Your arguments constantly conflict or simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Firstly, you told everyone on another listing I am more expensive than established companies like Dell and HP are and that they should buy from them, which is pure fantasy; I am cheaper than equivalent products from either of these manufacturers! Furthermore, you then contradict that argument here by telling people to buy from Apple, who are hideously expensive and far more costly than either me or the other companies you have mentioned. The Mac mini is not comparable to my product anyway.
No it is the truth. Dell, HP, etc offer similar products for cheaper and have better support and better warranty. The Mac mini is completely comparable because it is a tiny small form factor desktop PC with desktop specs.
What “problem” do you have with me and the items I am trying to sell exactly? Does everyone selling computers get this treatment from you or have you saved this unreserved spate of unsubstantiated criticism especially for me. Have you had a bad experience in the past with buying computers from eBay and made it your mission to try to discredit every single one of them, or do you just hate me?
Don't take it personal. You are trying to get into a nice market business, and your systems in my opinions are too expensive for what you get. I was simply trying to show you a better business model. You should focus on efficiently building a base model, which customer's can choose from say 3 base models. Like a barebones. Then, allow them to choose any extra upgrades. I have never bought any computer from ebay, I just build it myself or buy it directly from the company, or on a few occasions I have purchased used equipment from companies.
One of your “big issues” seems to be after-sales service and support. I have a good feedback rating on eBay, better than many other vendors here do, and yet you appear to be on a mission to stop me selling anything. Although I cannot claim to be one of the large businesses you speak so well of, since when has their support been so wonderful anyway? One only need read look at the countless consumer protection organizations out there to see evidence of this. HP, Dell and/or their resellers are all guilty of offering bad support and unsatisfactory results for countless customers!
My customers have access to myself through eBay, MSN, AIM, Skype and even this forum- I am directly accountable; they even know my address! Companies can collapse, but I will be here to answer questions from my customers and help them with their problems until I pass away!
Example of what I am talking about which you are not grasping. My motherboard dies 3 months after I purchase it from you. I call you, how are you going to verify its a dead motherboard, and get me the part? If my motherboard is dead, how can I get on the internet if it is my only computer? You don't have any customer service, which is actually worse than no customer service. Secondly, you don't really make any money off of hardware sales, so you should probably look into services, which you can bill clients by the hour for them. Networking, deployment, installation, support in general, on site tech calls, etc. That is where the money is made. Apple, IBM, HP, Sony, etc all have ASP programs (authorized service provider) so I don't even have to call them direct and deal with them. I can take my HP down the street to the Authorized HP shop, and they can get a part ordered directly and replace it, with out any cost to me (as long as it is a valid warranty claim) and HP over ngihts all the parts. So, I get a ton of better service there.
I apologize for what has been an exceptionally long reply (one might even call it a rant) but I am getting tired of this constant barrage of negative nonsense. If you can provide evidence from authoritative sources to backup your arguments I will gladly entertain them; I am not deaf to constructive criticism or well-founded concerns.
The Mac mini is not comparable to my system in specification or price and conflicts with your previous arguments on my other listings. The Mac mini does not have dedicated graphics memory, even half of the storage space or RAM or a sound card. Oh and its $160 more (see Apple Store U.S. online, Mac Mini Super Drive model).
Many Regards,
Gareth Hale.
I will disregard your ignorance on Apple products, most people who only use PCs don't get it. Also, like I said earlier don't take offense to this. To give you a little background of where I am coming from with out sounding arrogant and to be constructive, I will list you my personal experiences with technology. Been in the IT field for almost a decade. Started off working at a warranty service shop when I was 18 and serviced all major brands of PCs and Apple products. We had a sales side which I supported the sales sides customers as well as any other client who doesn't have their own internal IT department or to any consumer who wanted their PC fixed. I also got a discount on everything we sold there which was 5% above cost. So, I know profit margins on hardware sales pretty well. I would always look up the discount on new items to see if I wanted to buy one. After many years of working there repairing all kinds of PCs, Macs, laser printers, HD TVs, monitors, laptops, desktops, you name it and I have most likely at one time worked on one.
I got all my certs and started working for a school district and left the ASP shop. There I managed 10 thousand windows machines as well as Novell and Linux servers and about 400 Macs. I was part of the technology division that did all the IT work. I did warranty repair on all our HP proliant servers, which when one went down I could hop online make a warranty claim (b/c I got my APS HP cert) and that part would show up in my office the very next day. I am very familiar with how warranty repair works.
Now, I am currently a network administrator with a different school district. I now manage 6000 Macbooks, 20 Xserves, as well as several thousand PC and mac desktops.
So, when people approach me and want me to help build them a PC, I mostly just point them toward Dell or HP because I can't be there for them all the time nor do I want them constantly calling me or pestering me. Now, if they want to pay me my hourly minimum contract rate (oh yeah I also sub contracted on the side for a few years as well) which starts at $75/hour then I will gladly help them. However, I give them my personal cell phone number when I am billing them.
What you want to offer does not benefit the customer nor yourself really. If you seriously want to make money and do this for a living, then you need to redesign your business model completely. Find out how to make your custom PCs in a timely, efficient manner. That way you could keep parts on hand for your clients, establish a name for yourself and maybe hire someone to help out with phone calls and such. Become a certified Microsoft and Intel reseller, which gives you benefits and you can even make money off of it. Then offer support options for on-site like networking set up, software installs, physical installs, so on and so forth.
All those other companies and some individual companies offer those services which as a consumer seems to be a better choice than someone who does not offer those services.
It is up to you how you want to run your business, but what are you offering that some person down the street from me can't? A lot of people can build a computer these days.
, I will have a look around on-line, and I will come up with a new HTPC which uses high quality parts. And since it costs quite a bit of money to list the auctions, ill revise that tiny Pick-ITX PC and replace it all completely. 
