How much would you pay for this PC ?

[sanjiv]

Hi guys

I was just wondering how much people here would pay for this PC if they had the need for it.

It would look like:
http://www.moneual.eu/Europe/Goods/GoodsDetail.php?goods_no=5&mm_flag=0104

CPU:
Intel Core i5 3.33 Ghz / Core i7 2.80 Ghz (£75 extra)

RAM:
8 GB DDR3 Dual-channel 1600Mhz

GPU:
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT (Upgradeable by taking £75 of the desired graphics cards price)

Sound card:
Creative sound blaster 7.1 audio

Wireless:
Wireless B/G/N

Hard drives:
64 GB SSD for OS and applications
2 x 1 TB hard drives in RAID 1 for storage

Operating system:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

I wanted to build one of these for myself to use but if I could sell it for a good price, I wouldn't mind building one, selling for a profit and keep doing that. I would probably sell to Ebay to start off and if it is successful, then that would be good.

There don't really seem to be any other media PC's around apart from the Mac Mini but that won't act as a server because the HDD is small and lacks some features.

Thanks
Sanj

 

[sanjiv]

Forgot to mention it also has a built in IR receiver and comes with a remote control.
Bluray is a £120 extra.

What base price would people be willing to pay?

 

[chip_y2kuk]

I rekon £1,000 - £1,500.

maybe a lil more

joe

 

[sanjiv]

I am just doing some costings and it will cost around £1,350 in total to build probably. Maybe a little less depending on whether I can get the components cheaper at other places. To make it worthwhile, I would probably want to make around £150 min profit. There would also be Ebay fees etc.

 

[lucygreen]

£800 - £1,200is current price in the China market.

 

[sanjiv]

Thanks but I would not really be selling in China because the price there is lowever and shipping would be very high from here so it would not be competitive.

 

[Subbynet]

What's it for?

If its a Mac Mini type competitor - I think its over priced.

Take a look at what Dell have brought out - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/dells-answer-to-apples-mac-mini-the-inspiron-zino-hd/6150

 

[Subbynet]

In fact let me rephrase my last post - rather than overpriced, its overspec'ed.

You need to charge more because of the parts, but not all your customers will need such a system, so I'd widen the range of parts available, which will allow you to be more flexible on price.

Try for say 3 price points, lower, mid and high end. (and Optional extras)

 

[sanjiv]

It would sort of be a Mac Mini competitor however it would fit in more with DVD players and set-top boxes. It can do some gaming aswell whereas the Mac Mini can't. It has a lot of storage so it can act as a home server (that is how I would set it up). It also has a solid state drive to make boot ups fast. Backups are almost not neccessary if I were to set folder permissions so anyone can't delete files because if the hard drive fails, then there is another one.

If I wanted to compete with a Mac Mini, then the cost price would be £700 and the Mac Mini is £650. If you got a few upgrades on the Mac Mini, I could do it cheaper. In that £700, it has a 2.93 GHz processor instead of Apples 2.4 GHz.

Perhaps I could scale the price down a little and use less powerful components.

 

[MartCactus]

Its a very difficult market to compete in - the big boys have access to good wholesale discounts from parts manufacturers (they buy in massive bulk), bulk discounts from Microsoft (for Windows) plus they have a finely tuned production process.

As a small guy you might be able to compete by being happy to make PCs for low margin and with low costs (make them at home) but its not a business model that scales well - as you grow your costs would initially rise faster than the discounts and economies of scale you'd gain.

As a corporate buyer I'd be wary of buying from a company (or one-man band) with no history - how do I know they'll be around next week when the PC fails? So i'd pay a smallish premium for the relative peace of mind of buying from a big company like Dell.

I'd be looking for a part of the market where there is unmet demand, and that is likely to grow. And if I knew where that was I'd probably be doing it right now.

 

[sanjiv]

Thanks for the advice.

I am working on a price list where you can choose different components. I don't really care to make it into a large company. It is just something I am doing for fun really and it would nice to be able to sell enough of these to be able to buy one for myself from the profits. So it will really then be free except for my time which doesn't really matter because I enjoy building and taking things apart.

 

[sanjiv]

Thanks for the advice guys. I have made up a basic form which allows you to customise the product. I have made it in Excel. It is available for download here:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6iqbg5

Please tell me your views on that.

 

[sanjiv]

Sorry don't download that. There was a small mistake:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/irmcxj