Selling Laptops & PCs for profit

Mr Benevolent

Have been wondering about this for a while. I'm not working (not on the dole either), have a bit of spare cash and a laptop I can sell. I'm well up to speed in IT, can spot reasonable bargains on Adverts etc, so I was thinking about giving buying and selling a go from home. I'm not looking to make this a full time job or make a major profit, just want to add a bit of bulk to my savings account!

Any tips? I'm thinking of sticking with laptops as they're more useful and PCs tend to lose a lot of their value. Profit margins, I was thinking €50 per, maybe more if it's a really good bargain. I seems like the major key to it all is research - how much the laptops were new, best brands (Sony, Toshiba), which features to emphasise etc. I don't expect to sell more than 4-5 per month.

Also, what about breaking & selling parts? Seems to be a market for that as well. Any tips/ideas would be great.

Blowfish

I'd say it'd be easier to do with pc's as they are quite often cheaper to build yourself (and better quality) than suppliers sell them for.

The one thing to note is that once you sell them, there's a pretty good chance that customers you've sold to will quite often come back to you for tech support. It's fine if you need the work, but can be a pita if you are busy.

Antar Bolaeisk

I'd parrot what Blowfish says, that even ten years down the line if the computer starts smoking it'll still be your fault even though there are suspicious looking tea puddles hiding in the case.

in my experience people are more likely to buy from places like PC World or Dell simply because a) they don't know better if it's the former b) the guaranteed support they get from it c) the brand name which carries with it the implication of quality.

You could possibly advertise yourself as a system builder and offer cheap, no support solutions providing you can get quick access to parts in order to minimise lead time. Ask the customer what they need the computer for and spec them an appropriate machine with the relevant software. The other problem with stuff like this is that by the time you have everything specced and have added your margin to the parts cost you could find the price straying into the "off the shelf" region.

Sometimes fleabay and places like that can be a good spot to flog things on, I've seen graphics cards go for amazing money simply because people are silly but you could end up being inundated with old parts if you do intend to break the PCs down.

With regards to laptop brands I believe that Dell, HP and Acer make the best with Sony and Toshiba residing at the lower end of the scale though I could be wrong. In this area I would advise going for the good looking HP laptops irregardless of spec simply because that is what will most impress the average person.

Mr Benevolent

Cheers guys, thanks for the advice. I'll have plenty of time to do it but it strikes me that Dell can build a PC ar ceaper then I ever could, which is why I'd like to stick to laptops... they're useful for students etc. Selling parts on eBay might work, any thoughts on margins etc?

Gurgle

Confab wrote: »

Cheers guys, thanks for the advice. I'll have plenty of time to do it but it strikes me that Dell can build a PC ar ceaper then I ever could, which is why I'd like to stick to laptops... they're useful for students etc. Selling parts on eBay might work, any thoughts on margins etc?

Honestly?
You would be absolutely wasting your time and effort.

Theres a thousand mugs in this game already, there is literally no money to be made.

Stick an ad up in your local Tesco's offering to fix them.
-edit- as in fix the laptops and pcs, not the mugs. -/edit-

swirlser

Gurgle wrote: »

Honestly?
You would be absolutely wasting your time and effort.

Theres a thousand mugs in this game already, there is literally no money to be made.

Stick an ad up in your local Tesco's offering to fix them.
-edit- as in fix the laptops and pcs, not the mugs. -/edit-

Fixing the 'mugs' could be ad #2, imo it has more money making potential than the original idea. Life coaching anyone?

Tbh, I was reluctant to post this, but honestly I have an issue here. Basically the only chance you have at making money in this area is down to the ill-informed demographic. Frankly there are enough people out there trying to take advantage, so there is peanuts in it anyway. I otherwise admire your entrepreneurial enthusiasm (particularly in these times), but I would think it best you put it to use down a different path.

seamus

Blowfish wrote: »

The one thing to note is that once you sell them, there's a pretty good chance that customers you've sold to will quite often come back to you for tech support. It's fine if you need the work, but can be a pita if you are busy.

This is your main issue. For a big faceless company like Dell, it's dead easy for them to turn around and say, "Sorry it's a software issue" or "You're out of warranty, you'll have to pay for service", but for some reason if the customer can put a face to it, they never accept the same excuses. You will be expected to support the machine, the operating system and every piece of **** application they install on it for the next ten years. For free, and at your cost.

Although machines are easy to build, your profit margin is quite tight. Unless you're building a lot of machines, you won't get the parts particularly cheap and you have to stump up the capital before the machine is paid for. If the customer decides they don't want it, you're left with parts you've paid for.

I compared prices before when I was building machines for friends and the like - you'll really only manage to save the customer about 5% on the cost of a machine from Dell, and you'll make at most 10% profit on it. So if you sell the machine to the customer for €500, they could get the same machine from Dell for €525 and you'll only make around €50 on it. Pricing could have changed since.

Each machine takes around 2 hours in total if you include OS install and the like. Though if you're set up correctly, there's nothing to stop you building 6 or 7 machines at once. It's worth considering that the cost of the parts has actually very little bearing on the manufacturing time. So if you're really dead set on this, aim to build specialist machines - standalone servers or so forth. That way, you make a larger profit for the same amount of time, though the care and technical know-how required is higher than for a €300 family computer.

In short, it'll break your heart before it bulks up your savings.

Quick price comparison:

Cheapest machine on Dell is €279 including delivery.
The absolute cheapest I could put a comparable machine together on dabs.ie was €286.35.