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WOOD RIVER - What began six months ago as an electronic repair service offered out of Blake Brown’s home has found a new home in a storefront at 305 S. 6th St. in Wood River. BB Electronic Repair & Recycling has been open at the new location for about a month now offering everything its name implies and more.
Brown spoke more about the business and its new storefront on a recent episode of Our Daily Show! on Riverbender.com.
“I have been messing with electronics since I was a kid. It has been something that has been a passion of mine,” Brown said. “During COVID, I was let go of my job and decided it was time to go ahead and pursue stuff of my own.”
When he was first getting started, he described it more as a “side hustle” to make extra money while he tried and struggled to find a job in the industry. Eventually, he decided he was passionate enough about electronic repair to stop the job search and employ himself instead.
“I know it was the best thing for me, best thing for my family,” he said. “I was a lot happier of a person being able to make my own hours and do my own thing.”
While initially running the business out of his house was working fine for a while, Brown had always thought about opening up his own store, which eventually happened with some help from his wife.
“Me and my wife talked about it quite often. It seemed like something that we were not going to be able to do, but we got pushed to that direction and we made sure that everything happened,” Brown said. “She’s been a big supporter of me and she’s really helped me out a lot.”
The storefront has been up and running for about a month now, and while the first week open was pretty slow, Brown said the business steadily gained foot traffic week after week and now has a consistent amount of customers.
Brown said he’s recently been doing lots of gaming console repair work, including several PlayStation 5s with faulty HDMI ports, which he pins on Sony’s manufacturing practices - fortunately, it’s a quick and easy fix for him to do.
“We typically have a same-day turnaround,” he said. “I can usually get the console apart, get the HDMI replaced within roughly about an hour, and put it back together and test it.”
He also commonly performs “solid state repairs,” which he said can speed up old MacBooks and Windows laptops by three to four times faster than they were before. After repairing any item, he tests it out before returning it to the customer - and while he stands by the quality of his work, he offers a 30-day warranty on all repairs just in case any further issues arise.
BB Electronic Repair & Recycling also has several discounted electronics for sale, including 2023 MacBooks marked down “a couple hundred dollars” under retail and a new Mac Mini. They also offer 3D printing services, including printing custom orders, with carbon and nylon prints to be used in automotive parts slated for the near future.
As their name implies, they also offer electronic recycling - Brown said he’s recycled six televisions within the past week, as well as 20 old PCs. They offer their recycling services at-cost for whatever the recycler charges them - BB doesn’t make a profit in the process, though the price does vary depending on the size of the electronic being recycled.
BB Electronic Repair & Recycling is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. To learn more about their services, inventory, and more, visit their Facebook page, call (618) 818-9370 or email BBRepairAndRecycling@gmail.com.
For more information about BB Electronic Repair & Recycling, see the full interview with Brown at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.
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