Atlanta VAR Thrives Selling Used PCs To Other VARs

"Roughly 75 percent to 80 percent of our customers are other VARs," Hiller says. "The remainder consists of end users. And they can be anyone from a Fortune 100 company to a student from his dorm room trying to buy a Cisco router."

As a wholesale provider, Abacus will also install the equipment for an end user if a solution-provider customer requests.

"We don't get into software, applications and databases," Hiller explains. "And when we find out the shipping information, we guarantee the VAR that we will not solicit that end user directly."

While gross margins are definitely better"by about 10 percent, according to Hiller"than what typical resellers enjoy, there is a significant risk associated with the buying and selling of millions of dollars of equipment.

"We have taken [a hit] of millions of dollars when the market shifted faster than we expected," Hiller says. "We [carefully] study buying trends before making purchases."

The key to his business' success, Hiller says, is finding good equipment at a good price.

"We have 19 people making phone calls worldwide all the time," he says.

The best part of the operation: Customers come to Abacus. Since its inception in 2000, the company has grown an average of 27 percent; this year, Hiller expects revenue to climb to somewhere between $38 million and $42 million.

As for the name Abacus, the company chose the ancient Chinese calculating mechanism because, "You can count on Abacus," Hiller says. "Also, it's a good name to search since it starts with an A."