Building and Sell, Advice and Info on eBay, My Perspective

[Stephie_Girl]

Greetings everyone!!

 

I've recently seen an influx of people who want to get into building PC's and selling them.  I would think as a seasoned veteran and probably someone who probably sells more units than most, I figured I could chime in some info and advice on everything.

 

The Hobby

Building and selling needs to be a hobby.  There is not enough profit margin to make any sort of living out of it.  Also, until you build a customer base (mine is small and my city has 1.5 million people), you cannot guarantee consistent work.  Don't spend $10,000 on 6 PC's because you'll probably sit on them for awhile.  Go out and find some family or friends that can trust you, charge them a modest fee if any and slowly build from there.  Don't quit your day job.

 

Charging

Most people like me don't charge family and friends.  Some are more than willing to pay me say 50-100 dollars and that's perfectly fine.  That's on their own will, but never ask for money from them.  Simply ask them to give out your business cards to people.  Come up with a fair pricing set, but look around first to see what others charge.  Best Buy charges $200.00 for virus removal around me, so I know I can easily charge a fraction of that and be okay.  If you're in this to make money, you need to charge something or you'll end up like me and doing alot of free work for strangers at times.

 

Honest & Warranty

The 2 best ways to sell yourself better than most places is great transparency and honest and offer a decent warranty.  I cannot tell you how many 2am calls I've received from people with PC issues.  This is the sad truth but if you don't offer any kind of warranty, people would rather sub-par services from Best Buy despite the price because they have no one to fall back on.  The terms and conditions vary, but be wary, don't offer a life time warranty at least for parts, that's asking for trouble.

 

Offer Other Services

As much as I LOVE building, I get more questions about virus removal, laptop work and other things far more often.  Now I don't mess with laptops like screen replacement and motherboard stuff because frankly, the liability is too high and it isn't worth it.  That's just me but you're going to want to develop skills because if all you want to do is build, you won't grow your customer base very well.

 

Selling Used PC's

This can be hit or miss depending on what you're selling.  I buy a ton of dells/hp's and add in a decent graphics card and resell them.  On average I net about $50/PC after all fee's are paid.  Main brands sell VERY well in the market still, and grabbing a cheap Core 2 Duo with 4GB of ram and an HD 6670 you can easily sell it for $250, which I've done many times.  Many companies sell PC's as "for parts not working" because they only booted to bios, so they often go for pretty cheap.

 

Selling your old PC can be good or bad.  Don't expect to get "new" pricing for it, but look around the market.  See what other similar setups are going for and price accordingly.  Now I sold an PC with a first gen I7, a HD 7850 2GB, an SSD+HD and 8GB of ram for $550.00 locally.  I had about 300 in it because it was a trade in that didn't work.  But don't expect top dollar and make sure you do the following:
Physically clean it out

Wipe the drive and put windows on it

If the customer wants certain programs on there install it for them

 

Be willing to negotiate as well.  Forget how you paid $1,000 for it 2 years ago and be willing to take $500-600 for it.  

 

 

Ebay

There is much to talk about here so just bare with me but eBay unfortunately is a very unprofitable way of doing business and there are many risks involved too!

 

Buyer's Protection

Probably one of the biggest turn offs out there.  Despite sellers are the ones who pay all the fee's and make eBay what it is, Buyer's Protection is very annoying and there are many steps you need to take.  If you're newer on eBay and a buyer opens a case, your funds are frozen.  They can open a case simply as "Not as advertised" because you made claims about the PC that are not true.  I will cover this later

 

PayPal

Accept PayPal and nothing less.  Although they charge 3% fee, they offer great protection for both parties.  If their account doesn't have sufficient funds, you still receive the money, but PayPal goes after the other person to get their money back.  Also PayPal lets the parties work things out and they aren't as 1 sided as eBay.

