There is nothing better than having a “good mechanic” in your back pocket. Whether it’s your son, daughter, husband, cousin, etc. it’s always handy when you have a “tech” in the family. How many years of experience with consignment software do they have though?
One of our most-common calls is,
“My kid worked on the systems and knows a lot about computers…but they’re still not working.”
There are a LOT of little details when it comes to consignment software. These are professional/business-class systems and they have a specific set of requirements in order to run properly. A $1,000 program can be rendered utterly useless, by one simple mistake.
This is one of the reasons we started The Computer Peeps. “DIY” is great and it has its place, but all things come at a cost. Just because someone knows math, doesn’t mean you should hire them as your accountant. 🙂
At the end of the day, you have systems that need to run your consignment software. Someone has to do the work and there’s going to be a cost, both financially and in time.
It’s a matter of how much do you want to spend in time and money? There’s a balance between DIY and cost. If you’re interested in tinkering with computers and fixing them yourself, great! What’s your time worth to you though? Are you just tinkering with a computer at home? One that doesn’t impact your business? Are you going to “learn on the clock” using your business systems?
Let’s say your car needs a tune-up. Sounds easy! All things are relative though and it’s up to you to decide what your time is worth. 
Great at changing oil and love doing it yourself? What a great way to save money! Don’t have time or just don’t want to deal with it? That’s where you pay for someone else to do it.
Something that should only take a couple of minutes, can turn into days or weeks worth of issues if the person working on the issue doesn’t know which way to go. Attempts to troubleshoot the issue can be rendered futile, all because one little thing is overlooked.
I’m all for learning, tinkering, discovering, etc. but after seeing so many consignment/resale store owners end up paying far too much in time and/or money, I can’t help but say, “let The Computer Peeps handle it!“
Dean
I am a Software Developer, System Administrator, and consignment software specialist. I currently manage hundreds of consignment workstations, point of sale systems, and database servers all across North America and I am the developer of Peeps' Software, Peeps2Go, and Peeps' Consignor Login for iOS and Android. I've been helping consignment & resale store-owners since 2003. I started The Computer Peeps in February of 2010. Peeps' Software launched in 2016 and is now on hundreds of systems all across North America. I have successfully converted dozens of stores from all of the major consignment software systems. After 20 years of working with consignment stores, I understand the unique challenges consignment & resale store-owners face. From electrical issues in old buildings or strip malls, to advocating for them when their old consignment software keeps crashing.