Bundles of fun

Competing with the multiples is never easy, but with a little effortit's possible to create hardware bundles that add extra value and give youa competitive edge. Alex Turner cries Bundle! And jumps on the bundlingwagon.

Competing with local competition is the bane of every reseller's life. As if it isn't hard enough just staying in business, most dealers now have to compete with at least one nationwide multiple on their manor.

And even if you can build up customer loyalty offering services the big guys can't, they'll walk all over you on price, making it hard for even your most loyal customers to resist their temptations.

However, there is a solution and its name is DIY software bundles. With the aid of that old chestnut the internet, it's possible to create your very own software bundle to add extra perceived value to the peripherals you sell. Billy Punter can buy a modem from a multiple or from you, and invariably the multiple will have the price advantage. However, if he knows that the modem he gets from you comes with a disk packed with useful internet and telecoms software you'll have a very useful weapon in the fight to win his business.

And, with the aid of CD-ROM writers (which can now be had for under u400) you can extend the argument still further, tempting them with an entire CD-ROM packed with useful utilities. Imagine Kenny McPunter walking into your store; he looks around for a while and then asks if you'll match Byte on the price of a 28.8 modem. No you say, but instead you'll give him a free CD packed full of useful internet tools, utilities and programs which he'll otherwise spend a fortune downloading. It's a strong argument, and if your sales assistants are any good they shouldn't have too much of a problem convincing him.

The key thing here is that it's so easy to do. There are countless internet sites holding the latest shareware, and creating a CD is now little harder than copying files to a floppy disk - most of the current CD-ROM writers have file-manager type programs that allow you to select and copy files from the hard drive to the CD. Better yet, once a disk has been created it's easy to make copies.

The real advantage, however, is yet to come. Ramming home your customer service superiority over high street chains, you can offer to install the modem for Kenny McPunter. You can tell him the software on the CD-ROM is pre-configured to his particular setting, because if there's one thing most users thinking about dabbling with comms and the internet have probably picked up on, it's that setting up modems and internet software is a nightmare, so more plus points to you. For the service provider, one of the trial AOL or UK Online sampler disks that pop up everywhere will get them going, although you could also talk to the big ISPs about dealer promotions.

And, if you've got good relations with your customers and you've known them for a while you can take the service levels even further, offering to make up custom disks for them. Take into account their particular interests and level of technical knowledge - include HTML writers and web icons on the disk if they are interested in creating their own web pages for example. The potential to tie them into you for further support and business here is obvious, with upgrades of the software, training and the like.

Although I have used modems as an example, there's no reason why the same techniques couldn't be used for other types of peripheral. Disks for video cards, CD-ROMs and other storage devices, monitors and soundcards could all be made up (for ideas on types of software to use see the panel Food for Thought).

The copyright issue ...

Just because something is shareware or you downloaded it from a shareware site, don't assume the software can be given away free. Always check the readme files that come with the utilities as most authors impose some form of limitation to stop people cashing in on their work. Typically, these limitations are there to stop people taking advantage of their work - selling the titles for example. If you do think the limitations laid down will prevent you from bundling, it's worth checking with the author anyway, via email in most cases.

Shareware authors survive on having their products seen by as many users as possible, thus increasing the potential number registrations. As such, most developers will be willing to let you distribute a limited or restricted version (invariably the same one that's on the web pages) of their applications with hardware, as it increases their exposure. As long as you're not making commercial gain solely from their work, most, in my experience, will let you bundle their program providing you keep all the files together and don't remove the upgrade/registration messages.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Videocards: Quick-change resolution utilities, screen control applets, utilities to save desktop layouts for particular resolutions, a classic being the EZDesk (http://users.aol.com/EzDesk95/).

CD-ROM drives: Directory handlers - like Norton Commander (there are loads of similar types of programs in the shareware market), back-up tools, disk cataloguing programs.

Soundcards: WAV editors, cool sound files (watch copyright law here), and file format converters (if you've got a large Amiga market MOD to WAV converters are an obvious choice).

Scanners/Printers: Clipart, fonts as well as graphics programs.

A great source of potential shareware bundles is the Galteck site, which is located at http://www.galttech.com/sharware.shtml.