The Wholesale Forums

[sr4470]

As title, I would probably build\sell in lots, with this as a base spec (at about £279):

AMD Sempron 2800+ 64-bit CPU
512MB Corsair Value DDR400 RAM
120GB SATA 7200rpm Hard disk
NEC ND3540A 16x DVD-RW
3.5' Floppy drive
Nvidia Geforce 6100 graphics
Gigabyte K8N51-GMF socket 754 motherboard
Aopen case with 300W power supply


Is this worth pursuing or is the low-end PC market too crowded?

[StrictlyUrban]

You can get better specs with a brand new Dell nowadays. It's hard to compete with the big boys.

[sr4470]

Originally Posted by StrictlyUrban

You can get better specs with a brand new Dell nowadays.

Depends what you mean by better, and at what price. I dont recall seeing many Dells selling at £279...

Originally Posted by StrictlyUrban

It's hard to compete with the big boys.

True.

[Dave Hybrid]

Originally Posted by sr4470

Depends what you mean by better, and at what price. I dont recall seeing many Dells selling at £279...



True.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...hs1&l=en&s=dhs

[StrictlyUrban]

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...en_1100_3&fb=1

[icomguy]

I used to do exactly what you are proposing about 5 years ago. What I found was that the margins were tiny and customer support was killing me. People wanted to buy a cheap machine and then complained when they couldn't run high-end games on it. I bagged it about 5 years ago and never looked back. It's just to hard to compete with the volume that folks like Dell have. I know that was 5 years ago, but I doubt it is any less competitive now - probably even worse. If you want to try it out, then just do a sample of maybe 10 machines and see how it goes. Good luck to you in any case!

-Paul

[sr4470]

The Dell you guys linked is the same price, but poorer specification.

1. None of those CPUs are really going to challenge a Sempron 2800 (except in certain applications, such as video encoding - which wont be being run on this kind of PC anyway)

2. That Dell power supply is horrendous. 145W sustained? The Aopen PSU is ATX2.0 compliant, which means its adhering to stringent output specifications.

3. Only 256MB RAM, compared with 512MB in my proposed system.

4. The motherboard has no AGP slot and 3 PCI slots for expansion. The motherboard in my specced PC has 2 PCI Express slots (1 for graphics) and 2 regular PCI slots.

Now tell me : is the Dell is better specced?

[icomguy]

This last post soooo reminds me of the conversations i used to have when I sold them. The problem is that most people (not all) do not really appreciate the quality differences that you or I might. They want cheap cheap cheap and you wind up putting together low end components (i.e. on board video and sound with shared memory with low end celerons) and then you get the complaints from people who try to run the new game software. I guess if you are able to clearly differentiate yourself and your machines from others and/or set appropriate expectations about what the machine can be used for, you might be better off. Again, good luck whatever way you decide to go.

-Paul

[sr4470]

Originally Posted by icomguy

This last post soooo reminds me of the conversations i used to have when I sold them. The problem is that most people (not all) do not really appreciate the quality differences that you or I might. They want cheap cheap cheap and you wind up putting together low end components (i.e. on board video and sound with shared memory with low end celerons) and then you get the complaints from people who try to run the new game software. I guess if you are able to clearly differentiate yourself and your machines from others and/or set appropriate expectations about what the machine can be used for, you might be better off. Again, good luck whatever way you decide to go.

-Paul

I agree with that, and I have been doing this small-scale with some success, just wondered if it was worth selling PCs in any significant numbers.

[elludovico]

If you are thinking about selling pc systems then I suppose you've already got contacts with a supplier, am I right?? I've been looking for a pc parts supplier for quite a long time but unfortunately I haven't found one, so just wondering if you could give me some info. I don't want to sell pc systems but these pc parts would be sold to local people.
Please pm me
Thanks
Ludovic