Everything That You Need to Start a Cellphone Repair Store!

Taking advantage of small business opportunities is one of the most enriching ventures in the professional world. Breaking away from a dull corporate routine and pursuing your ambitions to become a small business owner can be one of the best decisions you’ll ever make.

Living in this tech era, why not focus on the booming cellphone repair industry? In 2024, the global smartphone shipments reached 1.24 billion units, with revenues exceeding $500 billion. As these devices are prone to failure, users look for reliable repair service providers, making phone repairs a highly demanding business.

Let’s first bring into account the opportunities hidden in starting your own cell phone repair store!

With each passing day, more and more smart phones are sold. From young teenagers with their first phone, to adults getting upgrade after upgrade. With a growing market of devices with delicate screens, ports, connectors, and millions of accessories, you can only imagine the damage that can be done. People go out of control with the latest releases, but despite all the innovations, they are still prone to breaking easily. According to research by w3solutions,

The average time from purchase to breaking your phone is approximately 10 weeks.

Bringing your plan into action, let’s move on to the basics of what you’ll actually need to start your own cell phone repair store;

Research About the Cell Phone Repair Industry

Before investing into a business, make sure you understand the industry, so you can take lead. When entering a new market, you must be aware of the market value, industry stats, trends as well as the challenges.

These days, smart phone repair shops don’t just fix devices, but also sell various accessories, and offer refurbished phones & trade-ins. So, you must be aware of the ongoing trends, and statistics, helping you build a solid business. 

A Plan with Smart Budget Investment

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration,

Most microbusinesses cost around $3,000, while most home-based franchises cost $2,000 to $5,000 to start.

In addition, to achieve long-term success, you must manage your cell phone repair business startup cost. Below, we have mentioned the areas where you may have to invest to set up your business. 

• Purchasing/leasing a retail store: $10,000 – $50,000. it all depends on size and location.
• Licensing: $500 – $2500
• Repair tools and equipment: $2,000 – $15,000
• Inventory (spare parts, accessories): $5,000 – $20,000

When you have enough knowledge about the industry you are stepping in, a lot of things will come in your favor. Also, it is important to have support on the legal side of the business especially, ensuring you are protected and going about the process in the right way. Take the expert advice for proper registration from the government and some paperwork (if required) to open your repair store.

Based on experience and research, your big portion of capital will be used to purchase tools, training, buying a shop (if not a home franchise), business registration, and a laptop for phone software repairs.

Suitable Location

The storefront is the best way to start branding your repair services. It shows legitimacy and puts trust in the minds of your customers. To set up a cell phone repair shop, choose a proper location either in a residential area or a commercial zone.

Also, it is best to open your repair shop in an existing cell phone market, or a commercial area. As there will be more footfall, you will have the opportunity to grab more customers. You can advertise to people visiting the market for other purposes and can draw their attention to your repair shop by displaying  your accessories, and promotions. 

Having a storefront allows you to keep all of your inventory in one place as well as allowing you to work on multiple devices at the same time. In addition, don’t forget to leverage marketing automation tool for repair shops. it will help you send promotional messages and emails to specific customer groups. So, they would know what repair services and accessories you offer. 

Hire Trained Staff

If you are a one-man army, then it would be best if you could get the hands-on experience first before opening a shop. You can learn cell phone repair at any technical institute or a cell phone repair school. Since this business will only involve you doing most of the work in the beginning, you should go to a training institute that covers not only technical education but teaches you everything about managing the mobile repair business as well.

 If you possess a big capital and can afford employees, put an ad about hiring trained staff or spread the word out to get the skilled technicians and staff members for your cell phone repair shop. We suggest you to hire only skilled, and experienced technicians and staff members. they will help you win trust of your customers and can efficiently manage all types of repair jobs. 

Sufficient Repair Tools & Inventory

Having the right cell phone repair tools is a must if you are planning to open your business. You should also have some advanced tools such as heat stations, laser machines for glass separation, etc. Along with that, ensure you have enough parts to keep up with the demand for your service. Depending on how much availability you have, you may want to start with minimal pieces of each item you wish to repair.

Furthermore, get your shelves filled with the inventory items that are trending, accessories that are popular and make sure that you have the right quantity as required. Do some research about the devices that people want you to repair such as iPhones, Samsung, Google  Pixel, etc. Then order parts accordingly.

If you are in the USA, luckily, we have got the list of best cellphone parts suppliers. Read our article on top cell phone parts suppliers in the US.

Leverage Cell Phone Repair Shop Software

When going through the hectic stuff all by yourself, you need a helping hand in your daily chores and something that will help you grow, and that useful system is an efficient cell phone repair shop software. It will save your time letting you focus more on your sales and customers, ensuring everything’s moving along quickly and efficiently. Using this, you can

• Manage Inventory: Efficiently manage inventory and always receive notifications whenever a part or accessory gets low in the stock
• Repair Ticket Management: Create repair ticket for every job and let customers know when the repair is complete or if there is a change in the repair status.
• Employee Management: Track the attendance of your employees and see how many repair jobs they complete every day/week/month
• Reporting: Get all the insights about the performance of your business such as sales, profitability and most selling line items. 
• Billing & Invoicing: automate your process, create invoices in seconds, and let customers pay through different methods. 

To remain on top in today’s highly competitive repair industry, you need a POS system to help you run your business the right way. RepairDesk makes your life easier by helping you manage all the ongoing operations effortlessly and with just a few clicks. Try it today and see the difference yourself.