Hello!
Recently I talked with a friend who has his own workshop for the repair of mobile equipment, and we had an interesting conversation, the meaning of which was a friend's complaint about the constantly falling demand for repairs – there are much fewer people who want to repair their phones. Moreover, the situation is such that he is even thinking of closing the workshop and doing something else.
To my objections that maybe the place is unfortunate and it is worth looking for a more accessible area, he replied that the same situation is observed not only with him, but also with most of the workshops with whose owners he communicates.
Only workshops authorized by major A-brands hold on with confidence. Moreover, most of their income does not come from the repair itself, as such, for which customers pay, but from the manufacturer's financing of warranty repairs.
After this conversation, I thought about what this situation is connected with, and the first answer that came to my mind was the availability of information and its amount.
The first reason is the availability of information
Knowledge has become publicly available. If earlier the skill of repairing electronics could only be obtained through direct contact with 'dedicated' or by studying it in specialized places, today, in order to learn how to repair, it is enough to watch a few videos on Youtube and read several articles on this topic.
Information has become not only a lot, it has become a lot. Moreover, despite the presence of a large number of instructions created by amateurs and offering controversial solutions, there are many that will be useful to a professional with extensive experience.
In addition to banal videos on disassembling / assembling devices, you can find full-fledged lessons that will help you not just 'replace that nonsense', but learn to really understand the issue and become the owner of sacred knowledge for your household and friends and even 'mother's son girlfriends', which 'once, and everything fixed'.
The second reason – smartphones to the masses
Another reason is the massiveness of smartphones and their relative cheapness. People are no longer afraid to ruin their phone, as this will not be a tragedy and a blow to the budget, as it used to be, but just a nuisance akin to a leaky shoe that can be easily survived by simply putting on a pair of shoes for a friend.
And if in the premium segment everything is not so rosy – the cost of flagships is growing year by year, then in the budget segment everything is in order – budget devices that were once flagships and covered most of the needs of even the most demanding part of users.
In addition, budget devices have a much simpler design, which makes it easy to disassemble and assemble the device.
So young and not very masters try themselves in the field of resurrection of electronics. At first it's a simple, modular repair like 'replace the removable headphone jack', and then a soldering iron falls into the hands of some, and that's where a whole different song begins.
But all this would not have been possible without the availability of the necessary spare parts for such a repair.
Where there is demand, there will be supply, so the third reason is the availability of spare parts for the average man in the street.
The third reason is the availability of spare parts
And it's not only about 'Aliexpress', where a spare part can be ordered for a penny, and then wait for months, but also about 'convenience stores', where the necessary piece of hardware can be purchased here and now, so that in the evening, when you come home from work, you can turn on a video instruction on Youtube , pick up screwdrivers bought for a penny in the same store where the spare part is, sit down and try to feel like a master. And many do it.
So it turns out that a person has the opportunity to experiment and at the same time save.
A few words about savings.
Take, for example, this is no longer new, but pretty good phone Huawei Nova 2i.
You can't find it in stores, but in the secondary market – please. It costs, depending on the condition and appetite of the seller, from 6 to 15 thousand rubles.
The lower price bracket looks healthy for such a device. At one time the model was popular, and now people have a lot of such phones in their hands.
And most of the buyers of this phone are people who wanted to save money by getting a good phone for good money.
Now let's imagine that one of the owners (like my friend) was not lucky enough to break such a phone. And so he turned to me with a request to repair the phone, as he plans to use it further, but he sees no point in buying a new one.
Since for me repairs are a hobby and I did not take money from it for work, such repairs cost a friend a penny, in the cost of a new display module.
The fourth reason is the opportunity to save
Now let's try to find out how much money a friend would have to pay if he went to a service center.
We call several workshops and get a price tag from 2,500 rubles. up to RUB 4,500, which, if you recall the price of the device on the secondary market, does not look cheap. And this is a speech about the minimum price tag, while the maximum one looks completely inadequate for such a device.
Now let's try to find a spare part. And the first 'convenience store' found offers a display module for 950 rubles. Moreover, 950 rubles. – this is the price for an ordinary buyer who does not have a discount, which the masters who cooperate with the store and who buy spare parts in large quantities have.
RUB 2,500 – 950 rubles. = RUB 1,550 per hour of work.
Not bad for the provincial town I live in. I would even say very good.
It turns out that if you know how to do at least such elementary ones as replacing the display module, repairs, then you can save a lot.
Actually, this leads to the fourth (main) reason for the fall in demand for repairs – the desire and opportunity to save money. And considering all of the above, the fear of doing something wrong and ruining the thing fades into the background before the opportunity to save a budget and learn something new and useful.
Conclusion
As a result, my friend bought a spare part himself and brought the phone along with it. Within about an hour, the display was replaced and returned to the owner with an order not to load the device mechanically for the first day (do not carry it in the back pocket of your trousers) so that the glue could dry thoroughly.
Now let's imagine that many have a friend who has learned how to repair electronics, and now he can and can help his friends and acquaintances, sometimes for free, sometimes for a nominal fee.
And there are more and more such people, so the drop in demand for repairs is a natural and expected process.
One can reasonably argue that not everyone is given the ability to learn how to repair equipment, since there are people who themselves believe that they are not created for this type of activity, and therefore prefer the help of professionals to independent experiments.
In addition, the drop in demand for repairs in the case described above is true for one specific city, and in another city the opposite picture may be observed – the amount of electronics will give a constant demand for repairs, which means not only large authorized networks, but also small private workshops will feel good.
Despite this, the massive prevalence of smartphones, the availability of information about them, spare parts and tools are gradually turning simple repairs into the same integral part of life as smartphones themselves have become for many people.
In this regard, I would like to ask you, dear readers, how do you feel about the opportunity to independently engage in minor repairs, have you already tried this? Could this affect the drop in demand for such services?
In addition, it is very interesting how matters stand with the demand for repairs in other cities, so the second question for our readers who are directly related to repairs and working in this area: have you felt a drop in demand for your services lately?