 

The Ad Itself

You want to make sure the Ad is organized nicely, sectioned so it's pleasing to the eye and DO NOT give an exact expectation of what to expect.  For formatting purposes, don't use walls of text and use simpler language.  You can state the specifications, but give a reason why each piece inside the PC is good for those who may not know.  Be very personal about it and a matter of fact as well.  Watch for spelling and grammar errors as it can turn people off as well.  One thing I NEED to stress is do NOT post benchmarks or make outrageous claims. If someone receives the computer and it's 5FPS short on what the benchmark said for Crysis, you're getting that PC returned.  Instead, if you're selling a PC with an FX-6300 and a GTX 660, you can say it plays most games in the high detail level in HD.  Be vague but give a realistic picture of what they can expect.

 

Things That Sell

The sad truth is, what sells well and what is good are 2 different things.  I see people advertise "QUAD CORE" and "2GB of GRAPHICS!!" when it's an Athlon II X4 630 and an HD 6450 and they get a ton of money from it.  Also those same people oversell their products claiming it can max out Metro Last Light.  The truth is, I7's, Q6600's and NVidia graphics cards vastly outsell the rest.  You can get 200 dollars more for a PC if it has an I7 over an I5.  Even an I7-920 outsells an I5-4670K.  People think I7 is just the best out there regardless of what your ad might say.  The Q6600 and 9800 GT have an amazing name in the tech world.  I've see this combination sell for 400-500 dollars all day.  They were really good for their time and had a long run to boot.  AMD Radeon and FX-8350's don't sell for crap.  However if you want to flash the term quad core around, grab an Athlon 750K, A10-5800K or FX-4300 so you can sell a good product for a good price.

This is primarily why I got out of that business.  I have to build what sells not what's good.  An I5-4670K+HD 7950 will bring less profit than a 750k+HD 6450 2GB.  And I prefer to do honest work but I got burned several times listing great valued products and losing over $100 on it sometimes.  But that's Bay for you

 

Shipping

Always and I mean ALWAYS insure your products you ship.  And always get an account with the shipper you choose.  FedEx, whom I used, saves me a TON of money because I ship through them alot.  Also if you have a damaged package, having an account makes it much easier.  I've had 2 damaged products and a lost product.  Despite what eBay says do NOT refund the customer right away.  You will need their assistance in filing a claim if something goes wrong.  Eventually PayPal might get involved, but I strongly recommend that you stay on-top of things so they customers doesn't receive the product AND a refund.  Make sure you pack the product very well,  I was very lucky that FedEx paid out for a recent disaster despite it was probably my customers fault.

 

eBay and PayPal Fee's

eBay charges listing fee's that generally range from $5-10, and then they get 10% of the sale price+shipping as well.  PayPal gets 3% of the sale price (not including shipping).  So if you sell a PC for $1,000, you'll pay $100+10 from eBay another 30 from PayPal and the difference between what you charged for shipping and what it costs you to ship.  If you have an eBay store, it costs $20/month +4% instead.

 

Starting Price

I often see people who have maybe $500 in a PC start their auction at $700.  That is the reason why none of these auctions sell.  You need to start it much lower and as people see more bids on it, it becomes attractive to other people.  These drastically increases your chance of selling for what you want.  Having friends/family bid on the item is not allowed and illegal, however there is something that you are allowed to do.

 

Advertise the PC locally and if you find a potential buyer, you can arrange price with them and have them bid on it.  They HAVE to be interested in the product and this way you don't get burned on shipping if they win.  The transaction HAS to take place if they win or you can be fined or jailed for fraud which is not fun.  People have friends and family bid on stuff all the time and if you get caught it isn't pretty.

 

Free Shipping & Other incentives

Free shipping is very attractive to customers.  If you have a shipping account, chances are the additional action your PC gets, will offset the shipping charges.  I always recommend free shipping or very discounted shipping.  Make sure you clearly state in 1 or 2 places in the ad your terms.  I only ship to the lower 48 states (customs fee's over the boarder and international shipping is a pain for me).  Be very clear on your return policy and terms.  I accept returns within 14 days IF and ONLY IF the item is defective, the item CANNOT be damaged in any way, and if it is not defective there is a 15% restocking fee and buyer pays return shipping.  Unless you do this people will abuse you.

