First Vibes
Value is underwhelming. I'm an electronics…read moreassembler and I
former field service technician/electronics repair tech. Their GPUs, PC cards, networking & other peripherals are 5 - 8 generations old, yet they often want the higher end of the average price of those same completed/sold items on eBay. And sure, that's fine, if what you're selling is 100% tested/working, in great condition, cleaned and/or comes with a limited warranty. Instead, lots of items are dirty, scuffed up, damaged, and/or missing critical components. For instance, several of their motherboards were missing IO shields.
Bonkers Pricing!
5-6 generation old GPUs (GTX 770, 970, RX 570 etc) were $60 - $125; SCSI cards (only $1 at RE-PC Seattle!) were $14!!
By far the worst offender by a long shot was their motherboard section: They had an Asus Prime A320M-A, marked as "tested" and came with stock cooler, plus IO plate. They wanted $100!! This is an entry-level, first-gen AM4 socket (so Ryzen 3/5/7/9 CPUs) however, if you wanted to pair this board with a newer Ryzen 5000 series, for example, it wouldn't just work natively. You have to update the BIOS in the board first, and you'd 100% have to do this Bios update WITH an older Ryzen CPU, which is tricky even for tech savvy gamers. Lastly, this board and other entry level ones like it can be found elsewhere for $40 - $70, and often in way better condition, or with the BIOS update done by previous owner/seller.
Other cons
Some items have stickers that do say "tested", while others don't have any stickers. You have to just walk to the front and ask. Things are organized in big totes, but it's hit or miss finding parts you need, as the store as a whole is incredibly dirty and dingy, with random fully built systems, speakers/sub woofers, TVs and other electronics randomly placed in between these totes, none of which are ever grouped together. Some of their pre built laptops are up near the front desk, which I'm sure is due to the Kensington locks to prevent theft, but their desktops are everywhere, so if you're looking, your better off calling to ask ahead of time, to ask what they have in stock. Otherwise if you come in on your own, and especially if you're not a tech nerd who knows what to look for, you're absolutely going to have a really tough time finding things.
The Pros
1) The staff seem knowledgeable about parts, and the repair they were working on when I walked in was a more challenging board level diagnostic test, which told me they have experience and knowledge in this field.
2) They have TONS of stock, especially in monitors, old hard to find adapters, cards etc. So, if eBay seems like it'll take too long, you'll likely find what ya need here.
Repairs
They do offer repairs, and I overheard a customer call on the phone and ask the guy working here if he "had updates on his PC they are fixing." The worker did acknowledge the shop did in fact still have it on their bench, but "needed another day or so to give any updates." I worked and managed a repair shop on the Eastside for 4+ years, and based on my experience, when you tell somebody only that you "need more time," it's 99% of the time due to 1 of 2 possibilities:
1) You haven't had time to even look at it;
2) You've run some diagnostics, but it yielded little/no clues as to how it can be fixed.
Why transparency matters
I think it's critical to communicate with customers and see their problems from their perspective. Instead of just treating them as a work order number, and getting them off the phone as quickly as possible, which is what this shop did. When I ran my shop, I always greeted the customers warmly, often by their first names (as most of them were repeat customers) and just be completely honest with them, even if it's news you may think they don't want to hear. I learned the hard way that if you don't give them information they're paying you for updates on, it often just makes follow up communications much more challenging, and can easily sour business relationships.
In summary, this shop has a LOT of potential! They're in an AMAZING location, close to Microsoft and high value real estate, and they have the expertise, but couldn't help but notice the passion and organization was extremely lackluster. And yes, I realize this review focuses heavily on the negatives, but I do this from a lens of constructive criticism for my industry peers, to better improve public assumptions of the consumer tech repair industry, and to improved awareness of the right to repair laws. I hope this helps somebody, whether it's a potential customer, or the owners of this business. Thanks
