The Wholesale Forums

[NewSeller]

Hey, can i just get your views on what in your opinion are the best ways of preventing scam chargebacks.

Do you only post to registered addresses?
What is a method of post to use,? Recommendations?
How can i protect myself, from chargebacks?

Also anyone know roughly how much it would cost to post a computer base (the tower) within the uk?

Id ideally like to do it through the post office as i dont think ill be selling enough straight away to justify using city link or am i better using city like or parcel force?

Cheers.

[amazingfinance]

Search the internet for those answers.

Use a courier, Initial Clty Link are the best of the bad bunch. they would charge £5+Vat for a pc tower, well thats what they charged me.

Post to confirmed address only ( if u are talking about paypal payments )

[Anthony]

What is your primary selling venue? Is it eBay?

[NewSeller]

Well its going to be a ecommerse site. However just want to put a few of my first builds on ebay and use that to advertise my site when it launches.

After my site launch id still like to sell mabye 10 items a week on ebay though.

Btw it was a question geared more towards paypal and chargebacks!

ive seen people on here (i think) say that even though they had a confirmed address and the signed postage details and tracking numbers they still lost a chargeback!

[NewSeller]

I notied alot of people using city link wasnt aware of their prices though, but that seems pretty fair.

2 Questions about them though.

I'm not sure how these companies work, do they come to your house and pick up the parcel? or do you have to drop it into their base?

Also if they do call for a parcel, do they come out at set days or do you call them when you have something to send?


Oh and one more, do they charge extra if im posting from N.Ireland, most places have cheaper rates for mainland uk!

Thanks for the replies.

[anotheruser]

NewSeller, your chances of selling 10 PCs per week on eBay are remote. Have you seen how much they go for on there? I don't think you will even get the parts for that much, let alone make a profit. So you will have very few chargebacks from that source.

If you want to use eBay to draw traffic, may I suggest you choose the most competitively priced components you can source as a start up business and sell those, rather than PCs.

The sort of things I'm thinking about will fit in a jiffy bag and fit in the post box, so Royal Mail will do the job for you. Again, not much risk of chargebacks. Just get proof of delivery for a few pence per shot.

If you do get to using carriers, they pick up from you. Unless you order a regular pick up, you call them when you have something to send and they pick it up later that day or next day, usually, depending what time you call.

Rates vary from carrier to carrier. Once you have an idea of the weight and measurements, including packaging, of what you will be sending, get quotes from all of those you can find. Don't forget to take returned goods into account. If someone gets something faulty from you - it can and will happen - they need to be able to get it back to you and you will end up paying.

But as I said earlier, I don't think you are running too many risks in the foreseeable future.

[Pete]

Yes, if you enjoy building computers, you will probably do better building them for friends and family and then expanding locally. The thing is that it's so simple to buy one in a bax, take it home and plug it in. And paying for it with monthly payments, of course.

Actually, you'll make more repairing computers and setting them up / upgrading them for folks. That has become a right good business here in the US. I can imagine it being a required service everywhere.

Assembling boxes you'll never make much. Your profit per hour won't be great, I can assure you. Add to that the free service calls you will undoubtably have to handle, and it's not a profitable business. UNLESS you specialize. One area is high-end boxes for gamers or musicians, but many gamers are also gearheads and build their own stuff.

I've built boxes, can tell you all about it. In my case I was including them in point-of-sale systems, so I had a lot of profit in the cash drawers, barcode scanners, etc. And the software, plus I spent several days doing paid training, so the boxes were just an incidental component of the whole package. But I would get into prices when they wanted more than one, either networking several checkout stands or a couple of units in the office. Then it was hard to bury the box price in with everything else.

Best to find a local niche, old retired folks, gamers, etc. and concentrate on them, not fight prices and shipping on ebay.

[anotheruser]

Yet another excellent post with lots of good advice, Pete. Come to think of it, the PC repair shops around here all started by building boxes to sell, found it very hard going and those who survived are all now doing very well on repairs, spare parts and peripherals. They all seem to have boxes for sale but they don't look like doing much with them. More for show, I think.

Your problem if you follow that advice, NewSeller, would be premises. Do you have anywhere to work from? You need enough space to do the work in, store the boxes awaiting repair, and to shelve or rack your parts. Even if it's just a good sized garden shed or cellar room to start with.

Are there many computer repair businesses near you already? Or do you feel there's room for you to operate?

[NewSeller]

I'm very surprised by your posts regarding ebay. Firstly every single computer ive looked at in ebay, i can build and sell for £50 - £70 profit.

For example one i looked at the other day (remember most computers on ebay dont come with monitors or operating systems, dont be fooled by the term "Vista Ready")

I've done alot of research an auction that ended the other day a person sold

6000+ AMD 64 x2 Dual core processor
2 Gb Ram
160 GB Sata Hard Drive
Geforce 7200 512 mb graphics card
Cd / Dvd RW

He sold this computer with no operating system for 359 + 19.99 P&P.
Total: 379.99


I can build the same computer for £272
Paypal, ebay and postage will cost £26
Round it up to £300

So a total of £300 Spent
and i get 379.99

£80 profit. Yes in my prices i took into account a case, a PSU and a motherboard etc.

I imagine in america it would be a hard market, but in the uk i think there is good money to be made!

[anotheruser]

That's great if you can do that. I'd be the last person to discourage you. Give it a go. In any event, even if it turns out as Pete says (and I've seen happen several times), you should be able to sell what you build locally and it is a good way to introduce your business to people so you can pull in other work anyway, if you need to.

Just be aware, though, a chunk of your time will be taken up by people who have bought knowing nothing about PCs and you will have to answer the phone and talk them through the most basic, seemingly stupid, questions. And you will get a seriously bad rep if you're not prepared to help, civilly. Good luck!

<edit>By the way - they are Vista ready. They are also Linux ready, OS/2 ready, or any other operating system you wish to consider ready! There again, so would an already formatted hard drive be. You simply overwrite it. </edit>