Business

hey, i havent been around much as ive been trying to write business plans, for a computer repair and design company,can anyone give me tips on prices and invoices as most techys around here are expensive. basically looking at 3 main plans

pc set up outlook intergration and internet

networking routers ect mac to pc

pc repairs

and then on the side websites and upgrades

any ideas of what you would add to the business side also what suppliers would you look at ive struck a deal at my local computer shop for supplies but it still works out damn expensive. another thing is call outs how much would u expect to pay?

btw this is just an idea and as of yet not going to be ready for a while

Ant, I used to work for a computer repair shop. Just a warning to start, it went bust. There are a lot of these types of businesses around so it is very difficult to break into the market. Also we found that we couldnt get parts and make enough profit from repairs as often it was cheaper to buy a new computer from PC world or similar. Avoid laptops as they are very difficult to get parts for (except HDDs).

As far as prices, if I remember correctly we uses to charge a £10 investigation fee. And:
virus removal - £15
PSU replacement - £30 ish
call out charge was £15 per hour i think.

Our main suppliers were Ebuyer, Computer2000 and a mobile van man.

Also, Ant if you want some welding doing. Looks like the perfect slot coming up 23rd July to 4th August. Boss is going on holiday :)

lol ya were gonna run it from home to keep costs down, i was thinking of building pcs also as more often than not the 3 main problems with a pc is age, spyware and hdd/mother board probs.

as for welding that sounds like good timing, your in licester right? any chance we could spend the day mocking it up ect? get some opnions aswell?

Will email you.

Have a look at what the techs at PC World charge and then undercut.
We buy bits from a couple of sites
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/k.asphttp://www.komplett.co.uk/k/k.asp
and http://www.overclockers.co.uk/http://www.overclockers.co.uk/
I build sites with Joomla these days this site http://bechypnotherapy.com/http://bechypnotherapy.com/
was a 3 hour build including pic and logo. You should be able to charge between £100 and £200 for the build and setup. However Joomla is a bit of a steep learning curve.
Im with Ed on thwe going bust doing PC repairs. There are just too many people doing it.

thing is im mainly photoshop my friend is an asp and web coder professionally but has a second njob andi can only get him on a part time contract so ill be doing repairs maybe web is the way to go

There are even more people chasing web design than PC repair.
The mantra for going independent is :-
1. Get really, really, really good at something
2. Let people know how good you are, demonstrate.
3. Let people know you are for hire.

rinse and repeat