New Business Owner Seeking Guidance and Advice

[WellsTech&Repair]

Hello, anyone that reads

I'm Eli and I have my own repair and resell business that I'm ready to work on full time and quit my 9-5 (also in tech). I have 2 main questions that I'd like everyone's opinion on.

1) I'm currently advertising my repair services through word-of-mouth, Facebook, and Craigslist. I'm only getting maybe 3 inquiries a week when I post an ad for repairs and likely only one will actually end up having a repair done. I only make about 3 post on one day about once a week on both platforms as I'm unsure if I'll get banned for aggressively advertising my business. What I'm thinking about doing is going to Thumbtack and paying a percentage for leads and I want to know if anyone has any note-worthy opinion on using their platform and any platforms I need to know about to advertise my services.

2) Currently I'm acquiring my devices I resell from 2 sources (a electronics warehouse and a man that goes to a warehouse and won't tell me the source) usually I get about 10 devices a time from the warehouse for about double my money on some of the time and the ones I end up selling for parts I end up getting maybe $30 profit on. The devices from the man are a mix but usually older and I scrap about 50%-70% for motherboards and peripheral boards to Boardsort and sell the rest with XP or as-is. These devices usually sell alot slower and sometimes I may only get $100 profit from 25-30 laptops. Lastly, I find devices from Facebook that I can resell but that's a hunt that I'm loosing time for. I want to know better sources that any of you have.

 

[WellsTech&Repair]

Also who did you use to build your website? All I need is a page for booking and an about section.

 

[Porthos]

This is basically a duplicate topic to this one. https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/seeking-advice-for-growth.88918/

 

[WellsTech&Repair]

This is basically a duplicate topic to this one. https://www.technibble.com/forums/threads/seeking-advice-for-growth.88918/

It's my first time making a thread I didn't expect a quick response.

 

[phaZed]

Also who did you use to build your website? All I need is a page for booking and an about section.

I use Wordpress and a theme, Avada on a Hosting Service. I put it together myself.

There was a thread a week or two ago about Netlify and Hugo - and "static websites", that would likely be a good starting place for an absolutely free site.
Otherwise, One of the Builders is fine (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, etc)... but usually infer some cost to get involved (Hosting, domains, etc).

 

[WellsTech&Repair]

I use Wordpress and a theme, Avada on a Hosting Service. I put it together myself.

There was a thread a week or two ago about Netlify and Hugo - and "static websites", that would likely be a good starting place for an absolutely free site.
Otherwise, One of the Builders is fine (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, etc)... but usually infer some cost to get involved (Hosting, domains, etc).

I ended up using SquareSpace. I just got my domain and I think everything I need I can do myself with their tools.

 

[johnrobert]

I think the only option is Craig's list and Facebook you are appealing to the bottom of the market, you could try including transfer and setup for locals.
I am trying to sell a bunch of SanDisk Plus 1TB SSDs half price never opened on CL and FB people are making insulting offers.
I thought they would fly off the shelf

 

[sapphirescales]

@johnrobert Craigslist is highly area dependent. I imagine FB Marketplace is too. Where I'm at currently I sell external hard drives, which are old drives I've wiped and put into an external enclosure and I sell them for $5 to $10 less than what a brand new one goes for in the store. They don't sell super fast but I sell 7-10 per week. I get the drives for free so the only cost is the $8 enclosure so there's a good amount of profit in it. I average $28 profit per drive so that's almost an extra $1,000/month. My biggest problem is people who whine and complain when I tell them I have to charge them sales tax. They're like "ah man, c'mon, I have cash here. I don't need a receipt."