AUSTIN, Texas — Sometimes Chris Tom has to tell his customers no.
As the owner of Game Republik, he gets asked a lot if he can repair older generation gaming consoles and have them ready same day. He responds respectfully and confidently.
“PS2 lasers are almost impossible to get right now,” Tom relays the message to his employee while the customer is on hold.
By “right now,” Tom is referring to the ongoing pandemic which is causing a strain on his ability to get certain supplies for specific repairs. He tells the customer he can fix it, just not the same day.
Still, it’s the repairs at his shop that have been keeping business running mostly smooth through 2020 into 2021.
“Repairs have been pretty strong. We’ve been selling stuff we fix too,” Tom said.
Repairs doubled last year. Tom says it’s a result of more people being at home.
“It means they broke more stuff. The more stuff they broke, the more we got,” Tom said.
Game Republik also saw a spike in sales of custom desktop computers. The custom built machines allow the user to create a computer as powerful as they can afford.
It’s a way for gamers to get the most out of their PC, but Tom says his customers aren’t strictly gamers. He’s built computers for people who spend the majority of their job working remotely.
“Sure, it’s fast for gaming but it’s also fast for editing video, encoding, decoding, pretty much whatever you want to do,” Tom said “Lots of power. Lots of speed. It will handle anything you throw at it.”
Demand for custom built PCs is booming. According to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the trend of working from home has delivered PC sales’ best performance in a decade.
“Every segment of the supply chain was stretched to its limits as production once again lagged behind demand during the quarter,” one IDC research manager said.
It’s especially difficult for Tom to get GPU’s, more commonly known as video cards.
“The video cards help you accelerate stuff. Especially if you’re doing 4K or higher video in things like Adobe. It’s a beast,” Tom said. “Demand is high. It’s high because of bitcoin. It was already high because of COVID.”
With production unable to keep up with demand, many consumers are forced to pay for GPU’s well above MSRP. Tom can get one card at a time from his distributor but he’s already paying more for the product because of tariffs placed on China by the Trump Administration.
The tariffs aren’t new but some computer hardware was included in a waiver that spared the products from being taxed up to 25 percent. That waiver expired on January 1. Some companies are already shifting the extra cost to customers.
“Prices, depending on the manufacturer, have gone up,” Tom said. “I’ve seen up to almost 30 percent on some of those guys. It’s just more expensive to do business right now. With the tariffs back in, I expect it’s not going to get any cheaper until the tariffs are addressed.
Tom’s preferred GPU has already gone up about 10 percent from around $800 to $880 but he’s skeptical it will stay there. As much as Game Republik needs new product to build PCs for customers, it also needs GPUs and other PC hardware to update computers in house.
The Biden Administration is expected to take a more diplomatic approach to trade talk with China. Biden told The New York Times in December he wouldn’t remove tariffs immediately.
Biden’s nominee to head the Treasury Department, Janet Yellen, told the Senate Finance Committee that China is undercutting American companies. Her statements echo similar criticisms from the Trump administration.
Tom says his focus right now is keeping his workers employed and customers safe. He’ll have to find somewhere else to cut costs if tariffs stay long term and the COVID-19 vaccine isn’t more widely available.