Informative Post

Retail Business – What is it, exactly? Fancy opening a golf shop, buying an embroidery shop or picking up a franchise for a pet accessory venture? Just make sure you have a true passion for your retail business as you are really tested and it’s the passion that keeps you going.

Running a retail business shop doesn’t just involve serving at the counter, you know. In addition, you’ll be:
• making or buying stock
• working damn long hours
• watching inventory
• watching inventory shrink (jargon for getting stuff nicked, by staff or by customers. Calling it shrinkage doesn’t lessen the pain one little bit)

And there’s more work such as managing your staff aka man management
• finding staff
• having staff
• losing staff and not having staff
• having good staff and worrying you might lose them
• having bad staff and worrying you might not lose them

Other recurring and likely tasks of a retail business start up
• doing the books — not just bookkeeping and tax returns, but budgeting and crunching the numbers and working out how to increase the top half (revenue) and decrease the bottom half (costs)
• working damn long hours
• dealing with cranky customers
• not having any customers, cranky or otherwise, for what seems like weeks
• having too many customers, all in the shop as well as on the phone, and knowing that you can’t deal with all of them
and some of them are going to walk out and never, ever, ever come back in again
• marketing in a local community — frequent buyer programmes, advertising and so on
• working daMn long hours

The majority of Retail Business Models depend on the local customer base.   It ticks the boxes if: You really do need to care about local community and like people. Seriously;: most retail businesses are very reliant on passing trade and support from the neighbourhood. In a small retail business, you’re going to want to focus’ on good service as well as good product – so chatting to people, putting up’ notices for school fetes and car boot sales, advertising in the local paper that kind of thing.

For most retail stores, the majority of traffic comes front within a mile or two. The exception to this is if your business is so specialised that people drive for miles to come to you – if you’re the only bookshop specialising in boating books in the South West, for example. In that case you’re still working hard, to be part of your local community, but it’s the boating community .So you’ll be advertising in boating and tapping into boating networks and building a really good website, because a lot of your retail business revenues will come from people who want to buy over the Internet rather than drive out to your shop.

You want to have a bit of a passion for your product if you can, and this is your chance to really immerse yourself in a world you love. A. hint: if you’re a golf fan and you know all about golf brands and equipment, don’t open a scrapbooking shop. If you’re a scrapbooking enthusiast and you’re good on acid-free paper and die cuts and cardstock, a golf shop may not be the best choice for you.

What you need

Cash. Retail Business is not cheap to get into. As well as start up costs, you’re going to want to have outgoings (rent, staffing, product, promotions) covered for at least three months, to give you time to get up and running and turning a profit.
Retail experience is always a good idea. If you’ve not got it, go and work in a shop for a few months – preferably in the same field as your proposed venture. At worst, you’ll discover you hate, hate, hate it – and then you won’t have to go through the trauma of starting something you don’t enjoy. At best, you’ll find you love it and get lots of tips on how things work (and areas you can improve), so you can launch your business fresh.

Upside of an Retail Business
• Working with product you love — you get to choose what works, follow your hunches and try things out — and see if it works!
• If you do it right, your staff become like family.
• You can really tap into the local community.
• Get it right and the money comes in. When you sell, you can make some serious money — and kiss the shop goodbye for ever.

Downside of an Retail Business
• Staffing — hiring, training, scheduling, managing. A lot of new businesses don’t take on the admin load of staff at first, but you will need to, unless you want to work every single hour your shop is open.
• The grind. Monday, business Is flat, another day at the shop and it goes on forever. It can be lonely and despite your best efforts you may well start hating your customers for being so stupid. And you can’t go for a walk and buy a coffee to clear your head because your junior is off sick today… Seriously, if this sounds like absolute misery, then you won’t be far wrong. Don’t ever imagine that it’s a walk in the park, retail.

Probable income level Of Retail Business  - It depends. Some retail businesses work right on the breadline or only survive because the owner has an independent income source or owns the premises outright (no rent). Others are basically cash cows, with money walking in the door.

Yes, we know – you want to know how to tell which is which. Well, don’t ask us because we don’t know. If you buy a well-established retail business that’s selling for a good reason (and you need to do your due diligence and work out why they’re really selling), then you stand a reasonable chance – but of course you pay a premium for that comfort. If you reckon you can build up a dump and that’s all you can afford, you had better be prepared for a long hard haul.

Related tags:

• books retailing business