Selling parts to customers?

[Montrose Computers]

How do you guys deal with people who call wanting to buy computer parts from you but plan on installing it themselves. Had several people calling in the last few days. One guy was a gamer wanting a 550w power supply and another one wanted me to order a screen for his laptop :-(

As I see it I can either:

1: Sell parts to the do it yourselfers and just be happy from the small amount of profit from the markup.

2: Not sell parts at all to customers unless I install them

No way I was going to order the laptop screen, but if I could make $25 in 5 minutes selling a power supply I have sitting on the shelf it's somewhat tempting. On the other hand what if they want to return it later or something. I just have a small shop build into my home so I am not a retail place by any means. So what say you guys, worth the money or not?

 

[Mindfulness]

It may be a pain in the arse. I like you, would sell the power supply with a $30 markup, but not the lcd screen. It seems like a lot less risk. I have people always calling and asking to buy ram, I think they think we can sell it less expensive than anyone else. I tell them we buy it retail and mark it up, so you may not want to buy it from us.

 

[14049752]

I wouldn't do it. Even something like a power supply is a risk to sell... You don't know the buyer's competency.

We made it a point to NOT sell any repair parts when we opened shop years ago. There were a few times I went against that, and almost every time it came back on me. One was a power supply, actually...The guy seemed to know what he needed, but then forced the connections in wrong to the motherboard. He came back accusing me of selling him a defective part (not angry...just accusatory)...a quick glance at his computer and I showed him that he didn't install it right.

There are stores that are happy to sell parts to anybody. Send people that want parts only to them.

 

[lan101]

I only have a few times and I sold as is no warranty. I made sure the part was good before selling. It's not something that I like to do often.

 

[mkeathley]

I don;t do it. Even if you claim no warranty. In reality the customer will still blame you if they dont install it right and mess it up. And yes, you can install a power supply wrong and destroy it, LOL,.

 

[JustInspired]

We don't have a retail presence but we stock and sell a range of original (and a couple of Anker) chargers for laptops. We are the only place round here doing them.
We also stock mice and keyboards.
We would not sell anything that the customers would have to open their computer to install. If they want a PSU for a desktop in an emergency, we can fit one - no exceptions.
When people call up to ask us to sell components we simply tell them we buy them for repairs as and when necessary.

 

[brandonkick]

IMO your just asking for trouble.

You don't know their skill level, you don't know how careful they're going to be. You just don't know the finer details. It's going to wind up costing you more then you make in the long run.


I'd just tell these customers that you don't sell parts, because you won't offer any kind of warranty to parts that customers install themselves. THE ONLY WAY I would ever consider doing this would be with a 100%, black and white waiver form that the customer signed. This form would state very plainly that you offer no support and no warranty of the product no exceptions.

 

[Eagle21]

How do you guys deal with people who call wanting to buy computer parts from you but plan on installing it themselves.

We've had similar situations. Many callers assume that because you work in computers you must be a retailer. When actually you can be a retailer, or a service company, or a hybrid retailer/service company. Decide which one suits you best and stick to it.

I just have a small shop build into my home so I am not a retail place by any means. So what say you guys, worth the money or not?

In your case I would say retail is not worth the trouble.

 

[Maniaman]

We have a retail shop, but stock very few actual components (PSU, RAM, etc). Most of it we will special order and install ourselves. I've sold power supplies and RAM to a few people who wanted to install them themselves. I would never sell a cpu or mobo to someone to put together themsleves though. Way too much that could go wrong.

If you're just working out of your house it's definitely not worth your time/effort/money to stock parts to sell people unless you're the one doing the installation.

 

[Tony_Scarpelli]

This is a loaded question.

The gamer will not buy from you he will get your recommendation and then order it online so will the laptop LCD guy. He wants you to spec out the part number. If you do manage to get the sale what do you do when he brings it back and says it doesn't work?

Even if you markup your parts 100% it might not cover all the idiots who will damage the cpu, memory or motherboards and return them for a full refund. Then there are the guys who buy it hold it 30 days and want to return it for a refund. They they lose the receipt and expect you to take additional time looking up their receipts on your computer system. IMO let walmart keep the walmart customers and low margin business.

Then there are the tire kickers who call non stop for the best price. They have no value in their time so they figure you have no value in yours so they call every single number under computers in the phone book and want to price the same part in hopes of saving the last 50 cents. Do you really want this customer even if you get them?

So basically we do not sell parts cash and carry. It is a big sink hole in time and noting comes but heart ache - IMO.

WE build customer computers so we have all the parts we just will not sell them to end users. We cannot compete with bestbuy or walmart so just send them there. An if someone wants to go to NewEgg then why even take their phone call and waste that time pricing it for them.

You cannot be all things to all people. After a few years in business you should figure out who your customers are. In our case they are the people that do not want to be frustrated home techs but people who just want their computers back working correctly.

We do not waste time with very marginal price shoppers in hopes of making 10% on a part sale, mean while your phone is busy when a high quality customer has a broke computer and needs you to come out and fix it so he calls your competitor whose phone line is open at the moment. All our time and energies are reserved for the customers who we make our living on. Break fix and networking or consulting. Someone might some day get a busy signal calling our phones but it will be because we are already helping another quality customer not because we are let some tire kickers waste our time on the phone.

Next time they call just say "Of course we have parts to fix our customers computers but we do not sell retail parts, have you tried Bestbuy?"

How do you guys deal with people who call wanting to buy computer parts from you but plan on installing it themselves. Had several people calling in the last few days. One guy was a gamer wanting a 550w power supply and another one wanted me to order a screen for his laptop :-(

As I see it I can either:

1: Sell parts to the do it yourselfers and just be happy from the small amount of profit from the markup.

2: Not sell parts at all to customers unless I install them

No way I was going to order the laptop screen, but if I could make $25 in 5 minutes selling a power supply I have sitting on the shelf it's somewhat tempting. On the other hand what if they want to return it later or something. I just have a small shop build into my home so I am not a retail place by any means. So what say you guys, worth the money or not?

 

[mr m]

Like others have opined I don't sell parts unless I'm installing them. The small markup and unreliability in our industry isn't worth the potential headaches or time involved filling out an RMA.

 

[carlitos31]

I sell to mobile techs

I have an office and do stock parts. To the public I sell keyboards, mice, speakers, mouse pads, laptop bags, laptop chargers, vga/dvi/hdmi cables. I stockk flash drives that come handy when people need data back up and they don't want to fix their dead computer.

I only stock hard drivers to upsell on repairs, I do not sell those to anyone

To mobile techs in the area ( that I have known for a while), I sell power supplies, ram , random parts for laptops if I happen to have a matching dead laptop that has the part