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How's Business In Your Area

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epi:
Had a chat on the phone with my sister who lives in North London, says lot's of local TV Repair shops have closed down there,  :73: same thing happening where I am, the cheap set invasion is throwing out repairs.
Customers come to my shop putting the price on there repairs "I won't pay over xx€", I tell them "You've got the dustbin on the other side of the road", and believe me quite a few have dumped their set's, gone and bought a new one.
Next door to me I have a Motorbike repair shop, who is experimenting the same, very low business, and he's not looking very happilly to the future.

What's it like in your area???

Frank

Keith:
Hi Frank,

Cheap TV’s have been a problem for independent retailers since Currys started selling their Matsui and Saisho brands and the fixed manufacturers retail price was no more. The first colour TV’s, a bit before my time in the trade! Cost the equivalent of a few months wages, now you can get them for a weeks wages (if you have a proper job!).
TV engineers are able to adapt and there will always be something that needs fixing.
I opened my shop early 2010 in Essex, after coming back to the UK from living abroad for 8 years. Wasn’t too sure how it would go or what I would be repairing, what comes through the door dictated which direction the shop would go. I very rarely repair TV’s now, I do not advertise that I do. Word quickly gets around that ‘the new guy in the electrical shop can repair anything’ wish I could, but I will try to fix pretty much anything electrical or electro-mechanical. My main income is now from vacuum cleaner repairs, the complete reverse of what I wanted to be doing, but that's where the money is at the moment, so that’s what I do. In the Spring / Summer I repair electric lawn mowers too. And sharpen flymo blades at an equivalent cost of  £30 per hour! Most of my electronics repairs are quality Hi Fi products. Check out some electronics forums when you have a few minutes. I found a tip for repairing Canon EOS digital  SLR cameras, you can charge £80 - £100 for changing an SMD fuse, half the price Canon charge.
As for ‘How’s business?’ well my shop is new and business is picking up all the time.
I have always said I will give it 2 years and if I’m not making a profit by then I will close. At the moment the outlook is good.
 
I hope things pick up for you.

Keith

epi:
Great Keith, you are challenging this "dying" trade, if I can express it that way. I' been doing a lot of board repairs, air-conditioning modules, lcd-psu's also got myself into the musical instrument repairs, guitars and amps, I used to build amps in London back in the 60's for Nolan NB (Holloway), also worked at Midas and WEM.
We had the Matsui invasion 1990, locally known as Firstline and Basicline, later Vestel sets 11AKxx under the same brands, the money making era, I worked for Carrefour (contract) and at one time reached 15 calls a day, now I'm lucky if I get 1 call in 15 days.
Haven't looked into cameras or mobile phones yet, feel clumsy on small repairs, may give them a bash.
I'm near retiring age, so the struggle for me will be relatively easy, I worry about the younger people in the trade. I closely work with some locall tv shops, help them out when I can. 
Don't now about UK, maybe you can tell me here, work licences are limted here, I can only repair domestic apliances (brown goods), no industrial or profesional products, and no arial rigging or repair, also my licence doesn't allow me to sell anything.
 :brinda:
Frank

Turnip:
Hi Frank,

Discoverered a while ago that we can still make a pound plugging plugs as most folks have no idea, and that  scarts fall out (one side or the other) at a glance from the cleaner.

Guess most of my work is in the recycling area, plus - plugging folks plugs and calling weekly to explain any sort of recording on those PVR/VCR/DVD machines.

Charge a fiver a go - well, it's twice a week and can walk there, most times - they write it down, but never remember what it means.

Suggest to them that thought, rather than ink might be the biz - but they pay me £5 per half week to go push their buttons.

Trouble is, they don't record anything significant -all Emmie/Corrie, and such -

Tell 'em about BBC 4 but they suspect it's Dave in disguise - can't win - Chris.

epi:
Hi Chris
That just made me recall something, I recently installed  a TDT receiver for a couple of oldies, tuned it all up nice, as it was quick round the corner only 10€. A few days later the old guy came in all annoyed, :96:,  there's nothing on his set just a blank screen, and football was up, I went later that evening, true no channels, I moved the TV and TDT away from the wall, looked at the back and found both scart connectors into the TDT,  :57:, his wife sweeping pulled it out of the tele and didn't know were to put it, saw a spare hole in the TDT and stuck it there and didn't say a word to her hubby.

all the best
Frank

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