On 10/16/11 10:20 PM, Scout wrote:


"Lloyd E Parsons" wrote in message
...
On 10/16/11 4:16 PM, Howard Brazee wrote:
On Sun, 16 Oct 2011 14:51:55 -0400, "Scout"
wrote:

Quite a few people make a living supplying people with such systems
customized to their specific desires.

Most of my computers have been those. But the local stores that made
my computers have all closed and not been replaced.

True, it's largely moved to mail order since that way you don't have
the
overhead of a store front, or if you do maintain a store front, it's
just to
pick up the occasional sale while you're processing the bulk of your
business through internet orders.

Face to face contact was good at finding out what my needs and wants
really were. Having a clone shop by mail order is as personalized
as having a big name computer by mail order.

I'd have to agree. And honestly, if that mail order clone shop is
cheaper on a per configuration basis, than most of the big names, I'd
be running away from them. It just isn't all that much cheaper to buy
the parts and put them together properly than it is to buy ready made,
UNLESS the shop has really cheap labor or doesn't factor that in.

No, actually it is cheaper. It doesn't take very long to assemble a
computer, and properly done you easily undercut the names by selective
buying. Because the names don't get the discounts that arise as the
hardware is superseded by newer tech. A computer they've had sitting in
the warehouse for a year is not worth nearly as much as it was a year
ago, but they've already paid the higher price for the hardware. A local
supplier doesn't have this problem because they have a much quicker
supply turnover and thus they don't lose the value in hardware at nearly
the rate as the big players do. Plus the small supplier can take
advantage of price breaks, sales, discounts, and so on, while the brand
guys are limited in their ability to change the hardware configuration
at the drop of a hat.

Having been in the business for many years, I call bull**** on your
little story here.

The big boys buy in such massive quantities that they can buy current
stuff for what the little guy pays for the last cycle of parts. And
then have them built in factories with such cheap labor that any US
builder can't even come close to matching. Labor far, far less than
minimum wage here.

In the end, they sell for less than the little guy that values his labor
at all.

Nope, small suppliers can generally match much of what a name brand puts
out simply because they aren't having to pay last year's price for
hardware they are going to sell tomorrow. Just watch the price on any
hardware. From what it was a year ago, to today. It generally will drop
significantly. So you can either beat their price or match their price
with superior hardware. However, there is a tradeoff, customer support
particularly in driver updates, software conflicts/errors, and so on is
left much more to the consumer that it might be with the name guys.
However, a lot of hardware drivers now provide automatic updates from
the maker as they become available.


The advantage the small guys have is in custom configurations for
specialty markets. Because of the very low volumes, it is difficult, if
not impossible for the big guys to address that market except for some
generic stuff. And usually for the specialty market, if you buy from
the big boys, you have to overbuy to meet or exceed the spec you're needing.



--
Lloyd