Moving with the times
Brigantia is a community of independent retailers and resellers. Several times a year it arranges a road show, usually co-hosted by an associate vendor or distributor, to discuss ways in which its members can improve their businesses.
Last month the road show was hosted by Telford distie Enta and sponsored by NVIDIA. The overall theme was "repair IT, upgrade IT and profit from IT" and explored the growing trend, in these recessed times, for consumers and businesses to opt to repair and upgrade their PCs rather than buy new ones.
The independent sector has been in the process of moving in the direction of repairs and upgrades for some time now, as it has become increasingly difficult to compete with large retailers and etailers on price of products.
The often superior technical knowledge and trust held by indies, combined with the better margins derived from providing service rather than just shifting product has made this a natural and necessary transition.
As sponsors, NVIDIA had a large presence at the show and used the opportunity to promote the ‘balanced PC' concept - i.e. it's not just about the CPU. Iain Shaw, the head of Brigantia, told HEXUS.channel that this was well received by the 50+ indies in attendance as a good upsell opportunity.
The thinking is that, while in the process of repairing a PC, the indie can suggest ways to significantly improve its performance at far lower cost than buying a new one - e.g. a graphics card, more memory, bigger hard drive, etc. This means that they're in a prime position to sell components to the consumer.
"We managed to turn out a healthy number of members despite it being the busiest time of year because they wanted to get good commercial ideas going forward," said Shaw.