This is why I will not sell computers :)
Hokey smoke!! I was just reading this book (well, the excerpts anyway). It made me sad(reality==depressing). Go ahead and read it...I'll wait.
Ya see? The author goes into great detail about how low the profit margin is for building computers yourself. Actually, any hardware-related sales seems to be a losing proposition. My favorite part was the "sell $200,000 worth of computers in a year but only take home $17,000 profit" bit. I looked around the Web for other company's prices and
this Dell system cemented it. $298 for a computer with a 17" monitor, Windows XP Home, WordPerfect and a free printer. I'm not even going to try to compete with that. The cheapest 17 inch monitor I could get locally is over $100 (I really don't want to mail-order stuff like I should, and I doubt I could get that much cheeper anyway) and Windows XP Home is $80 (with the perchase of a hard drive ($55) or somesuch), then there is the case ($22). Lessee...that's $257 without a motherboard, memory, a mouse, a keyboard, or a CPU (then there is labor and maintainance...). Sooooooo... it looks like I'm going to be "selling my time" (see the above book link..fer real this time) doing on-site computer and network repair. Which is what I wanted to do in the first place, so...good. No inventory, no returns, less hassle. And now, if anyone asks me why I don't sell computers I'm just gonna say "Dimension 2400." Of course, if they want me to charge them $60 or so to order it and set it up for them...I'm cool with that :).
There... no computer sales...decision made. Whew.... Now I just have to come up with a name.
Ya see? The author goes into great detail about how low the profit margin is for building computers yourself. Actually, any hardware-related sales seems to be a losing proposition. My favorite part was the "sell $200,000 worth of computers in a year but only take home $17,000 profit" bit. I looked around the Web for other company's prices and
this Dell system cemented it. $298 for a computer with a 17" monitor, Windows XP Home, WordPerfect and a free printer. I'm not even going to try to compete with that. The cheapest 17 inch monitor I could get locally is over $100 (I really don't want to mail-order stuff like I should, and I doubt I could get that much cheeper anyway) and Windows XP Home is $80 (with the perchase of a hard drive ($55) or somesuch), then there is the case ($22). Lessee...that's $257 without a motherboard, memory, a mouse, a keyboard, or a CPU (then there is labor and maintainance...). Sooooooo... it looks like I'm going to be "selling my time" (see the above book link..fer real this time) doing on-site computer and network repair. Which is what I wanted to do in the first place, so...good. No inventory, no returns, less hassle. And now, if anyone asks me why I don't sell computers I'm just gonna say "Dimension 2400." Of course, if they want me to charge them $60 or so to order it and set it up for them...I'm cool with that :).
There... no computer sales...decision made. Whew.... Now I just have to come up with a name.
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