Selling Self Builds?

[EstLloyds]

Hello everyone,

I'm just wondering how many people build computers to sell? I was just browsing eBay and noticed some computers for sale by a company, offering the likes of this system - AMD AM2 5200+, 4GB RAM, 640GB SATA HD, 8800GTX 768MB, Vista for £1300 buy it now.

I roughly worked it out with prices from ebuyer.com how much it would cost me to build that system and it came to roughly around £1000. That's for all the core components - Proccessor, HD, Graphics Card, RAM, OS, Motherboard etc. Not including any CD/Floppy drives and so forth.

Let's say with that addition of extras it came to £1100 you would be selling it for a profit of £200, and that's if somebody actually buys it.

I don't know much about the company, but assuming they buy their stuff wholesale at discount. Although I don't know how much discount we are talking about, how much would it cost them to build such a spec? Would you say, maybe £800 to build the above?

Also, sometimes their desciptions can be misleading and often state different spec. in the same description.

They also offer a different model more or less identical to the above, but with only a 250GB HD and only 1GB of RAM with Vista loaded. Why offer such a meaty spec, nVidia 8 series graphics, ultra fast proccesor and only 1GB RAM?

Here are the links referring to both the above - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Athlon-DUAL-CO...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d..._promot_widget

I was thinking of maybe selling on a few self builds, but it doesn't look like I stand much chance against people like those guys.

[Panama Red]

It's been said here quite often - the real money is in servicing pc's not building. I use nothing but top quality manufacturers in my builds and promote the extended warranty to counter the cheaper store bought machines. My best niche is when someone has previously experienced poor, off-shore based support. They'll likely pay a little more to have it custom built. Price comparisons need to include the cost of an extended warranty and the $50 I charge to deCrapify a store bought machine and load the free AVG and spyware cleaners.

[Cricket]

A really important question you have to ask yourself if you do decide to sell custom built computers is "Am I willing to stand behind my product and offer support in case something goes wrong with the computer?"

If the person who buys one of your computers isn't computer literate and something goes wrong with the computer, are you willing to help this person fix the problem? If you aren't willing to help your customers out you may find yourself going out of business rather quickly.

Many places don't make much money on the computers they sell. They make money through the service calls.

Cricket

[chuck4456]

Cricket's right. Maintenance and service is where it is.

[glc]

Nobody is going to get the parts any cheaper than anyone can from an online vendor such as Ebuyer unless they buy in huge quantities direct from the manufacturer. There is a LOT less profit on parts than you may think. Here in the US, I can buy parts from Newegg cheaper than I can from a trade-only distributor unless I buy a huge quantity.