new pc store

[wcoffey]

my wife and i are opening a new pc sales and service shop in our hometown and i am looking for advice. what would you like to see in a local pc shop and what would we need to do to keep you as a customer?? please keep things realistic. we are in the final stages of setting things up and i thought i would ask you as potential customers for input

 

[sixone]

Reliability is the most important thing. We used to have a local PC sales/service shop, but the guy eventually went out of business because his machines weren't reliable, and he didn't back them up with good service/support.

 

[pinoy]

for me good PR (public relations) and like 6-1 said, reliability.

Good Luck!

 

[Lifted]

If you got some gimmick like an original version Street Fighter II machine, I'd be there every day!

 

[OdiN]

Service, service, service. That's the most important thing. Without good service, they might as well go to Geek Squad.

I manage a store and while our computers are more expensive than the stuff you see in BB or CC or whatever - they are MUCH better.

All of our business computers for business clients get Intel motherboards, Intel CPU's, Crucial RAM and good Antec cases.

The reason I go with Intel motherboards is that when you have a problem - it's fixed. Period. I had one come in from a client with a mobo that was on the fritz. I called up Intel at 3PM on Thursday. I had a new board at 10AM on Friday.

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

Honesty - Don't try to rip off a guy with a $40 monster USB cable because it will pit some extra Cash in your pocket. Make him aware of what he's buying and his alternatives.

 

[desteffy]

You might want to focus on service. Your prices are not going to beat newegg etc.. but you can offer good repair service at half the cost of any of the big chains like geeksquad.

 

[SuperSix]

I work for a large wholesale supplier - call me if you need parts.

I work in the Tampa branch of ASI.

Customers want great service, fair pricing, and to be treated like they are special. Not too fancy an equation actually. I would stealth visit some of your competition to see what they are all about.

 

[mdchesne]

Originally posted by: wcoffey
my wife and i are opening a new pc sales and service shop in our hometown and i am looking for advice. what would you like to see in a local pc shop and what would we need to do to keep you as a customer?? please keep things realistic. we are in the final stages of setting things up and i thought i would ask you as potential customers for input

If someone brings in a dell to service, hand them back a toaster and say "you're actually getting the better deal with this, ya'know"

 

[intogamer]

do people in your area need comp shop?

 

[jonnyGURU]

Originally posted by: OdiN
All of our business computers for business clients get Intel motherboards, Intel CPU's, Crucial RAM and good Antec cases.

Oh shit! Coffee just sprayed out of my nose. Whew! That hurt. Good thing my sarcasm meter is working this morning.

EDIT: I guess I should contribute something useful....

As stated before. SERVICE SERVICE SERVICE. I wouldn't even focus on having the latest and greatest in stock as most anything is available overnight from most anywhere. Just make sure you have lots of wholesale accounts established. Like Supersix up there. I buy a lot from him not just because him and I go way back, but because if I'm in California, New Jersey, etc... Pretty much anywhere where I may be or a customer that needs a part may be, he can drop ship it from any warehouse. Same is true with a lot of distributors. Some of them even network and share warehouses (I might get a better price on a monitor drop shipped out of a Tech Data warehouse by SED than if I bought it straight from Tech Data!) But service is something the big chain stores CAN NOT provide. People are STILL trying to recycle two or three year old PC's and that's where you can come in.

Know any doctors, lawyers, school teachers? Drop your card off as a person that provides SERVICE. If you try coming at them at a "I'll build you a better computer" angle, you'll lose them. Fix their POS systems a couple times and then they'll see where spending extra money on something quality will do them a great service.

Try networking. Find a telecommunications provider and hook up with them. Seriously. A phone vendor runs cable and installs phone systems for 20, 30, 50 or more user offices. 50 phones often means 50 PC's! And if you run into an office with a couple crappy Samsung phones or old Meridians laying around, you could pass the good word onto them.

Network equipment's good to get into too. Providers install braodband all day, but rarely supply anything more than a router. Wouldn't it be good to offer a 16-port switch when the local Best Buy, CompUSA, etc only offer an 8-port?

And rack equipment. You wouldn't believe HOW HARD it is to find something as simple as a 16-port patch panel locally. Sure, I can order it in from C2G or IC overnight. But what if I want it NOW? I have to walk into a Graybar and pay 10x more!!!!

This is starting to sound like a rant, isn't it?

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: jonnyGURU

Originally posted by: OdiN
All of our business computers for business clients get Intel motherboards, Intel CPU's, Crucial RAM and good Antec cases.

Oh sh!t! Coffee just sprayed out of my nose. Whew! That hurt. Good thing my sarcasm meter is working this morning.

Uhm...what are you talking about sarcasm for?

 

[Tyrant222]

offer oem a64s. allow customers to hand pick them. this will get me as a repeat customer

 

[jonnyGURU]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: jonnyGURU

Originally posted by: OdiN
All of our business computers for business clients get Intel motherboards, Intel CPU's, Crucial RAM and good Antec cases.

