Ep. 231: Computer Buying Guide For Your OFS

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 231, computer buying guide for OFS. So if you are thinking of buying a computer for your OFS, or your OFS needs a new computer or they're thinking about buying one for themselves, we just updated our computer buying guide, which it was actually like a major, major update, overhaul, redo of it by one of our tech experts on my team. And the buying guide is really thorough and it gives you a really good idea of what you do and don't need when buying a computer as an ofs. And frankly, it's probably a really good guide for someone buying a computer for at home that you don't know what you need. You don't know if you need all the bells and whistles or this extra thing or that extra thingy. This guide is really, really thorough at that. So we started this in 2019 and my team pitched me on this idea of writing this guide because November and December are really, really good times in the Philippines to buy a computer, which they're also really good times in the US to buy one because of Black Friday in the Philippines, they can get really good rates on last year's models because stores are clearancing them. They also know that the 13th month payments are coming in, so stores want a discount so they can bring the business to them versus elsewhere. And so it's a good time to buy a computer in the Philippines. So I will link to this guide in the description below the podcast or below this video if you're watching it on YouTube and you can send that to your OFS if they're buying a computer or if you're interested in buying one for them so they can help you decide what to buy. So one of the temptations is, oh, it's cheaper to buy in the US So let me just buy a computer in the US and I'll ship it to you. And this is not a good idea. Let me give you a couple reasons why. So number one, you can't send it Post office. Like if you send it with the postal service in the US it gets turned over to the postal service in the Philippines and then it's gonna get stolen. Well, I can't say it's going to get stolen, but when I asked my team, can I send it postal? They said, absolutely not. No way. Do not send it postal. It's probably gonna get stolen. Number two, courier services, FedEx, DHL. Yes, whatever, are super expensive. In fact, the last time we looked at it, it was like $350 to ship the computer, which was about the same as what we paid for the computer. Now, this has been a bunch of years because we were. And we were getting laptops really cheap, but the shipping cost is so much, it's not really worth it. And then number three, warranties aren't really gonna work. And the Philippines is a different physical environment than where you live. And things break, computers break, and so that warranty is a really big deal for them. And then you have customs fees. So depending on how it gets shipped, it, it could get charged really high customs fees, which would be super crappy and kind of defeats the purpose. Look, sending it to the Philippines is just. It's just not that great of an option. So you're much better off having them buy it in the Philippines, and they can go to somewhere local, or they can go to a big box store locally, or they can go online in the Philippines and buy it. It's just a better way of doing it. And this guide can help you know what to buy and help them know what to buy so that they make sure they're making a good decision.