. who is to say they dont take the side off and have a poke or worse take something out, then blame you for it, unless you are prepared to pay insurance to cover for this then you will have no end of trouble.
we have had people saying they paid for 4GB and we only fitted 2GB so they want their money back, or they asked for a 3GHz cpu and only a 2.8GHz was fitted, only to find when they bought it in for us to check, most of the time the parts they had swapped were with brands/models we cant even get from our suppliers. its a minefield out there, people out to make a quick quid.
 
If you were doing this as a business would you not have to pay, or the buyer pay VAT when it comes into the contry. Amazon and Play still charge VAT yet they often ship from the chanel islands.

While you do a few private sales you might get away with it, but if you set up as a business I recon you would be on dodgy ground and really its' only the VAT dodge that makes you think it's viable.
 
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