Why I Started Tech Deals Direct: Making Tech Affordable Again

I've always been the person friends ask before buying a new gadget. What's actually worth it, what's a waste of money, which £15 thing is quietly better than the £80 version next to it. That habit is basically the whole reason this shop exists.

What's changed is the question that comes after "is it worth it." A few years ago that was mostly about quality. Now, for a lot of us, it's about whether we can justify spending on ourselves at all. Energy bills went
up and never really came back down. The weekly shop costs more for less. Wages haven't kept pace with much of it. Somewhere in all that, things that used to feel like a normal treat — a decent pair of earbuds, a
gadget that makes your day a bit easier — started feeling like something you had to save up for, or just quietly skip.

I didn't think that was fair. Good tech shouldn't be reserved for the months when there's spare cash floating around. So I started looking properly at how these products get from factory to doorstep, and how
much of the price tag is the product itself versus markup stacked on markup by the time it reaches a shop shelf.

That's the gap Tech Deals Direct sits in. I go close to the source for the gadgets and everyday tech I sell, cut out as much of the unnecessary markup as I can, and pass the saving on instead of pocketing it. No
premium packaging you bin in five seconds, no padding a price just to mark it down later. Just useful gadgets, priced like someone actually wants you to be able to afford them.

I'm picky about what makes it onto the site, too. If I wouldn't buy it myself or recommend it to a mate, it doesn't make the cut. That's a smaller catalogue than some shops run, but I'd rather sell fifty things worth owning than five hundred things worth returning.

None of this is about pretending money worries don't exist, because for most of us, most of the time, they clearly do. It's about making sure that doesn't have to mean cutting out everything that makes day-to-day
life a bit easier. A small treat shouldn't need a special occasion attached to it.

So that's why Tech Deals Direct exists: to make decent tech and useful gadgets fit into a normal budget, not just a generous one. Have a browse, see what's there, and if something catches your eye, that's
exactly the idea.

— Chris, founder of Tech Deals Direct