Should I charge a customer in advance for a large hardware purchase?

[ell]

I would never use my $$, learned that lesson when I started out. I offer to pick it up and set it all up, transfer data,etc for a fixed fee. Best Buy even has a program for this!:

Friends & Family Pickup
You can place an order and have someone else pick it up. During checkout, simply provide the name and e-mail address (optional) of the person who will pick up your order.

If you provide an e-mail address, we'll send the ready-for-pickup e-mail directly to your pickup person. If you do not provide an e-mail address, you'll need to communicate your order details to your pickup person.

Your pickup person will need to bring:

Their government-issued photo ID
The order number
Only you or your pre-selected Friends & Family Pickup person may pick up the order.

[cmonova]

I use to be concerned about this when starting out due to the cost depending on what all had to be ordered. But, over time have cared less and less about it. If we are talking a few thousand I might take some up front but otherwise we just foot the bill and get payment upon delivery.

[bscs]

I just had a new company starting up want to purchase about $18,000 worth of hardware from me. I simply told them hardware orders over $1,000 are prepay only and they were perfectly fine with it.

[IAMPC]

The answer is YES....