Motive:
In an effort to give you a better idea who the individual retailers/vendors in our Overclocking Equipment Pricelist are, we've decided to do interviews with all of them. There will be about one interview a week, so it'll take a little time to get through all of the (currently) 71 retailers. But we'll be sure to include both the well known and the not so well known in our coming interviews. Most of the questions will be the same in all the interviews, but if the retailers have anything specific, we will ask about that as well.
This week the interview is with Sam who recently departed from The Overclocking Store just to start up the newest overclocking shop in the UK, Tekheads.
Here's the interview:
How did you get into the overclocking/case modding market ? And when ? Back in 1999 with Power Computing, been here a long time. Was selling o/c
bits on and off before that. Why do we need Tekheads ? What is it that you can that others can't (specialty) ?The same reason that made OCS [The OverClocking Store in the UK - Ed.] a success. We source products FIRST and drive down prices on speciality items the 'other guy' likes to charge high premiums on. Anyone remember the margins on guaranteed processors until we came along? It was £100's not £10's of pounds. We aim to do the same again.
Same for sourcing products. OCS was consistantly first with the latest gear, getting in what our customers wanted. I like to think I listen to customers when they tell me things. Where are you located and do you have a retail outlet? Where do your customers come from ?Located in Sheffield [UK - Ed.]. Collection counter will be ready within 2 weeks. What is your business idea ?Same as before. Bringing specialist items into the UK first, at the same time our stateside cousin's get things, and at fair prices. And of course providing top notch service that we have a reputation for. How do you source your products ? And what is your philosophy on products, i.e. stock everything people need, or only things you would use yourself ?I like to stock everything that people want, regardless of whether I want it or not. There is a lot of stuff I wouldn't buy personally (rounded cables for instance - they just don't do anything for me). I brought case modding equipment into the UK for the first time, and I recently stocked Addtronics because that's what people wanted. The only exception to this rule is when we can't economically ship something over. By that I don't mean 'when we can't make pots o cash', I mean when only one customer wants a brand of case and we have to buy 1000. Do you price match against prices on OcPrices or Pricewatch for instance? What's your policy ?I'll beat anyone's prices where I can, but I won't risk compromising our service by making 0.1% margin. How many staff do you have ?Just the three of us at the moment. How do people find Tekheads in the first place ? Are you letting hardware sites review your products, do you advertise/sponsor, or is it mostly word of mouth ?As you know - we've just left OCS, and Tekheads has only been live for 3 days. We'll be working with sites to promote us, and of course word of mouth is as important as it always is. How does a regular work day look at Tekheads ? How many days a week ?8 days a week :) How do you handle support? ICQ, AIM, phone, email? Office hours or all hours?All hours email - you've got first hand experience of that :). Phone, fax during office hours. I'm available on ICQ if it's important. How would you describe the UK overclocking market ? It seems to me that there are quite a few dedicated overclocking shops these days.Yes, five or six dedicated ones now. You used to run The Overclocking Store (UK) until very recently. How come you left ?Steve and I still own 50% of OCS, but we left because we disagreed with the direction the company was heading in. When I'm putting my name to a company I want to know that it's being run in the best possible way, and when I felt my opinions had stopped counting, that's when I left. Steve joined me because we make a good team. What is your short and long term plans ?Short term is to get Tekheads known in the marketplace, long term is to regain our number 1 spot. What do(es) your current setup(s) consist of ?My home system is an Axia 1ghz @ 1.4. 19" monitor, GeForce 2MX (don't play much games), 256mb, 120gig (2x60gb Diamond Max 7200rpm in raid). Abit KT7A Raid. What has been (or is) your most extreme overclocking project ?It is my ongoing experiments with water cooling, which are greeted with varying degrees of success :) Visit Tekheads.
If you have any comments regarding this interview or have any suggestions on questions you think should be asked, email us here at interviews@ocprices.com
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