eurybaric wroterolf wrote[...]
If you want to do this, it is also my opinion that you should try to have an innovative concept which will set you out of the competition[...]
Agreed a hundred times over. "General computing" market is quite saturated,
but (IMHO), in our haste to cash in on a tried and tested model, as us lebanese tend to do oh so much, the technology retail market in lebanon is riddled with niches left untouched!
What I mean here, for example (maybe a silly one at that but it should get my point across i hope), is that if you were to open a shop that sells simming hardware , like HOTAS controls, Joysticks, TrackIRs, etc along with the softwares maybe too, like FSX, P3D, XPlane, you'd literally have
NO COMPETITION. As in if you were located in Nabatiyeh I'd go there just to shop at your place , and I live all the way North in Batroun!
And just like the simmer's market, there are maaaany other niches that few, if ANY, have touched!
Keep us posted :)
Cheers!
I own a business myself (but in a different field) and I'll give you an idea why you can't really do any of the listed above:
1- Getting any of those brands comes with strings: Their minimum order quantity is not low (maybe 10k - 20k minimum excluding shipping and VAT and customs). If you want to only get a few pieces, they will not give you wholesale prices, they will tell you to buy from a retail store. If you buy from a retail store and ship them to Lebanon, all you will be doing nothing new, and every customer can do it himself. You can add 20$ and tell them it will save them having to wait 2 weeks for delivery. Guess what? most clients will gladly wait 2 weeks than pay 20$ (there are exceptions, but they are few).
2- The people who think different from the masses are usually a percentage. Let's say 1 in every 5 thousand in Lebanon (in USA and other modern countries it is higher of course), which means 0.0002%. If you are lucky to have 10% of those know about you, that's 80 customers out of 4 million people.
3- If you have rent, generator subscription, fuel for your car to get to work and back, you will need to raise prices just to get your expenses back. With the current aliexpress, dx, ebay (not yet too popular because of paypal restrictions but it's getting there), amazon, and customs allowing packages without VAT and taxes under 200,000 LL, your prices will be higher than each individual client getting the item directly. You, as a retailer, will be very pissed at the current packages situation and how people can get their retail items without paying any tax and therefore bypassing you and the money you invested on stock, rent, employees, etc...
Therefore, I think the only viable option is to do something similar to pcandparts. A super low-cost website (it can't get lower than a simple excel sheet layout like pcandparts.com), with deals with the major wholesalers, and word of mouth advertising.