Blog Commenting / John Kerr's blog / Computer retailng... from a consumers' point of view

<cite>Query: Aren't blog's supposed to be commentable? I see no comment button on this page.</cite>

I would think so. Let's see how it goes. Comments will get swtiched off if comment-spam-maintenance becomes an issue.

Hello

bswitzer has raised some very good points and I should clarify what I mean by small shops vs consultants.

Companies like NetDirect are in a total different league compared to a one or two person computer shop. I really do not think of consulting firms as being part of "retail". The two person shops can do a good job serving very small businesses where there are no more than 3 computers in the entire business (to pick a number).

Hoewever, anyone who depends on their computers for business wouldn't or shouldn't be buying hardware from a discount shop. They should go to a shop that services what they sell.

I dealt with a small computer supplier before at a former place of employ. Basically it was a two person operation. They did charge more for equipment but they also have a repair person who makes house calls.

A company had better use the services of a good consulting firm when
computer system downtime can potentially:
1: lose customers
2: lose credibility in the marketplace
3: lose lots of money by paying employees while they play euchre

Either way, the full service shops or the consutaning firms should not be affected by the discounter stores.

Thanks for the URl to http://www.canadacomputers.com/ They look like a good shop.

The announcement of the factoryDirect store in Waterloo is in the
pre-holiday flyer. You are right it, is not io the website.

But I have to wonder about some of these small shops when they look at you as if you had two heads and say "Linux?? watzzat?"

Cheers!

John Kerr | Guelph Ontario
jkerr0102@rogers.com
519.763.6489

My company has been selling computer and computer parts for a lot of years now, but in the last 2 years we haven't been promoting it at all, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, because consumers are not worth the hastle. With very few exceptions, they are arrogant, self-centred, not sufficiently educated to accomplish what they think should come automatically, and completely unwilling to take resposibility for their own actions. I had one customer who called and told me (two months later) that the computer didn't work from the day they got it, and it was entirely our fault, and they did absolutely nothing to it, and they demanded all of their money back or they would call the cops and the BBB and sue us. What they did was took it home, installed P2P software on it, downloaded Partition Magic from a pirate software site, used it to manipulate their partitions, installed a second operating system on it, loaded it up with pirate software, and used it for 2 months without any sort of surge protection.

Secondly is the competition. Although you can buy a router or a printer much cheaper from big-box retailers, the OEM component market has always been the tool that made it possible, at least until recently. Large web-based retailers that sell the OEM parts only confuse the issue, because they would sell the parts cheaper than we can, hiding sipping costs from the advertisements, not providing decent enduser support. It is very different for one of us to figure out what part of our computer is broken and send it back than for the "average user" who takes it back and says "computer not work, your fault, fix NOW!" (back to the customers again) And don't get me started on how many Dell computers I have had to deal with because owners used up their service calls or refuse to deal with tech support from India.

Third is the margin. Making a small amount on a computer is one thing, but having to spend manpower "fixing" computers that are "broken" will eat it up, and I spent 14 hours quoting one customer that only bought 2 systems. It just isn't worth it.