Advice Please?

[jchauncey86]

I really dont know where the best place to put this topic is so I guess this is as good of a place as any.

Ok, my friend and I are starting a small IT consulting company. My question is, where can I find decent wholesale vendors for parts? Google is somewhat helpful but its hard to sift through some of the info and determine whether or not a particular site or vendor is legit. If this is breaking the rules I apologize but Im not trying to sell anything to you guys. Im just curious how to go about finding good vendors.

Thanks in advance everyone.

 

[DDigital]

Depends on what kind of parts you are talking about. If you are referring to video cards, hard drives etc. then you are best just using a standard retailer (newegg, frys, tiger direct depending on how urgent the need is) and charging the customer for the price of the part (make sure they know what it is before hand, and always give them a copy of the receipt to avoid any issues). If you are talking capacitors, leds, wires etc. then something like Digikey is probably your best bet.

That's the way I go about it (of course, I have no desire to be a reseller, I only make money on my services). Perhaps someone else has a different strategy.

Good luck.

 

[Aptivus]

Also you can contact Newegg directly for special bulk pricing and they also have business accounts.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

 

[Mr45]

Stick to the consulting side of the business and leave the hardware to the Dell's, Cisco's, HP's, etc. You'll get more sleep and perhaps, even have a weekend to yourself once in a while. Maybe.

Ok, now that I got that out of my system, there are a few major players when it comes to wholesale computer parts. D&H distributing, MA Labs, ASI, Leadertech and Ingram Micro are a few I can name off the top of my head. The biggest issue with these firms though is you have to get past their applications which can be rather difficult for a new startup, especially one that doesn't have a large bank account, a profitability record, a credit history, you see where I'm going here?. Most wholesalers have a minimum order to start with and you have to maintain a steady flow of sales. I did contract work for a small shop once that did gross hardware sales of about 100k-150k a year and the prices they got from D&H and MA were often not as good as what could be gotten from newegg at retail prices, heck even the local Best Buy was cheaper on some items simply because of the volume they did. The shop had to place a $1500 order just to get free shipping. On the flip side, the RMA process was simple. Now I will admit that it's been maybe 2 or 3 years since I had to deal with the wholesale outfits, but I seriously doubt it has changed much. Personally, I'd say avoid dealing with them unless you can move say $50,000 a year in hardware without sweating. Put simply, can you move a case of 12 power supplies or 20 hard drives in less than a month? Now can you do that every month or have a reasonable expectation of doing it in the current economy?