Hardware Stocking for Technicians

It seems your client’s power supply failed on their desktop computer. They need it back up and running now. Not tomorrow, not ‘next Monday’, and certainly not ‘three to five business days’ later. Do you have a spare power supply unit in your shop? Can you run down the street and grab one from a hardware store, or are you the only hardware store in town?

Hardware stocking as a technician requires a lot of discernment. If you’re the owner and sole operator of your business, you probably won’t stock up on as many different products as you would if you were running a business with several employees and a constant demand for more inventory. Also, if you’re the only place within a reasonable driving distance carrying tech hardware, you’ll want to increase the different products in your stock to cover general scenarios.

Another factor is your general scope of business. Are you mainly a support tech, called in for software issues and occasional hardware issues, or are you constantly called in for hardware replacement on machines? Perhaps you’re somewhere in between. If most of your work is consulting, you probably won’t need much stock at all.

What is your client base? Are your clients in the business sector, or are they mostly residential? Business clients often need their machines back up as soon as humanly possible, sometimes sooner, or they’ll start to lose time, and money, and potentially clients as well. Many residential users are used to dropping their car off and waiting a few days for repairs, or dropping their computer off and waiting a few days to get it fixed. Just as an example, with Amazon Prime you receive free two day shipping from Amazon, and that could cover stock options for most residential clients, if you can’t run to a nearby hardware store to pick up what they need.

If general shipping options aren’t fast enough for your clients, most suppliers provide much faster shipping options, but then again, it’s up to your discernment as to whether your client is willing to pay an extra charge to see the job done the same day or the next day, or is willing to wait a few days for a better price, as in some communities far from metro areas, that is the only real choice. Of course, if you can just run down the street to a major supplier of tech hardware, and finish the job on the spot, that’s obviously the best option, if you rarely move hardware inventory.

One more thing to consider with hardware stocking is how busy you are. Perhaps your technician business is just a side business, and your main line of work is consulting, or web design, or other tech work. You’re rarely called in for computer repairs, and if you stock up on memory or power supply units, they’ll just collect dust until they’re obsolete.

The point is that you need to personally discern your stock needs based on the factors described above. Now that you’ve considered where you are in the tech industry, let’s take a look at what you should stock if you’re regularly doing hardware repairs and replacements on machines, or if you’re the only hardware supplier within reasonable driving distance.

Networking Cables

You can find excellent prices on networking cables from bulk suppliers such as Monoprice, and with a set of basic tools you can make your own cables for clients quickly and easily, without having extra cable and metal coiled up for pests to chew or other things to catch on. It will also save you money in the long run, so keep some cable handy if you do a lot of networking cable work, or even if you occasionally need to sell cables to clients, as you can offer much better prices than other retailers.

Memory (RAM)

RAM is a tricky topic. If you don’t do a lot of memory swapping or replacement, you might want to stick to ordering when you need it. On the other hand, if you’re often called on to increase memory for clients, keep common memory quantities on hand, and if you have older units lying around, don’t get rid of it. RAM tends to decrease value as it becomes more common, and then increases when it becomes somewhat obsolete when the manufacturers move away from producing it.

Drives

You might want to keep a few extra drives on hand, DVD drives, and hard drives, if you’re often replacing failed drives. Keep a few IDE drives around, many people are still using older machines, and earlier versions of Windows are quirky when it comes to using SATA drives, and that’s IF you can find the drivers in the first place. Keep a few general size SATA drives around just in case. They make useful external storage devices for backups later on.

Video Cards

You might want to keep a few display adapters on hand as well for desktop computers. I don’t recommend getting higher end graphics cards unless you really have a demand for it, because they’re not ‘higher end’ for long, at the pace of current technology trends. Just basic graphics cards should handle most consumer needs.

Power Supply Units

This is a useful item to have on hand, as power supply units often fail before the motherboard or the rest of the components, and it’s a quick fix. However, if hardware replacement isn’t your main line of work, you might be better off just ordering when you need them.

Networking Hardware

Network cards, USB adapters, and routers are good items to keep on hand if your line of work includes a lot of networking and network troubleshooting. Again, if you’re not the only hardware supplier in town, and Walmart is down the street offering the same hardware for less, you might end up with a stash of old routers and old network adapters, so keep in mind your local scenario and adjust accordingly. On the other hand, most retailers only handle basic consumer network equipment, and if your clients need a wireless network covering a good distance, you can offer better products from companies such as Ubiquiti.

In the end, what you stock is primarily dependent on supply and demand, so I hope the factors I set out earlier help as far as discerning where your business is on that scale, and then discerning what your needs are based on your main line of work. If you have some suggestions on stocking hardware, drop a line below, we’d love to hear it!