Is Break/Fix Hardware repair business at end of life?

[britechguy]

Break-fix isn't dead here, either, although it's been "feast or famine" for some time now.

It seems like I get strings of calls (and, lately, tons for game stations, which I don't fix) that just won't quit, followed by equal or longer periods of dead silence.

 

[symbatech]

Dead silence is a good term for what I'm experiencing right now. I've gotten one call all week. Trying to think of what to do, whether I should shutter the business and look for something else, or hang on for a while and see if it picks back up. At 60 years old, it's not a great time to start a whole new career. Break/fix had been my bread and butter for over 30 years. Now I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on.

 

[britechguy]

I agree that at 60 (I will be 64 quite soon) it's a terrible time to start anything "radically different" as far as career goes.

I'm actually surprised, given where you live, that there is not a large, built-in, senior citizen demographic in constant need of break-fix and/or setup new work.

This economy is not good for job hunters of any age, for that matter. I came into the job market in 1985, and the way things are now, compared to then, makes it no surprise to me that those in their 20s just starting out are very discouraged.

 

[symbatech]

I agree that at 60 (I will be 64 quite soon) it's a terrible time to start anything "radically different" as far as career goes.

I'm actually surprised, given where you live, that there is not a large, built-in, senior citizen demographic in constant need of break-fix and/or setup new work.

This economy is not good for job hunters of any age, for that matter. I came into the job market in 1985, and the way things are now, compared to then, makes it no surprise to me that those in their 20s just starting out are very discouraged.

Senior citizens have always been a good portion of my clientele, along with small businesses. Many seniors live on a fixed income and therefore aren't spending the way they used to, especially with the cost of everything soaring. The calls are very few and far between now. Sadly, many have passed away over the years as well. I've had a steady client for over 25 years that I do regular work for. She's a real estate developer, and I help her with a lot of other administrative stuff in addition to keeping her computers running smoothly. She is now 72 and her final property is on the market. Once that sells, that income stream will dry up too.

Most of my small business customers have closed up shop. In the beginning, I came from a real estate background and therefore had built up a good circle of influence to launch my business from. I lost a significant portion of my Realtor clients during the 2008 downturn. Many went out of business or left the industry. The same holds true for the other clients that I once had in the title, insurance, and appraisal arms. Most of what Realtors do now can be done on a tablet or phone, so the demand isn't what it once was.

This area is oversaturated in pretty much every category, so seeking out new business is a tough slog. I am going to reach out to one of my customers who manages a housing development to see if I might be able to eke out a few referrals there.

Overall, everything is tight right now with the mess the economy is in. Not sure I can survive long enough for a regime change.

 

[lan101]

Now though, I struggle with what I want to do.

I only mention all this because I really see break fix coming back in a way. I especially see component level diagnosis and repair breaking out even more. With the insane cost of components, I think people are going to be motivated to fix and keep what they have more now than they have been in a very long time.

I was just looking back through amazon at my SSD purchase history. I found a 480GB Kingston I picked up for $23.99 in 2023. That same drive is listed now for like $100.

I believe in my market it'll be just the opposite in my opinion. I don't think anyone will repair or fix anything much at these insane ram and ssd prices now.

Unless even entry level junk laptops become $1000 then maybe...but if these junk clunkers remain $400-$500 no one will fix them unless you practically give your services away for nothing I suppose lol.

Guess it all depends on your market and what people are willing to spend. I bought a samsung nvme 990 2TB back in 2023 for $160...now it's over $600. If mine fails I'm not replacing it. I'll just live without it and get something else. If the price got back down to $300 something maybe but at over $600 it's not worth that to me.

I bought a couple of the same kingston's I think for around that same price. Now they are like a luxury item buy lol.

 

[sapphirescales]

Guess it all depends on your market and what people are willing to spend. I bought a samsung nvme 990 2TB back in 2023 for $160...now it's over $600.

People are just going to have to learn to live with less RAM and storage capacity or pay these new prices. It wasn't too long ago that a 1TB SSD was $400 and I survived just fine. I just had a client come in with a failing 2TB SSD. Quoted them $900 to replace it and image the old one, or they could pay me $400 to have me transfer all their data to an external drive and reinstall Windows onto a 500GB SSD. Three guesses which one they chose. The day before I quoted someone $600 to upgrade their laptop from 16GB of RAM to 32GB and another $500 to upgrade their storage from 500GB to 1TB and they didn't flinch at the cost. It depends on the client.

That being said I massively stocked up on RAM and SSDs when I saw the prices going up. I got boatloads of 2TB SSDs that I bought for $129, 1TB's that I got for $65, 500GB's that I got for around $45, and 250GB that I got for $27. I barely bought any 4TB drives because I sell them so rarely but I wish I'd stocked up on more of them seeing the prices right now. I bought mostly DDR4 32GB kits for around $45 though I have some 32GB and 64GB DDR5 kits as well. I'm still a mostly AM4 shop and will be for the next few years. The price to performance is just so much better than with AM5/DDR5.