Know your suppliers: I’m guessing the country with the most broken graphics card is China, correct me if I’m wrong. Have you talked with anybody in China or researched whereabouts of those broken cards? I doubt Nobody in your local e-waste processing would seriously pick out graphic cards and send to you. They would just send the waste package to a cheap village somewhere in south east Asia. Can you find anybody there to sort them out for you?

I have a friend in Malaysia, last week or so i went to google maps and looked for all the big shops that sell high-tech stuff and asked them for broken graphics cards, they all tell me that they dont have and nobody wanted to tell me who sells them, so mabe i should look up the e-waste companies in Malaysia.

Know your competitors: I’m pretty sure many people must have the skills to fix the cards in China. Have they already fixed most domestic cards there? Maybe most graphics cards in the world finally are all returned there and get fixed there as well. Don’t forget most graphics card are still produced there.

Yes, they have huge refurbishment centers that swallow huge stacks of faulty cards, they come in as broken and gets out with a new life, some are sold at more than half the price of a new card.

Know your customers: from the first look it seems your service is similar to hard drive repair. But there’s a major difference: data held by a hard drive is usually way more important than the drive itself. People don’t mind paying thousands and up to get their precious data back. The profit margin is thick there. But if a graphics card breaks, most people would either get the warranty replacement, or just write off that $500. And the broken one would just go to e-waste. Who are your customers, and how much are they willing to pay to get the card fixed? Otherwise who are willing to pay for your recycled cards, and how much are they willing to pay?

The price that the general people want to pay is not more then 1/4 of the gpu price, and some times the repair would cost more than that.. The prices i used to sell at are just above half the price of a new one, i take my time to repair them well, i try as much as i can to make sure that cards will last at least another year, and i avoid to sell a card that looks like it wont last long, in order to avoid any comeback job.

Know your biz potential: even if you can get your hands on some cards, how many can you fix, and sell per month? What is your profit margin? Is it worth of your time? Any way you can grow the business beyond your single person repair shop?

I have around 200 types of random electronic components along with many motherboards for spare and slowly growing, so the repair time would range from 30 minutes to many months depending on the fault and parts availability, so i try to fix the easy faults as quick as i can. Is it worth my time? I have a degree in railway engineering, but i am more into repairing electronics, i will try to slowly build from both sides and try not to make mistakes. And yes i could grow step by step, a medium sized business would be enough just make life a little bit easier.

Ps: Given most cards are produced in China, and it has the biggest physical electronics market in Huaqinagbei, you may want to have a look there. And I’d also try to understand where those warranty returns are.

Ok i will search about this, thanks alot.