Well,

The PC did not sell, so lets ask ourselves why

1) Price - Too High in such a flooded market place.

2) Choice - With such a large offering on E-Bay my chances were greatly reduced.

So, how could I sell in these conditions?

Its not all about price, you can charge more, but youi have to give more in terms of service and quality.  Then this needs to be aimed at the appropriate target market.

For Example.

I bet I could sell that PC for a higher price if I threw in free installation and 1 hours tuition.  All I would need to do is find a target market lookin gfor just that.  Someone who is not computer minded would go for this option in place of a cheaper alternative becuase of the added value this would give them.

Conclusion

Know your market and target your product at the correct market.

E-Bay is more about price and is very difficult to add value or the personal touch.

Where you cannot compete on price add something else to give a reason for someone to pay that bit extra.

This is my 1st diary entry.  Not sure what to expect of this section, but I am hoping it will aid me in getting things started in terms of a business - Could be a very boring blog so I apologies upfront now.  I will aim to update as often as possible.

This is the first day of my new entrepreneurial life!  Now all I need is a business idea and the ability to pull it off.

Initial strategy

Start small, something I can do at weekends/evenings, so not to give up my job and income

Maybe On-Line to maximise sales, but not tie myself to an office or phone in the early stages

Aim to pull in £200 per month as a good starting place, just £10 per day.

Initial Ideas

The next Michael Dell?  I thought about building PC's and selling them on-line and locally.  I would source parts initially from dabs.com. My advantage would be low margins and good customer service. For local sales I could install then FOC.

I priced up a basic PC and added 20% margin.  A quick look on E-Bay showed me that my price may well be too high and there was also huge competition in this area.  Maybe selling locally would be the best approach.  Also I would need to source parts at cost price, not from a retailer like dabs.

At 20% for a basic PC, I could make around £40.00 I think.  So for the target take of £200 I need to sell 5 PC's per month. A tall order to start with, but doable in time.  I now plan to put one on E-Bay to test the water and see what interest if any it generates.  I will not purchase the parts unless it sells, then a quick turn around of buy parts, build and ship, so free market research.

I suspect it may not sell, but it is only going to cost a 20p insertion fee, so worth ago.