Are Internet Cafes still a Good Business?

I think cafes will go down on their ‘internet’ side of business because internet and computers here in the Philippines are getting cheaper and cheaper, unless you are located near a school, sobrang patok for research, typing and printing, lalo na yung mahileg sa cramming.

I guess there are still growth in the gaming side because I think gamers prefer group playing than playing solo.

patok yung 168 and its sister company ihook. i think it’s because of gaming and not internet. abe nagdodota pa rin kami, pero ngayon sa labas na para pwedeng mag-ingay kahit 40 pesos per hour.

mas magaling pang magblog na lang tungkol sa internet cafe kesa magtayo ng internet cafe, mas malakas ang kita, di ba? hehehe.

on a serious note, plano ko rin yan dati sa barangay namin sa batangas. malapit sa school. kaso, may nauna sa akin, and i don’t want to compete with his price. malulugi lang ako.

i agree with Kuya Kevin
It’s about location but as of the moment, the busiest places are also the most hard-fought (too many competitors).

Second criterion for success would be the quality of experience (Gaming Cafes).

Third would be “other services.” I have a friend who only has 8 units but he has 10 printers and offers the sought after “Piso Print” service. His printing earnings far exceeds the PC rentals.

I used to have an internet cafe but gave it up three years ago. Now I hear rentals are at P15/hour ? Don’t see how one can make money at that rate, you have to find ways to supplement it. Rentals alone won’t cut it…

I would say yes! But not in Metro Manila, It will be a great business if you locate it the province where only few can afford DSL connection at home.

I’m a former net cafe owner and so so so proud quitting the business. It’s so so so so so so horrible experience for me caused by lagggggggggy dsl business plan, stiffffff competition, unfairrrrrrrr competition (for using counterfeit softwares). Blogging is farrrrrrrrrrrrr away better than having a computer shop. :)

Hmmm good idea there yuga! and along with it is a coffee and snack bar. :)

Sa area namin d2 sa bulacan, parang mushroom na nagsusulputan ang internet cafe business, gaya-gaya para ding mineral water business bawat kanto may kalaban. Kaya ang rate P15 per hour na lang, at ang iba ay P10 cguro iba gamit ng jumber na lang para makatipid sa electricity which is risky pag nahuli ka ng Meralco! Ang kuryente parang na ring ginto eh sa mahal!

Tapos consider mo pa ang municipal ordinance na bawal magpapasok ng estudyante between 7:00 am to 4:00 pm, goodness ano pa kikitain
jan! Bawat bata hingi ng bonus time eh ano pa sa Meralco na lang lahat punta ng kita!

In short, cut-throat competition talaga! Kailangan mahaba pisi mo to compete with others!

saturated business in the metro
maybe if you put up one in the province, i think that would be doable. :D

I would like to add a factor to consider in putting up this business, that is employee to manage the repairs and customers.

If you’ll be doing it all by yourself, it’s really more a self-employment than a business.

If you can find a decent job, might as well be employed.

How much do cafes spend for electricity when they have 10PCs? what about 20 or 30?

Hi guys meron kasi akong gustong place dito sa amin, meron 3 schools na malapit and meron din 2 cafe’s na competensya pero as a gamers nakikita kong sobrang naasar yong mga players niya kasi sobrang LAG at yong Dota na nga lang na didisconnect pa.. so gusto ko sanang magtayo ng cafe dito yong medyo malakas na computer para lumipat yong mga student.. pero di ako makagawa ng business proposal kasi di ko alam kong paano gawin at saan magsisimula.. kong meron makakatulong sa akin please send me an email artnorman_g****@****.***

Thank you

By the way i’m not more on gamers but rather internet users. Sa internet kc pag nag research may kasamang printing and more. Kaunti lang din games ko kasi nagiging magulo and most of my dedicated customers eh gusto sounds lang.. ayaw ng maingay. Tsaka madaling masira ang keyboard and mouse sa mga gamers hihihihihi(but not all).

Depende siguro sa lugar na pagtatayuan mo, kung saturated na sa area nyo o marami ng internet cafes sa lugar nyo, di humanap ka ng iba lugar na wala pang gaanong competitors!

Well, kung sayo ang place at hindi ka na uupa ng monthly rental pwede yon kahit maraming competitors, daanin mo na lang sa promo! Nasa strategy mo na lang yon on how to beat your competitors!

Whether it’s good or not depends on your location and your presentation. Besides that, I doubt that even a quarter (perhaps a lot less) of the Filipino population can afford the fees for internet services – let alone a computer (sorry, don’t have the proper percentages, and I don’t have the resources to do a countrywide poll.. but a good guess would be 10%… hehehe).

The cheapest BRAND NEW PC I can get which is compatible with most current popular MMOGs would cost around 8 – 9 thousand pesos – that’s a system with an AMD Sempron and a 780G or 690G motherboard. That’s a lot of money.

The CHEAPEST I can get is probably an old PII or PII for about 2 thousand, and a monitor might be around 1 to 2 thousand – if you know where to look – the problem with this is the warranty; and these systems just won’t cut it – even for Warcraft III with all the eye candy set to the lowest.

