Stock Availability in NW Computer Shops

[Gadgetology]

Last week I visited Rustenburg to try and find replacement parts for my pc that gave up. I was shocked in the lack of in store products the shops had available. I visited 3 computer shops and 2 of them had no stock at all available on mobo's, cpus, vga etc and 1 had 1 mobo, 2 cpu's and 1 vga available. All of them you had to place orders via the suppliers. Is the economy so bad that no ones keeps stock anymore? These shops lost at least R15,000 in a sale because they didn't have stock on anything. Any shops in Gauteng that carry a variety of hardware inside their shops?

 

[Nerfherder]

Most people who build get directly from distributors.... makes it hard for brick and mortar shops.

 

[Y'all Qaeda]

Nope. The ones that do carry stock mostly carry the popular stuff - think more i5's than i7K model CPU's. However, with takealot and wootware delivering mostly the same week at least, I haven't needed to use one of those in forever.

 

[Sparhawk]

Nope. The ones that do carry stock mostly carry the popular stuff - think more i5's than i7K model CPU's. However, with takealot and wootware delivering mostly the same week at least, I haven't needed to use one of those in forever.

This ...

Brick and mortar are struggling to compete with ecomm and larger chains. They don't buy bulk therefore don't get bulk discounts and their margins are normally a lot higher because they have inflated overheads. I speak daily to these resellers and no matter how hard i try i cannot get them to understand that they need to diversify their product ranges and services or start looking at niche markets.

Product is product there will always be someone or something cheaper out there, but there is money in after sales service. But when you trying to make 25 to 35 % margin you just not going to win.

 

[Werfetter]

The only place you will find anything with stock is if the bigger suppliers have a store open to the public...

Brick and Mortar guys barely survive on consumables (flashdrives etc) and pretty much only because "I NEED IT NOW and cannot wait".

 

[Gadgetology]

I just think being to able to go somewhere and physically see what you want to buy is different. If my SSD fails or I need another one waiting for 2-3 days to get it is not ideal. And chances to find what you looking for in brick and mortar shop is almost 0%. Probably we don't have the market in South Africa to have shops carry 20 different mobos, and 15 different cpus in stock at any given time.