Computer repair / new and reburbished

Many have come, many have tried ...... MOST have failed!! I am NOT being negative, just realistic - can you e-mail me to tell me WHY & HOW you feel you will succeed where others have not! Tell me your planned marketing stratergy for Puerto Plata & if it stands up, I will talk to a few people I know in this market to see if there is an interest (but NOT pass on your marketing ideas of course!!).

You can certainly discuss bringing ME a recon machine down next time you visit as the one I have now is an absolute nightmare. - Grahame.

Christa - If you are reading this, YES is continues to reboot itself & Incredimail is now defunct on it - I have had to resort to the OLD machine!!!

Albioncox, there is a fairly good computer store already in Puerto Plata. I don't believe there is space for more as Ceducomp do not look overly busy to me. They deliver a good service at reasonable prices. I believe that they are servicing the Puerto Plata market adequately. They do use substandard, very cheap, components for their machines (as many local small computer stores do, to keep prices down) but will build to specification if they see that you know what you are talking about. Unless you have superior marketing skills and can offer amazing prices, I don't think another computer store is viable. Do your market research very well before you go in this direction.

BB, Hillbilly was telling me about someone that he knows that sells reliable reconditioned machines in Santiago at reasonable prices. Like we decided, this one is only good for fish food. For just a little bit of money, you too can have a trouble free computing experience Maybe you can do a deal and give this machine to them to recondition and get a pricebreak on a functional one.

I run a business similar to the one you propose in Santiago. It's good business, but you need alot more cash than you could possibly suspect at this point, also if you've never done business in the DR before then there is no way you are prepared for the world of bulshit you are about to enter.

Paranoia is your friend, anyone who you allow to get into a position to screw you will srew you, no promise made to you will be fulfilled, and you will be lucky if customs charges you anywhere near what you expected to pay to import your goods, while your competition seems never to pay taxes at all.

Also I don't know if you've been keeping track of the econimic situation here, but you may have noticed that inflation is still way behind devaluation, and may take another year to catch up.

When you buy in dollars and sell in pesos though, inflation is instantaneous, you've got to reorder at a higher price, and the way things have been going, if your merchandise stays on the shelf for 12 months you have to charge a 100% markup just to break even, and that doesn't even leave you anything for shipping and import taxes, much less overhead.

Come and see me when you're ready to start though, I would be happy to have a distributor in POP so maybe we can deal.

Grahame, use some of that money you saved from joing the other golf club to buy yourself a real computer. These things don't last forever you know! And Christa knows whereof she speaks! Me too. Get a NEW one!

:: smile ::

The computer bussiness here in the DR is not that easy, even if you have the inflation situation and the prices thing solved. The computers market on the Dr is not a very wide place, wich means the market is over satured with lot of little stores selling everything you want at prices very close to their cost (sometimes even below the cost price, i dont know how they do that, but i have some examples on hand if you want). Try to find out everything about the bussiness before you put your $ on it (including to know if you can beat the prices here). Im a local here and been involved on that bussines for years in different cities of DR (now im on the telcom market). I can help you out with anything you need. Have luck, you will need it.