Lost my partners...I'm going solo

**stlsmoore** · 05-25-2008 11:31 AM

Hey guys and gals I could use a little bit of your help. I've been working on getting my used computer resale business off the ground for quite sometime. Really I just want this biz to be part-time and make a little bit of money off side for now just to get a feel of what goes into running a business. Well I would be lieng if I said that my biz is on track and everything is going as planned.

I had two other partners but I recently excepted a new job that took awhile to get accustomed to along with one of my other partners. Our other partner rarely participated as much in the business as a whole so I pretty much had a group meeting and let them leave on good terms. This was because at that moment no one took the time (including me) to finish getting the biz off the ground.

Well flash forward 2 months and here I am giving it another go as we haven't even attempted to open our doors to see if we would be successful or not. Everything has been setup in place already including the legal stuff, business plan, bank account, office equipment, suppliers, inventory, etc... The thing is that I'm doing this all on my own now which I have no problem with, but I was wondering how small can I really start off?

I was going to print out flyer's and deliver them to neighbors individually. The thing is that I can't compete online as I can't match the bigger company prices. I've sold 4 computers online with the company but I never made much over $10 profit after everything was said and done. However I believe I can offer better and a more personal service than the bigger guys. That's why I was going focus on selling my product off line and provide things such as free deliver and other incentives like free computer setup for a limited time.

Do any of you have any pointers to help me move in the right direction? I'm also reading as many business books as I can get my hands on that will hopefully help market my product to my local community. My flyer is going to show the product I'm offering a long with pointing them to my web page. Can you all do me a favor and check out my website and let me know what you think also? Infinite Computer Designs - Home I kept it basic because I want to hopefully encourage potential customers to contact me and do business off line and I didn't want it to be the end all be all for my biz. at this point.

**dtechm** · 05-25-2008 02:12 PM

How do you sell the computers so cheap and make a profit? Are they refurbished? If anything I would put an ad out in your local newspaper.

**stlsmoore** · 05-25-2008 03:18 PM

Yea they're refurbished, I might put an ad in the local newspaper farther down the line I'm just going to start with very small baby steps I guess. If I can start by selling 2 pc's a month I would be happy

**crackah** · 05-25-2008 04:23 PM

Add me on msn mate. andre.lang at live.com.au

Im running a similar business in Australia.

**dtechm** · 05-25-2008 06:42 PM

So you sell the computers and the monitor, everything for $200 what kind of profit do you come out of?

**stlsmoore** · 05-25-2008 08:50 PM

Well actually just the computer itself without the monitor is $200, CRT's are an extra $25 and LCD Flat Screens are $110-130. Without any partners I profit between 20%-24% off of each standalone computer after socking away taxes and money for future business use. I break a little over even with the monitors, the monitors are incentives for the potential customer to buy our product.