Do you need a new watercooling online shop?

[tiagojcp]

So... I recently needed to replace the tubing (translucent turned white) and fittings (silver turned rust) from my wc loop. Unsatisfied with the online shop where I bought them, I search for an alternative.

Since I live in Portugal, I'm restricted to EU stores because of high customs taxes. I always search for the most trusted ones in forums or with recent posts in facebook, because a few years ago I lost around 50€ in an online shop that went bankrupt days after my purchase...

Looking for the lower cost, I found a somewhat trusting shop in Portugal, that sold what I wanted: Monsoon fittings and EK matte black tubing. I don't like shops that don't let us know how many of each item they have in stock, or at least tell us that they have low stock, but I went for it.

The first e-mail I received was... "We don´t have some of items in stock, but give us four or five days", and after those passed... "another week", and another, and two more! In the end, one and a half month had passed, so I asked for my money back. Than the places that had the fittings at a fair price only had the brand of tubing I was trying to replace (Masterkleer), and the shops that had both (or a good alternative tubing/fitting brands), were to expensive.

So I had to end up buying directly from EK. A satisfying service, but naturally, they only sell EK.

After all this rambling, my question is:

Do you need a new watercooling online shop? At least if you live in Europe.

Because I'm tired of looking everywhere for prices, if the shop is legit or if it has any reviews or opinions with less that 5 years in some obscure forum, I'm thinking of starting my own shop.

I would have to start small, selling only brands that I trust and/or you guys would want to buy. All that would be for sale had to be in stock, but obviously, I could take requests. I wouldn't be trying to compete with the "big boys", but would rather be the friendly corner shop that you could trust. And if you had any problems, you could share them here, so that we could create the best possible service together. If you were happy with the service... great!

I'm just a guy that sells insurances on a call center, so I die a little every day as you may imagine. And I need to take baby steps, because I don't have a lot of money to invest. So what do you think?

Is this a good idea? Do I need to open a shop to provide the kind of services and prices I can't get from other places, or we already have the perfect shop and I'm just unable to find it?

Sorry for the novel, but I'd really appreciate your opinion.

Thanks!

(WetSandyBeast wc update soon)

 

[mArTyN]

If that's the sort of problems you are encountering living in Portugal, you may just have found your niche in life !
Why not give it a go, all be it on a small scale at first.
Best of luck, and I hope you do well !

 

[Cru]

does aquatuning ship within the whole EU?
that's pretty much my place to go

 

[FTR.4500MHz]

Yes, try Aquatuning or Caseking.de they ship all over europe. Both shops are top notch !

 

[tiagojcp]

I bought all my inicial kit from aquatuning when they opened the portuguese website, because of a 12% discount. I would buy from them again if I was sure I wouldn´t need to contact their costumer support again (Portuguese or German). But this time the only black 5/8 3/8 tubing they had was Masterkleer, and the very expensive Tygon in massive quantities. They also didn´t have the Monsoon fittings I wanted (but at least had many alternatives).

The caseking shipping costs are too high.

I like the specialtech site and everybody loves them, but every time I want to buy something, I find much cheaper somewhere else (vat and shipping costs included). Maybe that's a premium for good service...

so my goal is to have a balance between specialtechs reputation, and prices like aquatuning. And a smaller brand selection, focusing in what most people like, because as I said, I don´t have much money to invest.

__________________________________________________________________________

If that's the sort of problems you are encountering living in Portugal, you may just have found your niche in life !
Why not give it a go, all be it on a small scale at first.
Best of luck, and I hope you do well !

Thanks for the support. I really want to create the service I can't have here. I don´t think I can ever compete with the big UK and German websites, but that´s not really my goal. I just want to be a good alternative.

So if I can help people in other small countries to have that "friendly neighbor" alternative, and earn enough to pay the rent and eat, I'll be an happy guy.

 

[polar]

hi tia, i live in spain and use a place called coolmod.com

they deliver to portugal, are pretty fairly priced, especially when you take into account the delivery charges from UK or Germany.

their service has always been absolutely top notch, with most things arriving well within 48hrs and the most i've ever paid on a delivery is 3,95 euros. also when you make an order the basket automatically tells you if what you want is in stock or if you have exceeded their supply.

 

[tiagojcp]

Hey Polar, first of all, welcome to the OC3D forum.

Coolmod seems cool , and I wil definitely give it a look next time I need something hardware wise, but it seems a bit limited in the watercooling area.

 

[Sypherian]

I live in Denmark and we have one website for watercooling parts, from what I've heard people are satisfied with the service they get from there. I recently contacted them because I wanted to hear if they could get the parts that I wanted and if so how much the cost would be.

When I received the estimate on everything I wanted to buy i was baffled the price was just too high I can get the exact same parts as I want from overclockers.co.uk but they cost me 120 euros less, now I'm a big believer in supporting local businesses but at that cost not so much.

If you decide to open up a store I wish you all the luck and hope you do well.

 

[tiagojcp]

When I received the estimate on everything I wanted to buy i was baffled the price was just too high I can get the exact same parts as I want from overclockers.co.uk but they cost me 120 euros less, now I'm a big believer in supporting local businesses but at that cost not so much.

If you decide to open up a store I wish you all the luck and hope you do well.

I totally now what you mean. Sometimes even with 30€ of postage, I save a lot of money, buying from outside Portugal. But for small order, it's really hard to find a place with a good inventory and cheap shipping costs. Most of the times is one or the other.

Some countries have many shops to choose from, so another one won't matter much. But I just don't know if economically it's the best option right now.

Watercooling is a niche inside a niche in the global market, and oppening a very small shop for a small croud may end up being too risky... let's see.

Thanks a lot for the support.

 

[FourLions]

hi i got most my water stuff from here specialtech.co.uk found them realy good