With more and more homes having PCs, and just as many more homes having multiple PCs and laptops, would this business idea work, in your opinion?
Say you start a computer shop, but instead of selling computers, you lease them and offer an in-home service plan? Say you have multiple packages and charge a monthly or yearly fee for the computer+service? Perhaps a home PC + service plan, a home PC and laptop(s) + service plan, and a home server/network + server plan.
Of course it would have to be noticeably cheaper or have benefits to owning your own computer (perhaps a yearly upgrade plan or something enticing), the plan would have to have different levels (specific, limited, unlimited), with different pricing structures and the like.
You could have other promotional ideas and plans, have a store offering classes, outright sales of computers, games, a in-home network for show and rental (such as open lan parties).
I am a UK home user, with three computers (2 connected desktops and 1 laptop).
I buy all my machines from Dell, who offer home visits if repair is needed.
I currently expect to spend about £600 ($1200) for a desktop replacement and slightly more for the portable.
Most of my computers over the years have lasted 3-5 years (one lasted 8!).
I live in a remote town, with no computer shops nearer than 20 miles.
I doubt I would be a profitable customer for you, but wish you luck.
Thanks for the wishes, but I just wanted to state that this was only a hypothetical idea. I have no immediate plans of starting a computer shop or anything like that. I hope to be a future Entrepreneur, but my goals take me a slightly different direction for the time be. Perhaps some day in the future I may start up a computer shop in a smallish town somewhere (< 30,000), but that may never come about. (I would much rather get into small business investing or real-estate, but a computer shop or book shop would be pretty relaxing I think)
I don’t really see the idea making much money, at least not on long term residential leasing. I would assume each computer would be good for one long term lease. When the lease is up, the computer is probably in need of major upgrades before anyone else would want it. If that’s the case, you only make a profit if you collect enough over the life of the lease to recover your purchase cost + the cost of any service calls + the overhead from maintaining some type of storefront. Figure in the time-value of money–or what you could have made by investing the money you used to start the business, and I’d think you’d be looking at a pretty thin margin.
Not sure, but I would think you’d want a service plan if you were renting. Yes, I think you’d end up paying a fortune for it over the long haul.
I’ve never done it, mind you. I either saw a commercial or overheard someone mention it. It may not have been Rent-a-Center, either. I don’t remember the exact details…just that it sounded very pricey.
Given the volatile nature of the PC market and the pace at which Bigger, Better and Faster comes out, you need to look at this in terms of leasing out consumable or disposable items.
Would you want to go into business leasing paint? A person might keep the paint on their walls for a couple of years, but there’s no viable market for three year old paint, nor is there a cost-effective way to take paint of off a wall and make it usable again.
Likewise the PCs. In three years, a PC will be pretty badly dated, and would need some fairly substantial effort to reclaim and process so it’s usable again - either “nuke and pave” the drive, or simply replace the drive, since that’s the most likely part to fail. But you’d still have an old PC with a three year old processor that will probably be suitable only for selling to someone who just wants a cheap box so they can play with Linux for fifty bucks, or donating to a school.
Back in the Stone Age, big outfits like Control Data and IBM were able to lease computers, but only because the computers were blindingly expensive and needed pretty constant tending by skilled operators. Now, we’re in an era where my 70 year old mother can pick up an inexpensive PC (Laptops for $500? Unthinkable, even just a year ago, but last Sunday’s newspaper had ads from at least two places that had them at that price.) and use it on her own and not need intensive hand-holding.
I think it’s a workable plan, and that means someone somewhere is doing it now.
So you should be able to find them and get a better idea of the pros and cons.
The first person to do something isn’t always the one who does it best.
Often the initial planner gets hung up on his own “key idea” and doesn’t see what his real strengths are.
Take Home Depot. The original owner thought that great service was the key. And he spent all his time trying to get the staff to take people by the hand as soon as they entered and guide them through until they checked out. He did all right and then was approached by people with money.
But when they got involved they determined that big box stores with lots of stuff at cheap locations with lots of parking was the key. People didn’t want to be led around the store, They just wanted low prices, which came with volume and low overhead. The staff could just wait to be asked before helping. The founder put up a fight over this, as it ignored his Key Idea, and it nearly cost him a fortune.