Cost Saving for an Internet Cafe

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Owning and managing an internet cafe is not as easy as everyone might think. To become successful in this kind of business, you have to know how to minimize your expenses so you can maximize your profits.

Mai and I are both technically knowledgeable and experienced on computer hardware and software. This saves us from paying technicians when we experience computer problems. We do all our computer repairs ourselves. We actually offer PC repairs, too, at affordable prices. We even offer computer shop setups at a very reasonable price. Mai took care of the cabling and I setup the computers and networking, including our cafe timer.

Mai working on our internet cafe's network cables.

I remember back in Cebu, some people  were doubtful that we could fix computers because, well, we're females. I proved them wrong. I already fixed 3 laptops that were bought to us for repair. One of them needed to restore the files from their hard drive that crashed. The other needed to downgrade from Vista to XP, and the last one had corrupted OS. I'm not that kind of technician who'll just reformat the computers so I can ask for a higher fee. I make sure that reformatting the HDD is the last resort.

Mai and I also do our b est to conserve energy, especially this past 2 months when Meralco increased their generation charge due to the dry season. We have a 1HP air conditioning unit now and a ceiling fan. As much as we want to turn off the AC, we couldn't because we don't want our customers to feel uncomfortable while inside our i-cafe. What we do to conserve energy is to turn off the computers once the customers log out. We also turn off the AVRs. Our customers are already used to turning on the AVR and the computers themselves, so we don't worry anymore about having to stand up everytime someone wants to use our computers. Our customers are pretty much independent already, so they just come in, sit at their preferred station, turn on the computer, and they'll just inform us how long they're going to play.

Mai and I are planning on buying a 2HP AC unit before this year ends because we've got plans of expanding or adding 2-4 more computers. We, including my nanay, are also planning on opening up a sari-sari store or a carinderia/eatery next to our internet cafe. So, the 2HP AC unit would definitely be a necessity. I just wish we could maybe get an energy auditor certification so we'd know more ways of conserving energy.

I'm glad we're no longer renting a place for our internet cafe. That saves us about Php 5,000 (around $100) monthly for rental. Now, we can save more for any other business we want to engage in. More about that in my future posts. :)

We also offer photo printing here at our internet cafe. I was surprised that there are a lot of people who want their digital photos printed. Mai and I are already used to just viewing our photos on our computers. But, I guess, nothing really beats having your photos printed out and making your own scrapbook. Good thing we've got our printer converted to CISS (Continuous Ink Supply System) so we can really save on printing costs (see image below). I'll blog about this in detail next time for those who are interested in printing their photos at home.

It's only our second month here at our internet cafe in Manila. So far, we're doing pretty well. I hope this continues so we can really save up for more business opportunities in the future.