Why Is Cell Phone Repair Business Not For the Faint of Heart

Cell phone repair is a lucrative business that guarantees fast returns but has the lowest learning curve compared to other verticals. Regardless of the field of business you consider, there are always risks involved. 

If you’re planning on starting a cell phone repair business and aiming to make it a profitable venture, you need to be ready to face challenges.

There are a lot of prerequisites to consider when starting a repair business. Even when you have got the initial set up done, the main challenge is to choose the right cell phone repair shop software to streamline your operations.

What you’re going to need is an effective maintenance ticketing system that keeps record of repair orders and assists in timely completion of repairs. Also, it must be able to streamline the processes at your workplace. 

The Basics

As a starter, cell phone repair business owners need to have technical expertise for the targeted market. Repair technicians are not willing to share their expertise, which they generally consider to be their trade secrets.

That being said, you can always use YouTube videos as an alternative to learn more about the technical details of latest and upcoming smartphones.

If you’re running your cell phone repair business without specialized POS software, you will not be able to have a forecast of where you will stand in the years to come. Repair shop software helps make solid plans for growing your business. When you get valuable insights into business numbers, you can strengthen your business structure and avoid discrepancies in repair order delivery.

Crunching the Numbers

While the average cost of running a repair business is between 19,000 and 21,000, you can also generate a weekly profit of up to 27,000. If you begin with a virtual set up, you still have to take into account taxation and marketing costs.

Next, there is the cost of hiring skilled technicians that will actually get the job done. The typical salary range is between $13 and $23. That works out to be $888/week or $3,850/month.

You will have to do more than just creating a job post with the appropriate description. Sometimes you will need to offer referral bonuses to get the right people to work at your repair shop.

That’s not all, once you have hired a skilled technician, you need to be sure that they are committed to the job in hand. In its initial stages, your repair business will not be looking at figures big enough to pay the highest salary in town. So getting quality work out of these technicians can be quite tricky.

Inventory Management

If a cell phone repair business does not have a robust inventory management system, all odds are against it. Most startups make the mistake of ordering a large number of spare parts and accessories that confuse them later. 

Not knowing how many spare parts you will need becomes the reason for outdated spare parts sitting in your repair store shelves forever. Although spare parts and accessories are the heart and soul of a cell phone repair store, you still need an inventory management solution to know what to buy and in what quantity.

A repair shop inventory management software is an important investment especially for new and growing repair businesses. However, this requires careful planning as all POS software that are available in the market have their pros and cons. 

The best way to get around this challenge is to go for an inventory management software specifically designed for repair businesses, where you get functionalities for ticketing, invoicing, and stock level management all in one place. 

Such systems handle repair order taking, tracking, give you alerts for low-stock levels, and provide insights into your best and worst-selling services. 

Lack of Sales Records

In case you adopt a manual approach where you do not keep a record of best selling services, you cannot form a direction for your repair business to grow in. Moreover, it is highly likely that your repair business will experience shortage or excess of spare parts, ultimately affecting profitability.

Business owners often ignore the significance of sales reports while setting new strategies for growth. No matter what the nature of your business, be it repairs or sales, reports help you measure your progress in terms of growth, ROI, and also help gauge the performance of technicians. 

In the absence of sufficient sales data, you have no idea whether your strategies are even working. At the end of the day, what you need is comprehensive data-driven insights into every single variable that takes your business forward.

In order to prevent going into pitfalls due to lack of sales reports, repair shop owners should clearly define and monitor sales, profits, inventory, and employee performance among other KPIs. This not only helps find a direction, but also makes running  repair business worthwhile.