Chris Norton ⋅ Hightstown, NJ Current: Keller Williams Realty ⋅ 19 years experience

James-

Not sure if you ended up pulling the trigger or not, but I'm looking for dealers to sell Defense Mobile (multi-carrier MVNO). cnorton@defensemobile.com is best reach.

Raman Singh ⋅ Houston, TX Financial Services Company ⋅ 4 years experience

James,

Depending on what will be your niche (owning a franchise like Verizon, TMobile, Sprint or not being part of a franchise). Even though I have not personally owned a cellphone store, I have worked at stores like "Cell Spa" or your corner cell phone stores. Most of the store owners purchase their accessories either directly from Chinese suppliers or they have their preferred vendors in their designated cities. If you have a strong knowledge and understanding of repairing cellphones, you can always buy used phones from your average consumer, turn around and sell them at a higher price (after your repair & unlock the phone). Oh also, these preferred vendors also sell phones at a dealer cost. You can't expect to buy an iphone 5s at a discounted price but I am pretty certain you can find good deals on other phones.

To wrap this up, you must first decide whether you want to be part of a retail franchise store or want to go your own way. Please email me if you have any additional questions - Raman.Singh88@gmail.com

Kimberly Smith ⋅ Chicago, IL AT&T ⋅ 30 years experience

Here is a website that is sponsored by the industry group "Channel Partners" that hosts a tool box for agent type business in the communication industry. They are the best in class.
http://toolbox.channelpartnersonline.com/
In addition, AT&T has an extensive mobility program for authorized dealers both in business and residential markets. I am not sure of the website for consumer, but this is the business one, you can click to fill out a contact sheet that will get distributed to the right place.
www.att.com/alliance

Kasie Dugan ⋅ Charleston, SC Boeing ⋅ 4 years experience

I have not owned and operated a cell phone business before but spent 6 years working for Alltel and then Verizon wireless after they bought Alltel and merged. What I can tell you about the cell phone business is that it changes constantly and competition is fierce. I am assuming that you want to be an independent dealer which means that your revenue will come primarily through new activations and accessories. The market is saturated as it relates to new activations so you won't see the growth that was previously enjoyed in the past.

With that being said, I think there is a huge potential in the cell phone repair market. I can't tell you how many cracked iphone screens and phone malfunction issues I would see on a daily basis. The only option for customers at the retail stores was to buy a new phone and pay full retail price for an otherwise well functioning phone. The phone manufacturers only cover malfunctions for one year which still leaves customers another year to fulfull their contracts without any way to have their phone repaired.

You can also become a certified by Apple to repair phones to add legitimacy to your work and company (and charge more for services). I referred my customers to one such guy and he made a killing. All he did was bring cupcakes and cookies to the retail store along with his business cards and got referrals from all the employees in the store.