Oh sh!t! Coffee just sprayed out of my nose. Whew! That hurt. Good thing my sarcasm meter is working this morning.

Uhm...what are you talking about sarcasm for?

I'm just being a pseudo smart-ass. I've actually had a lower RMA rate with MSI and Asus than with Intel boards and it just pisses me off when I get a "refurb" board back from Intel that has a differernt problem than the one I returned. I have also been "shut down" by Crucial's warranty dept for not having an invoice for the stick of RAM I'm trying to return (lifetime warranty.. WITH AN INVOICE! Oops.) and I've had quite a few Antec power supplies blow up in my face.

THAT SAID I do not want to diminish ANY of what you point out. You're way, way, way, way, way better off with name brand parts than with any of that cheap crap that's out there.

I just thought it was awfully funny how "black v. white" your statement seemed. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, but the way it was worded, you'd think that you'd believe that if you ever used an AMD CPU or an MSI or Asus board or a Lian Li case or Kingston or Corsair RAM that suddenly all hell would break loose.

Seriously, I don't even know where some of these wanna-be computer shops find this crap. RAM with chips from go knows what company in China, cases that can double as straight razors with power supplies that wouldn't even work as paper weights in a paperless office! It just amazes me. And then stuff dies left and right and they can't figure out WHY?!?! I'm not talking about end users. I'm talking about the people that put them together. WHY?!?!

I have one client we built 6 PC's for. I used MSI boards with Sempron 3200+ CPU's (socket A) and 512MB of Kingston RAM. AOpen case w/ FSP PSU, AOpen CDRW, Seagate SATA drive.

They were very solid machines.

Their IT guy said that they're not as good as their boss's machine because the boss had an Athlon64 3200+. Well.. they're not using a 64-bit OS and when I went into his machine to install a video card to support two LCD's (he was using on-board video) I found.....

A PC Chips board in a razor blade case with a Deer 300W power supply, a Maxtor 2MB cache IDE hard drive and a CDROM, not burner, from a company I never even heard of. And the RAM? Two sticks of 256 that just LOOKED cheap (bright green PCB and chips with no writing on them and a big white VOID IF REMOVED sticker.)

He thought that build was better than mine?!!? What a loser.

 

[RadioHead84]

I would also agree witht he epople above me and service is the number one key. NO ONE likes to goto Circuit city or Best Buy becuase no one knows their knows jack and they are all a@@holes.

Another thing I persoanlly would like to see is highend stuff. I understand you probably wont do this because it doesnt appeal to the large base of customers you might get..but I know when I go into my local PC store looking for somethiong for my top end computer..they usually dont have it.

 

[jonnyGURU]

I do have to admit.. Geek Squad? I love that ad. "Look who's it the house...."

That dude does the robot better than Moe Doodlebop.

 

[wcoffey]

thanks for the help so far, almost everything brought up is covered in my business plan. the store i had recently worked at was intel only. i don't like to locked into a single provider. i plan on systems based on amd and intel, retail boxed only and if a motherboard has less than a 3yr. warranty i will not offer it. i am heavily into dirt track racing so i plan on having desktop dyno and several suspension setup programs running on a system so all the racers can come in and use the software for free. i am talking to several laptop vendors so i can carry a couple in stock and offer anything else as an option. i come from the auto repair industry so i will be offering custom painted cases as an option. nothing radical like falcon but if your favorite 1st car was a green 74 gremlin you can get a case painted that color. probably, don't lock me into this, $150 + the case. if you want a white stripe well i guess it will have a stripe. all will be bc/cc. i have a source for the color shifting flake and that will be $25 more

 

[wcoffey]

also as an option i want to offer linux as an os so if you have any suggestions let me know

 

[illusion88]

Originally posted by: wcoffey
also as an option i want to offer linux as an os so if you have any suggestions let me know

Anyone who is serious about Linux won't need your service. Unless you can sell a box pretty cheep.

I wouldn't offer Linux to someone who doesn't know much about computers.

 

[MX2]

We offer discounts to repeat/return/loyal customers. It has boosted business significantly since implementation.

 

[OdiN]

You won't be offering many motherboards if you will take only ones with 3 years. Abits only have 2 years and they are great boards.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: jonnyGURU

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: jonnyGURU

Originally posted by: OdiN
All of our business computers for business clients get Intel motherboards, Intel CPU's, Crucial RAM and good Antec cases.

Oh sh!t! Coffee just sprayed out of my nose. Whew! That hurt. Good thing my sarcasm meter is working this morning.

Uhm...what are you talking about sarcasm for?

I'm just being a pseudo smart-ass. I've actually had a lower RMA rate with MSI and Asus than with Intel boards and it just pisses me off when I get a "refurb" board back from Intel that has a differernt problem than the one I returned. I have also been "shut down" by Crucial's warranty dept for not having an invoice for the stick of RAM I'm trying to return (lifetime warranty.. WITH AN INVOICE! Oops.) and I've had quite a few Antec power supplies blow up in my face.

