Chalenge, as I said, I've been with them since they had a 2 room shop, not a dozen shops across the country. I know the owners personally, and have spent tens of thousands there, in fact over 16$K in just the last 3.5 years, soon to be more. And, as I said before, when I'm in town and want a new system, they let me build it there on their benches with their techs helping me out with any questions, so long as it's during slow/off hours and not interfering with their business.
They also price match everything, they always match pcpartpicker prices whenever I build with them. I'm sure they make $ still, the building fee being waived also means I have to wait a while to get a system when I'm not in town, as it's the lowest priority build (you can pay to move up in priority as well). Like I said, I'd have no trouble paying it, it's just a loyalty rewards thing them waiving it. Also, this will sound odd, but it's a Chinese owned company, and when I first met them and started buying PCs, I was working for Magnum Films and had just moved home from Hong Kong that year, and they knew I worked for one of the biggest film stars/producers back then, so I got the "gwai lo" hood pass in a way. That said, I know another long term customer that they've waived the fee for as well, and he like myself, usually buys at least one of two gaming systems every year, continually upgrading 4 systems plus a gaming laptop.
I honestly think price matching is a bigger financial bite than waiving a 50$USD fee - in fact I know it is, a 6700k SLI 980ti box with them, with 950 Samsung drives et al is around 4300$(CDN not US) in their builder, and the same system is 3850 on PCpartpicker, which they will match, so long as the client knows about the "ubeat" price match system and how to use it. Many don't, but lots do. So, losing 450$ in revenue from their retail prices (which are equal to NCIX their other competitor up here in the West) is a larger sting than a tiny 50$ building fee. By far - but you're correct, regardless of all of that, I know they make $ - having a pile of stores and hundreds of very well paid employees, and surviving 20 years in very slim margin business proves that beyond any doubt IMO.
Biz - My sense of their operation is that quite a large number of their customers don't use the price match, as it does take some work, and if those customers wanted to "work" to buy their PC, they'd be building it themselves from cheaper US sources anyway, right? The majority, even a lot of "gamer" customers, aren't all that savvy on the building end or price match system IMO. So, in the example I used, they make a bonus 450$ on top of the profit they still likely make on that same system when price matching pcpartpicer/etc. That can add up fast when I've seen their builders having dozens of systems being constructed on their work benches.
Biz - as I said above, they price match, so there must still be profit involved at the end of that process. They sell a lot of PCs up here, to a lot of companies as well, but I'd guess 1/2 their business or more is retail/gamer type systems. Their builders, I referred to them as the wonderkids in another post. They truly are, watching how fast these guys put stuff together, and with great work as well, is impressive, as you said, they usually do multiple systems per hour. The software/test stuff like you said is largely a hands off deal and takes little of their time up.
