I've sent you a private message, rather than put Stu's e-mail address on a public forum.

Thank very much, its much appreciated, i do like the scoring system you use on your website, may have to pick your brains about that one,

DK

When I spoke to him a week or so ago he had 8 full PC systems for sale at 400 quid each.

If Matt doesn't get his number to you, I have it.

Hey,

So sorry about not getting to this earlier, I've had a ton on my plate the past few months, it's taken me a while to get most of it sorted out.

At the moment I've still got 4 full PC systems left, 4 gas-lift operator leather type chairs in good condition & 1 that's got a little bit of damage on both bits of padding & the gas lift is a bit duff & 3 desks. Various other bits like new headsets and earphones, a couple of flavia fusion hot drinks makers. copies of games etc.

Pretty much all of the smaller things are listed on my website at http://www.alphastrike.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=58 but ignore the prices, they aren't what I want to sell things for.

The computer specs are here http://www.alphastrike.co.uk/cafe/Ourpcs.php

I am after £400 each pc but I'd discount it for more than 1 computer.

Feel free to e-mail me about anything at shop@alphastrike.co.uk.

Stu

And for anyone interested, here's the reasons for our closure.

First though, a bit of history.

The building we were in was originally 1 business, when we bought them out we made them into 2 seperate businesses (we being myself & a friend I've known for many years). We thought it would be a great location as it was pretty much just over the road from the bus station and a mile or so down the road from the local college.

The previous owners though had been wanting to retire for a few years before we came along and had let quite a few things slide, the building was a mess inside (especially my side as it had more of the open area for him to put junk) and we found out later, he'd been a really obnoxious ba***rd to a lot of people who had been coming in, putting them off the place entirely. It didn't help that he got some of his income from selling pirated games and music.

My friend has a small chain of console game shops, including a small one in Castleford.

Now for the closure.

Things had been getting quieter and quieter for both sides - the bus station didn't help us one bit as the majority of people who were using the bus to get to town got on & off at the precinct. The college didn't help either, by the start of this year they had built a new college a couple of miles out of town in a different direction & stopped using the original one.

In May, my friend came to me and said he was looking around at other premises to move both his shops in to, but was expecting that to take a while. I figured no problem & got on with things but a week later, he told me he had put a bid on a shop but their lease ran out in October so if they got that shop, they wouldn't be moving out til then. Again, not really a big problem although I was starting to notice my lack of custom and income through the days - especially with the effective 310% increase in business rates we'd had.

A week after that, he told me the business where he wanted to move into had another premise & the landlord was happy for them to move out early & get my friend in there. Early meaning the start of July. So I took a couple of weeks going round the town centre looking at other empty premises, having a couple of viewings, seeing footfall outside different places etc. & generally doing research. I'd also made income averages per month for the previous year & found out I'd been taking in around £265 as an average for the past 3 months. That was enough to keep the business afloat but not to pay home bills (so no form of wage, as it were).

I did have the option of staying where I was although I'd have had the full building bills to pay rather than a part of them. When I worked things out, there was about £20 difference between where I was at the time and 2 other properties I could've gone in to although if I'd gone into either of those, I would have been locked into at least a 3 year lease so I decided to work something else out.

I was idly thinking of keeping the building on for a couple of months after my friend had moved out to see if I could get anything profitable in the other half but it didn't take me that long to work out that having twice as much go out than had been coming in per week, plus the other expense of possibly having to hire someone else to try and cope with the other side, I knew my only option was to close down.

Then it was when to close down, I did at first want to give customers a month's notice & thus close at the end of July - my friend was expecting to be out before then anyway. That was, until after the last full week in June where my business had been like a dead zone & I'd taken in £185. The next week was better but only by a tenner, so I chose to close down at the end of the following week.

It'd been suggested by family & a couple of customers to try and hold off closing until after the summer holidays was over but of course, we all know that customers are great at spending other people's money. I'd made a judgment that the extra income I might've got over the 6 week school summer holiday would have been a good bit less than the extra expense I would have had for those same 6 weeks.

So that's the story of our closing, I've missed quite a lot out, I didn't want to bore you all too much heh.

I would like to think that other people in the same situation would have done similar things. It was a very hard decision to do & I have had a lot of work to do after the closure to try and get all the smaller things ready for sale etc., and take a bit of time off!

I hope business keeps going well for you all,

Stu.