THAT SAID I do not want to diminish ANY of what you point out. You're way, way, way, way, way better off with name brand parts than with any of that cheap crap that's out there.

I just thought it was awfully funny how "black v. white" your statement seemed. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, but the way it was worded, you'd think that you'd believe that if you ever used an AMD CPU or an MSI or Asus board or a Lian Li case or Kingston or Corsair RAM that suddenly all hell would break loose.

Seriously, I don't even know where some of these wanna-be computer shops find this crap. RAM with chips from go knows what company in China, cases that can double as straight razors with power supplies that wouldn't even work as paper weights in a paperless office! It just amazes me. And then stuff dies left and right and they can't figure out WHY?!?! I'm not talking about end users. I'm talking about the people that put them together. WHY?!?!

I have one client we built 6 PC's for. I used MSI boards with Sempron 3200+ CPU's (socket A) and 512MB of Kingston RAM. AOpen case w/ FSP PSU, AOpen CDRW, Seagate SATA drive.

They were very solid machines.

Their IT guy said that they're not as good as their boss's machine because the boss had an Athlon64 3200+. Well.. they're not using a 64-bit OS and when I went into his machine to install a video card to support two LCD's (he was using on-board video) I found.....

A PC Chips board in a razor blade case with a Deer 300W power supply, a Maxtor 2MB cache IDE hard drive and a CDROM, not burner, from a company I never even heard of. And the RAM? Two sticks of 256 that just LOOKED cheap (bright green PCB and chips with no writing on them and a big white VOID IF REMOVED sticker.)

He thought that build was better than mine?!!? What a loser.

Well...I am an Intel Channel Member and have a IPD number to access their tech support. Do you do this as well? I have had no problems with RMA's. In fact very few problems with Intel boards...only have had to send a few back

MSI I'm surprised you use...well...I stopped using them around the K7N2 series. I have seen a bunch of MSI boards come in with leaking caps.

Asus I agree are excellent boards and I use them a lot for non-business systems.

No problems with Crucials return...I don't have to have a receipt, but then again I'm a reseller so perhaps things are different then?? All I need is the order number that I purchased it on which is simple to look up from my PO.

Not saying that I never do AMD, just not that much for business. If today someone wanted a graphics workstation for CAD and such I would probably use an X2. I do AMD more for the general consumer rather than Intel. One reason is that a lot of businesses have the Intel mindset and are just more comfortable with them. The main reason I use them is the fact that I get replacement parts overnighted at no cost to me (and return shipping prepaid as well).

I also use Kingston RAM a lot. That would be the main two - Kingston and Crucial. Crucial I use for special order stuff for older computers because I can guarantee it will work. Kingston just happens to be the only reliable brand that my local disributor has.


Oh and I agree...some IT types are morons. Another reason the stuff I build is more expensive is because I REFUSE to use crap.

I started working at this place like 3 years ago (I'm now the manager) and they were in the middle of doing some builds. They were trying to beat another bid and were using ECS mainbaords. I told my boss not to, but being the new guy...ya know how that is. Every single NIC in those systems eventually had to be replaced....pretty much voided out any savings of getting an ECS board.

 

[bernse]

People who work there that actually know their a$$es from a hole in the ground and prices that while are not mail/internet order levels, aren't grotesquely high. I'd pay a premium to shop locally, but I ain't going to pay 25% more.

As well, not dealing with people that think they know everything and really don't, or think they are cool, but are in reality 25 year old virgins.

 

[wcoffey]

i haven't sold any abit boards in a while and i didn't raelize that they only had a two year warr. if a customer would request an abit i have no problem building a system around one. the store i have been at had zero rma's on intel boards for several years and then we started to a few, my own 875 pbz, the biggest problem we had was on the boards sent to us as replacements. yeh, we got the replacement overnight but at least 50% of them were dead! that doesn't do you much good. corsair ram is my favorite but i wouldn't refuse kingstone,crucial, ocz, geil or mushkin. i haven't decided on a company for my "go to" motherboards. i need cross platform and low end to performance from one company, plus i would like someone with a prefered partner type of setup, so i can get faster rma's, better tech and the like. networking will be covered by linksys unless someone has a special request. i just think it is hard to beat cisco. THANKS, for everything so far! i do keep a list of your suggestions. i have lived in this town for over 40 years and it's a fairly closed community so i want ideas from all over the place. i want people to walk in front door and feel comfortable. my main goal is not to get rich i just want to cover the bills, buy some groceries and have fun. i have seen too many customers treated rudely, lied to and left hanging. i hate it!!!! i know that you have all heard it before but treatment like that stops at my front door!

 

[Chode Messiah]

dont mess with T&S Computers!!!