Besides that, most used computers have problems and no warranty – you’ll end up spending more on repairs or buying more old ones susceptible to damage, eventually spending more than you would had you bought a brand new one. And there’s the electric bill…

Anyway… electricity… could anyone here please post electricity bills for your net cafes? Number of PCs, monthly electricity charges, hours per month. I’d like to get an idea of approximately how much I’d be spending on that as I’m planning on putting up one in my little town.

X.A., Thanks for an informative comment, with numbers. Interesting and I wish you well.

I just came back from a 4 day road trip up north with my son who is visiting from the states. We used cafe’s at leaast once a day. Major thing I observed as a business man is, most cafes make it too hard on themselves. Way too much labor for a simple task. Sign this, fill up that, etc. Labor costs the owner even if it is his own, and slows down the amount of time a customer is online and thus making the operator money.

There is good cafe management software out there, currently way too much paper and time being used.

I must say though, from personal observation, this is still for sure a viable business if you run it as a business.

Big opportunity I see being missed is monetizing things like advertising and membership deals to the users. Many owners/shop attendants barely acknowledge the presence of customers instead of talking to them, finding out their needs and making them feel welcome … and signing them up to a free monthly newsletter … you are promoting your shop with a monthly newsletter, aren’t you?

Last tip … have change! It is a business’s responsibility to make change for the customer, period. You offera service for a fee, part of the cost of doing business is to be able to make change … fact of life. Making the customer feel guilty for not having change is bad business. It’s like paying your Meralco bill … not always a happy occasion but a necessity for ongoing sales.

@ Yuga and in particular your great response to marghil and orgl.

The biggest thing I see standing in anybody’s idea so many people seem to have that a ‘computer shop’ only does this thing or that thing. Time (money) slips away while people don’t come in the shop to do what the owner thinks they should be doing … instead, the owner could be finding things they want to do.

How many ‘stories’ fit for a blog post happen everyday, right as people are using the cafe? It doesn’t cost a centavo more to write about them … especially if business is slow anyway.

on my opinion, internet cafe business is a dying business nowadays :(

for WoW, i think you can use just one copy and distribute it on the computers. it’s the player’s responsibility anyway to have an account.

I’m a shop owner for almost 8 years, i started with just 2 pc, and now it’s 31 units, so I may say magandang negosyo, cguro noon, pero ngayon na sunod-sunod ang nagtayo sa lugar namin, (by the way, malayo ako sa school, purely residential area) ngayon ang hirap na, half of my PC eh hindi na nauupuan sa maghapon, and with new shops near my area and lower rates like P10/hr, now i don’t know kung paano na!

My take on this is to make sure you use highly efficient rigs that are highly scalable. I would suggest going with the following set up:

AMD Athlon 4850e (45W versus 65W most dual core processors consume)
AMD 780G Chipset motherboard (Power efficient chipset with powerful IGP capable of running locally populaar games)
1x2GB 800mhz DDR2 RAM
80GB 7200 RPM HDD
CD-ROM ODD (leave the DVD-RW in your service unit so you can charge customers to burn CD’s/DVD’s)
15 – 17″ LCD with no more than 1280×800 resolution (Consumes significantly less power than CRT monitors and attracts more customers)
Windows Vista Basic

You’re probably asking why use Vista when it’s a resource hog. Well, Vista allows you to scale your rig up by simply adding an ATI 3450/3470 Graphics card to take advantage of AMD’s Hybrid Crossfire technology when locally popular games start requiring extra power, also Vista Basic isn’t as much a resource hog as Vista Premium and the 2GB 800mhz RAM should be more than enough to sustain it, and you can always add another 1 or 2GB to further improve performance (note: 32 Bit Vista may not be able to completely utilize 4 GB worth of RAM).

Now, the best part about this set up is that it consumes significantly less energy than most computers you’ll see currently being used by alot of internet cafes (less ongoing overhead expense) and at the same time provides better gaming and surfing experience, attracting more customers (more revenue).

What do you think guys?

ako din i’m planning to start a internet business next month but after reading this im having a doubt now..kakaasar hirap naman ang mahal mag start ng business pero hirap kumita now a day..estimate cost ko to start a business is 150k pesos..which is a mabigat na sa bulsa ko para sa isang katulad ko..tama nga kayo nagigin mura na ang pc ngyn,,at nagkakaron na ng magndang deals sa internet connection,, pwede pa cguro ako magstart pero cguro pabagsak palang ang internet business..pwede pa rin ngyn im sure pwede pa rin magstart and kikita ka prin pero papunta ka kc ang pilipinas sa pagiging more technology needs.. tignan mo ang cellphone..dati panay telephono ang malakas na kita ng mga big company pero dahil sa cellphone at naging sobrang mura na cellphone halos wala ng nagamit ngyn ng telephono db? kaaasar nmn..almost too late na yata para magtayo…hay pano kya ako yayaman nito,,guys/girls ano opinion nio sa LOTtO franchise? magkano kaya kita nun,,konti lng kc ang budget ko eh i cant afford a resturant..