 

Other things you need to watch out for is Buy it Now and Reserves.  Reserves turn people off, they say 3 out of 10 people will consider a product if it has a reserve on it.  Reserves do make it so it doesn't sell for under a certain amount, but at the same time you'll see 30% of the traffic you'd normally see.  Buy it Now's are tricky, I personally avoid them because 4 out of 5 times it's a scammer from India or Nigeria asking for my bank account number so they can wire me the funds.  I recommend against them on eBay anyway.

 

 

Craigslist

Craigslist, depending on where you live can be a pretty decent advertising tool.  I live in the city so I get some traffic from craigslist.  However most of my traffic comes from referrals.  Be wary of scams, try to meet at a public place (even though I have them come to me, I live in a SUPER nice area).  Accept ONLY cash or PayPal prior.  I've had 2 checks go bad and had to involve the police because they refused to return the computer to me.  Be wary and don't accept "less" cash because that's all they had.  But be wary, there are a TON of scams out there so try and get to know the customer before you meet.  Feel free to show them any and everything they want to know.

 

 

Conclusion

You won't be able to make a career out of this.  Even if you charge 200/PC you'd have to build and sell 10-20 PC's a month and pay taxes of that revenue (and even that is 24-48k/year before taxes and healthcare).  Do this as a side job for a little extra cash or as a hobby.  The more passion you have for doing PC work and building, the more business you will get.  This kind of work is fine, but is not very profitable unless you can do things others can't or you can get things directly from the manufacturer (which you generally cannot).  I myself plan to make the basement my personal shop where I can work out of nights and evenings when I get my career job.  However I would only like to make a little money from it (maybe a few thousand after expenses).  I enjoy helping others and do good quality PC work at a fair price because of how many rip offs there are around here!!

 

I hope this helps everyone as my insight might be different from others, but it's definitely a perspective of the business out there!!

[megadarkwood]

Bookmarked for future use.

[Stephie_Girl]

Bookmarked for future use.

Thanks

[megadarkwood]

Thanks

Just a question, where is the best place to get bulk orders on components?

[ttam]

I've done this for years and it's sad to say that it has died down drastically. Also laptop screen + mobo replacements can be charged as a specialty and I normally get $100+ for doing them

[Stephie_Girl]

Just a question, where is the best place to get bulk orders on components?

I buy them from the same place everyone else does.  Newegg/NCIX, as we don't have access to vendors.

Awesome post, but i dont think building pc and selling on ebay. there are to many people selling second hand rig for way last than what you can by it all new. The days of making money off cust pc is gone...unless its full cust (  paint and all )

I think I'll add a section in about that.

I've done this for years and it's sad to say that it has died down drastically. Also laptop screen + mobo replacements can be charged as a specialty and I normally get $100+ for doing them

Yes, I did a screen replacement for someone and the screen costed $60.00 and it was very difficult and took quite awhile.  I ended up charging $80.00 for the labor when you can buy a BRAND NEW laptop for 329.99 from Best Buy and she paid me $140.00

[ttam]

 

Yes, I did a screen replacement for someone and the screen costed $60.00 and it was very difficult and took quite awhile.  I ended up charging $80.00 for the labor when you can buy a BRAND NEW laptop for 329.99 from Best Buy and she paid me $140.00

My customers tend to say they would rather spend x amount to get it working because it's cheaper. Which is also a selling point for one of my custom computers to be sold.

[Stephie_Girl]

My customers tend to say they would rather spend x amount to get it working because it's cheaper. Which is also a selling point for one of my custom computers to be sold.

Well this is true for desktop PC's.  We can easily make $100 per computer and be cheaper than Best Buy but also make a much better system as well!!