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#11
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"Mad Ad" wrote in message
... To find trade sources, get a copy of CTO and/or CTS, but don't expect discount bits unless you buy a bit of quantity, even then, the discounts are small. If you're serious about starting up, form a ltd company and register for VAT, you'll find the trade suppliers easier to deal with then. Yes I realise being a registered co. and vat registered to boot would help market presence from all angles, however to achieve that kinda turnover (what is it, 46,000 pa rolling or something atm?) Id would have already progressed to a stage 2 or 3 situation with the business plan rather than a green first year startup. (The initial hurdles are always the hardest to jump). Finally, Thanks for the pointer to CTS/CTO (not sure what you mean a copy? cto's a distributor no? Ive just joined anyway. You don't need to reach the turnover threshold to register for VAT. I found I had to register almost immediately as it was often one of the first things asked when contacting suppliers. At the other end of the scale they also liked you to have a fax machine. Prestigious item a fax machine! :-) I found CTO trade magazine was little help and better prices were available elsewhere often from retailers. In the end I packed it in. |
#12
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hey I bought one of those once, twin fan, gold case, kettle plug the wrong
way up - iirc 25 quid from maplins. Ive never found why they are so cheap, mebee they were measured at minus 30 degrees or something daft? lol. As soon as they were in maplins, they also started to appear on pc fair tables in london and the counties, naturally some company must be dumping large cheap stocks of them somewhere. Ad "tinklemagoo" wrote in message ... e buyer sell q tec 550 watt psus at £20, they buy them for £10 each, my local store cant get them for £20! and they seel them at £40 Ebuyer bulk buy 10000+ at a time direct from manufacture unless you do same you wont get big discounts. |
#13
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"Daibhidh" wrote in message
... Mad Ad wrote: Say I wanted to set up as a pc builder and/or a parts supplier, then how would I get good prices to be able to compete? I assume Id get some kinda trade account, but from who? And what kind of discount are we talking? As a lot of people have said in reply to your post, you're never going to get really good discounts unless you're buying in real bulk. I run a small PC repair business, and I also do some cheap PCs for some of my customers. By doing a lot of shopping around, and by offering added "extras" along with the PCs (a month's on-site tech support, installation & setup help etc) it's pretty easy to build PCs that aren't too much more expensive than elsewhere, but are pretty attractive in terms of added value. Just my 2p worth. Hi Daibhidh, thanks for the 2p .... I agree absolutely with what you say there, at this point im still trying to learn how good means how bulk, I'm familiar with electronic houses and have sold b2b consumables from an office many years ago so i do realise these discount levels may not ramp up for quite a while. Hey im still feeling my way. Agreed too, the barebones market is rock bottom for some configurations (amd based especially) and isnt it ohh soo much easier to maintain something you built yourself . Its just me having the confidence to invest the time and marketing into the build side as a plan (rather than one offs as an inevitability of a repair business) even if it is small numbers to begin, I can hope for high turnover despite low quantity Good luck Ad |
#14
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CTO is a magazine, on controlled circulation, advertised in by most major PC
distributors and associated trades. I can't remember which poster said CTO was rubbish, but CTO is actually a fairly good source. If you think looking through a magazine will get you best prices, then you'll never make it in the PC business. Everything is open to negotiation. It's a monthly magazine, printed in advance, so how accurate are the prices likely to be ? Prices are obtained by negotiation. On the question of VAT, if the threshold is 50 grand and you have an average margin of 20%, that gives you an average annual profit, before tax, of 10 grand. You won't convince ANY distributor that you're seriously a business if your ambition is to make 10 grand a year before tax. Thats why you should register immediately. My first year in hardware had a turnover of about 225K. VAT threshold wouldn't have lasted to the end of Q1. On the question of discounts/volume, different disties give different price breaks on different volumes. Get CTO and phone round a few with your requirements and negotiate some discounts on quantities you can afford to buy. Look at specialising in cables/cases/network products which have a slightly better margin, or network products with installations, but first off, address that VAT issue. You can't actually make a decent living, even if your purchases only account for 50% of your turnover, without going over the threshold. It's NOT a second year issue. Regards, Ally. |
#15
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Anul Samoo wrote:
Do you have a shop or operate from home? What kind of money are you making? Is there any long term future in this kind of business? How long before PC's/computers are just throw away electrical goods like lots of other things like VCRs, Microwaves, Kettles, Toasters, Irons etc and all you kind of people are out of work? I work from home, and I'm based in a very rural part of Scotland, so my costs are pretty low, and there's a fair number of people with PCs but neither the knowledge, nor the access to mainland-based services to help them when they get into bothers. I'm making enough money to get by, and I do a few other things in addition to the PC repair / building thing too (as is the way in this part of the world). |
#16
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