Money, computer knowledge, and a ton of fun. If that sounds appealing pc flipping might be for you, in this blog I will help you flip your first computer and have a ton of fun along the way.

First off I am by no means an expert and still have a ton I can learn about flipping computers, but I felt like sharing what I have learned so far to help you flip your first computer. I first got into flipping computers when I wanted some money on the side to finance my hobbies and other activities, I really wanted to avoid working at a grocery store, or have fixed hours. My interest in building computers arose when I wanted a gaming pc and instead of buying a prebuilt I built it myself with my brother. Because I didn’t want a normal side hustle, I decided I wanted to flip pcs. After way to many hours of watching videos on YouTube I went out and bought my first system, cleaned it out, swapped the case and listed it for sale.

Finding deals

When flipping PC’s you have two main routes you can take, either buy a full system and fix that up or you can buy individual parts and put a new system together. Your experience with flipping computers may greatly vary based on where you are located, I personally live in the Netherlands, but I will try my best to keep it general enough, so it applies to anyone.

Buying systems

When buying full systems I like to keep in mind a few key points. When upgrading it you are probably not going to change all the key parts (CPU/GPU), you can however change one of them if you feel like it. Keeping in mind that you are not going to change everything (that would defeat the purpose) you want to look for a system where you are happy with all parts except a few, where the few parts you don’t like can be easily swapped for something better. And make sure your system is Win11 ready, Microsoft sadly ended Windows 10 support recently so in my opinion Windows 11 support is a must.

Buying parts

When buying parts you only want to buy them if they are actually a fantastic deal, I once bought a motherboard CPU ram combo because I needed it not because it was a good deal, leaving me with way less profit because I severely overpaid on it. Make sure the part you buy is priced competitively, I overpaid because I didn’t have enough patience.

Tools & Equipment

If you boil it down you kinda only need a screwdriver, but there are some other nice to haves. I personally have a long screwdriver with swappable heads, a stubby screwdriver also with swappable heads, a PSU tester, box cutting knife and a pair of scissors.

For equipment, you need a monitor, keyboard, mouse, USB stick and ofcourse a free power outlet :)

Making the PC ready for sale

Building the pc

This is not a PC building guide for that I recommend: POV guide or the normal guide both made by LTT, these helped me when building my first ever pc.

Cable management

Your cable management does need to be perfect, you don’t need custom length sleeved cables. What you do need however is at least somewhat tidy cable management, you don’t want your pc to look like somebody puked out some cables inside there.

A good-looking system looks faster, even if it isn’t

Cable extensions

They are not needed, but they are a nice to have, below is a picture of my very first computer flip, as you can see the ketchup and mustard cables do not look super great, but when deciding whether to use extensions or not you need to weigh the cost of them and the potential profit gain. My first flip was on the low end, so adding €10-20 to the build cost would greatly decrease my profit margin, and on the lower end the looks matter a little less.

Benchmarking

When selling a pc it is a good idea to test it in a few games and do a full stress test, for stress testing I recommend Furmark and OCCT

Listing for sale

I like to sell my pcs locally, but in the USA this might be harder so there you can decide to ship them, but I like local sales because you don’t have fees, shipping costs and customer support headache. I list my pcs on marktplaats a Dutch 2nd hand platform.

Taking pictures For me using my phone just works, but you do have to keep a few things in mind, clean your camera lens, pick a clean background (I have seen people recommending busier backgrounds so the pc stands out more, I personally prefer a clean background).

Paid promotions

Many platforms offer the option for paid promotion of your listing, I have seen great success with it, but it was not always the smart choice, let me explain. If you have a big profit margin, and you pay for promotion, your listing gets seen by more users thus increasing the likelihood of a sale for your asking price, but if your profit margin is not so big you make it even smaller leading you to decrease your profit which is not desirable.

Dealing with lowballs

It sucks but sadly people really like doing this. What’s your minimum? Can you do two fiddy? €100? The way I deal with lowballs is staying polite, it may be difficult because there is nothing more annoying than getting offered €100 after you spent €400 on parts and a ton time. Try to stay civil and politely decline.

No shows/No longer interested

This is the absolute worst, I had this happen to me with my first flip. I reserved the computer for a week, declined 13 people and then on the day of pickup I get a message: No longer interested. Be prepared for at least one no show every flip, don’t reserve the pc for too long, and instead of declining people keep the line open.

No interest at all

Sometimes no matter how beautiful your pc, no matter how competitively it is priced, there is no interest at all. The key is to remain patient, and if nothing works to drop the price a bit and then re-list.

After the sale

I once sold a pc and after about a month the buyer messages me out of nothing saying the GPU broke and demanded I paid for a replacement. I don’t offer any warranty for my pcs and the pc was tested to be fully working on pickup, so this was just bad luck. My recommendation to you is being clear up front about if you offer warranty or not and how it works. I don’t want to say put together a contract but be very clear that you are not responsible for bad luck.

That’s about it, if you want me to make another part about stuff like bookkeeping, inventory management etc. let me know!.

Thanks for reading!