Taking the plunge and starting my own business

[rthonpm]

All,

I'm finally taking my wife's advice and opening my own PC and printer repair shop on the side. Since 90% of my customers with my day job are more than 40 miles from my house I don't think there's much chance of a conflict of interest. I am looking for some pointers from the do-it-yourselfers and smal business people out there. I'm looking for a good online supplier for spare parts and such. So far I've looked at tigerdirect.com; sparepartswarehouse.com and feedroller.com, but I'm curious if anyone else has some good places to look for parts or other supplies that may be needed.

[Jules Winfield]

newegg.com is pretty good for PC parts.

[Scott_Lewis]

For HP and some other brands of printers, we use Laser Pros. They are a joy to work with and their techs are always available to help out.

[907tec]

Lexmark, OKI, HP, Dell, Tally Genicom printers and repair parts, supplies, fuser maintenance kits from Lake Erie Systems
Accutek Imaging Resource Inc. HP printer parts, Maintenance Kit, Fuser Assembly, Fixing Film
Printer Toner Cartridges - Copier Toner Cartridges - Printer Parts & Copier Parts
Laser Pros International - HP Authorized Industry Leader in Laser Printer Parts and HP Certified Technical Support
HP LaserJet Printers & Accessories - Genuine HP Parts & Fusers, LaserJet Repair Kits - The Printer Works!

We have had good luck with all of these companies. The occasional defective part, but each company has refunded/exchanged our purchase quickly. Just make sure to group together several orders at once, the shipping will kill you if you order one piece here and one piece there.

[atwageman]

The companies other posters have listed are all great to do business with. Some companies I use to get supplies such as cleaners, lubricants, etc. are:

Ames Supply www.amessupply.com
Image Supply Service www.imagesupplyservice.com

Good luck with your venture. Always remember to protect yourself----don't do business with just a handshake. Put everything in writing. I don't think you will have too much to worry about as far a conflict of interest is concerned with you're primary employer, unless you signed some sort iron clad "no comptete" agreement when you were hired.

Again best of luck.

[schooltech]

Parts Now is huge. Also, I use a company called PartsMart and they are so cheap with their printer maintenance parts. I get quite a bit of my bulk rollers and stuff from them, like mirror motors and even full fuser kits ready-to-go.