Looking to get into the PC building buisness

David-Stephens

David-Stephens

David-Stephens

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Joined
18 Sep 2008
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122
Hey all, like many on this site i have a passion for building PCs and providing performance on a budget. As such I have decided that entering into the PC technician/systems builder is my best bet to be able to put together PCs and test them without spending my own money all the time to provide the hobbie with fuel.

As such I have a few options which range from building PCs and selling them on under a single buisness or to work for a PC enthusiast company

Does anyone have any advice on this carreer step of mine? Friendly words of wisdom or any advice on how to get into this market.

Thanks in advance OCers!!
 
Without wanting to sound too negative. There is very little money left in buidling custom PCs. PCs are almost consumable items these days and can be had for peanuts. The market is well and truy cornered from off the peg kit to tailor made.With this in mind I wouldnt personally go into system building as a busniness. I did it myself about a decade ago and there was still money to be made and savings to pass onto the consumer. Sadly those days are long gone on the whole.

Based on this, your best option would be to look at working for an established company. Someone who has already done the leg work and can give you both job security and satisfaction.

Hope that helps. :)
 
Keep it as a hobby. Buy the parts, build a machine and sell it on an auction site or similar to break even or a little on top.

Don't go into the business, seriously. There's no money in it anymore, too few people are interested in custom builds and the vast amount of the market is in low cost **** from the large electrical stores. That and laptops, especially cheap ones.

The only viable business now is in repairs - you can undercut most manufacturers in price easily for most machines, but you need to be able to repair laptops on the most part. Customers can be very difficult too, you must keep standards up and keep them happy - you can't hide behind call centres and bureaucracy.

If you can get a job with a larger company or medium sized one doing repairs that you like, great, but it won't pay much, nor is there much room for promotion in the repair business. Something like an IT manager or consultant in a large non-IT business has a lot more scope for decent money, though not on the frontline of PC repair.

Hope that makes sense. I have had first hand experience working for a small PC company.
 
As I figured. IT work would interest me I guess, working with building pc or hardware is what i prefer or working out the bugs in systems such as troubleshooting would also be somthing I am interested in.

As it happens would anyone be able to recomend any Uni courses or courses inwhich i could take to be able to get into this industry. I would ahpply build top end systems for pittance so long as I could live and work with the best hardware avaliable

Might have to apply at OCUK... :)
 
OcUK would sound like a good choice then! There aren't many places you can work with cutting edge home PC hardware.

I don't know about any courses sorry, I just did that as a summer job between going to uni studying something else. There are a LOT of people on here who can give you advice though.
 
Well if anyone has advice give us a shout PLEASE, willing to review/write reviews, build/troubleshoot, customer services/sales anything. Its not desperation its passion, spending my days working with top end hardware is perfect for me and its what I plan to go into, so roll on the advice.
 
I suggest doing some courses so you have some accepted certificates to apply to bigger companies and try get your leg in the door.
 
I think it's because all computer users fit into two main catagories these days, obviously there are a couple of grey area people, but I reckon 80-90% of users fall into one of these catagories.

The enthusiasts. (Me). These people want to build their own computers, do a proper job of getting a custom PC, the building is part of the fun!

The rest of the world. (My Dad). These people see computers as white goods, they don't care how or why it works, just that it does work.

That leaves you with the 10-20% of the population who are looking to buy a new computer at the moment, but want a custom spec one but not the hassle of building it. And most of those will either go to a shop or ring up OCUK.

Alllll my opinion though, not really based on anything but personal experience. :P
 
it had crossed my mind, but there is just too many that do this kinda thing already

were I live there is only one PC shop left the other closed (for a reason) so even here its risky, as a hobby yes, no harm in putting in the Friday adds and stuff
 
Muel said:
I think it's because all computer users fit into two main catagories these days, obviously there are a couple of grey area people, but I reckon 80-90% of users fall into one of these catagories.

The enthusiasts. (Me). These people want to build their own computers, do a proper job of getting a custom PC, the building is part of the fun!

The rest of the world. (My Dad). These people see computers as white goods, they don't care how or why it works, just that it does work.

That leaves you with the 10-20% of the population who are looking to buy a new computer at the moment, but want a custom spec one but not the hassle of building it. And most of those will either go to a shop or ring up OCUK.

Alllll my opinion though, not really based on anything but personal experience. :P
Click to expand...

i think you hit the nail on the head with this.
 
Cheers guys, i try. :P

I've had a think and I actually only know two guys who bought complete systems with a custom spec, and they both went to OCUK.

But quite frankly, if you had a thing against building it yourself, and you wanted a custom spec and you had a choice of A: OCUK. B: A Mate who will help you buy the bits and build it for you. OR C: A freelance system builder.

Who would you go for? Personally I'd probably go for OCUK to build it for me.
 
i buy most parts from here, then build myself as ocuk normally get new stuff first, obviously it would be mad to not get some things elsewhere if they are cheaper, but ocuk are main shop.
 
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