Do you need a new watercooling online shop?

[tiagojcp]

So... I recently needed to replace the tubing (translucent turned white) and fittings (silver turned rust) from my wc loop. Unsatisfied with the online shop where I bought them, I search for an alternative.

Since I live in Portugal, I'm restricted to EU stores because of high customs taxes. I always search for the most trusted ones in forums or with recent posts in facebook, because a few years ago I lost around 50€ in an online shop that went bankrupt days after my purchase...

Looking for the lower cost, I found a somewhat trusting shop in Portugal, that sold what I wanted: Monsoon fittings and EK matte black tubing. I don't like shops that don't let us know how many of each item they have in stock, or at least tell us that they have low stock, but I went for it.

The first e-mail I received was... "We don´t have some of items in stock, but give us four or five days", and after those passed... "another week", and another, and two more! In the end, one and a half month had passed, so I asked for my money back. Than the places that had the fittings at a fair price only had the brand of tubing I was trying to replace (Masterkleer), and the shops that had both (or a good alternative tubing/fitting brands), were to expensive.

So I had to end up buying directly from EK. A satisfying service, but naturally, they only sell EK.

After all this rambling, my question is:

Do you need a new watercooling online shop? At least if you live in Europe.

Because I'm tired of looking everywhere for prices, if the shop is legit or if it has any reviews or opinions with less that 5 years in some obscure forum, I'm thinking of starting my own shop.

I would have to start small, selling only brands that I trust and/or you guys would want to buy. All that would be for sale had to be in stock, but obviously, I could take requests. I wouldn't be trying to compete with the "big boys", but would rather be the friendly corner shop that you could trust. And if you had any problems, you could share them here, so that we could create the best possible service together. If you were happy with the service... great!

I'm just a guy that sells insurances on a call center, so I die a little every day as you may imagine. And I need to take baby steps, because I don't have a lot of money to invest. So what do you think?

Is this a good idea? Do I need to open a shop to provide the kind of services and prices I can't get from other places, or we already have the perfect shop and I'm just unable to find it?

Sorry for the novel, but I'd really appreciate your opinion.

Thanks!

(WetSandyBeast wc update soon)

 

 

 

[FloRolf]

Aquatuning?

[tiagojcp]

Aquatuning?

 

I bought all my inicial kit from them when they opened the portuguese website, because of a 12% discount. I would buy from them again if I was sure I wouldn´t need to contact their portuguese representatives (again). But this time the only black 5/8 3/8 tubing they had was Masterkleer, wich I will never buy again, and the very expensive Tygon in massive quantities. They also didn´t have the Monsoon fittings I wanted (but at least had many alternatives).

[FloRolf]

I bought all my inicial kit from them when they opened the portuguese website, because of a 12% discount. I would buy from them again if I was sure I wouldn´t need to contact their portuguese representatives (again). But this time the only black 5/8 3/8 tubing they had was Masterkleer, wich I will never buy again, and the very expensive Tygon in massive quantities. They also didn´t have the Monsoon fittings I wanted (but at least had many alternatives).

You could order from the german/UK aquatuning or not? They always have lots of stuff.

[tiagojcp]

You could order from the german/UK aquatuning or not? They always have lots of stuff.

 

It's the same, stock wise. The only differences between the different websites (I think) are some translations, and the intermediary between the costumer of a certain country and the the german site. The portuguese ones are the just there to tell that if you have any problems, you'll have to send an e-mail in german to someone, that ends up being on vacations, and only after 5 or 6 e-mails, most of them in german (all hail google translator), I discovered that I couldn´t change an order nor cancel it, after a few minutes of placing it.

 

Great prices, lots of stuff, not that great of a costumer support.

[Shyxlol]

Aquatuning?

They don't have any bitspower items though if I'm not mistaken. Only place I found some with decent pricing was highflow.nl

[airdeano]

specialtech in the UK is a premium watercooling shop. been up since 2001 and

sells worldwide. drop 'em a contact and see what they can do for you.

 

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/

[tiagojcp]

specialtech in the UK is a premium watercooling shop. been up since 2001 and

sells worldwide. drop 'em a contact and see what they can do for you.

 

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/

 

I've only hear/read good things about specialtech, and when I want to buy something, always check them out; but always end up buying from somwhere else because of the price. It's not the most expensive shop, but for my purchases at least, they are about 20% more expensive with taxes and shipping costs included.

 

I guess good service comes with a premium there, and that´s what I'm trying to avoid if I open my own shop