As a 1 year old company, I have done way better than I really anticipated. I’ve taken a different approach in that I do a lot of live craft events. I have candles in 4 stores in my area. They saw my product and asked if I would be interested in offering them in their store. So far so good!
As a store owner it isn’t easy but it can be done. This is my third year with my store and yes profitable. My best advice START SMALL with SPACE. Remember you need to FILL that space with inventory.
Congrats! Yes that is the way to do it. People don’t realize how expensive it can be to fill a large space with products. You don’t want customers walking into a store that looks like it’s going out of business INSTEAD of in business. A Reasonable lease amount is important especially when you have that cost every month on good sales or bad sales.
I have now had 2 retail brick and mortar locations. I outgrew my first retail location and went to an Outlet Mall. The store at the mall was very overwhelming and didn't do that well. 7 days a week working 12 hours a day by myself, additional costs, just didn't work for me. Please heavily review things before opening a brick and mortar. It's very hard work.
Very true. It’s one of the reason I didn’t go to a mall or a place that would dictate my hours. I wanted flexibility and it works. I couldn’t imagine trying to keep up with those hours and production ..
Retail is hard. You don’t want to own a job. Therefore you’ve got to make sure you have plenty of profit and working capital to fund what it costs to have an employee and pay rent/utilities for at least a year or more.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but from my experience if you are doing good with your online sales, there is no reason to open a store especially if you are busy enough online like I am. I opened a storefront, but I don’t even have time to wait on customers so I don’t even open the front. I use it as a place to work out of for my online sales.
As a 1 year old company, I have done way better than I really anticipated. I’ve taken a different approach in that I do a lot of live craft events. I have candles in 4 stores in my area. They saw my product and asked if I would be interested in offering them in their store. So far so good!
As a store owner it isn’t easy but it can be done. This is my third year with my store and yes profitable. My best advice START SMALL with SPACE. Remember you need to FILL that space with inventory.
I agree! I have a small brick and mortar with a reasonable lease and good foot traffic.
Congrats! Yes that is the way to do it. People don’t realize how expensive it can be to fill a large space with products. You don’t want customers walking into a store that looks like it’s going out of business INSTEAD of in business. A Reasonable lease amount is important especially when you have that cost every month on good sales or bad sales.
I would definitely be interested in a full video on this because I’ve thought about this as a future venture.
I have now had 2 retail brick and mortar locations. I outgrew my first retail location and went to an Outlet Mall. The store at the mall was very overwhelming and didn't do that well. 7 days a week working 12 hours a day by myself, additional costs, just didn't work for me. Please heavily review things before opening a brick and mortar. It's very hard work.
There were so many things I didn't even know to think about.
Very true. It’s one of the reason I didn’t go to a mall or a place that would dictate my hours. I wanted flexibility and it works. I couldn’t imagine trying to keep up with those hours and production ..
Thank you for the eye opening tips!
Retail is hard. You don’t want to own a job. Therefore you’ve got to make sure you have plenty of profit and working capital to fund what it costs to have an employee and pay rent/utilities for at least a year or more.
Facts
Absolutely! I see so many going into this not knowing what to look out for and thinking future sales will cover anything they're not thinking about.
I haven’t watched the video yet, but from my experience if you are doing good with your online sales, there is no reason to open a store especially if you are busy enough online like I am. I opened a storefront, but I don’t even have time to wait on customers so I don’t even open the front. I use it as a place to work out of for my online sales.
Yeah I have all on do yese yuppie🩷💛💛😁