Average small store size and cost? And do you feel B&B or variety store?

[sockmonkey]

I agree Dave, it is important to check with other shop owners about the amount (and kind) of traffic they get. Just because you see a shop on a busy street it is no guarantee that anyone will stop to walk through your doors.

I don't know what you had in mind to sell, MM, but to me it seems like it would be very difficult to make a store successful carrying only handmade items such as soap and candles when you have no name recognition.

I think in order to make it work, you will have to get out in the public eye to market your products. Of course you will feel comfortable trying to sell products in your own store--but you've got to get them there first, and that is not easy if you don't have a large advertising budget and marketing plan in place, and even if you do, there's no guarantee that it will work!

I know a lady with a gift shop who does numerous festivals a year. She drags some of her merchandise to the county fair every year and participates in other community shows just to bring awareness to her store. Her store is in a rural, small town, but she sells name brand items such as Vera Bradley and Willow Tree and has to take the store on the road so to speak, just to get her name out there and give people a reason to come to town to visit her store. It works great for her.

Keep that in mind. Just because you have a store and put an ad in the paper, it doesn't mean that people will magically show up.

[Burnt Mill]

maybe you can sit out in the parking lot of a few of the places you are looking at. Watch how many people come and go during the week, evenings and weekends.

I hope to one day have a store too but that is a long term goal for me.

good luck! at least you can always say you went after your dream

[bwc]

Miss Mary, with the mass moving of stores out to Powers, closing down a lot of strip stores in the Springs, what part of the city are you considering for your store? There are so many strip malls in the Springs that look so forlorn because everyone is moving north and east in the Springs right now.

[MissMary]

The north end - the "rich" side, or maybe Monument. There's a strip near Veda salon on North Academy that's expensive, but given the scale, size, traffic and location - it might be worth it.

Other spots I was looking at, though it's a bit of a drive would be out near Falcon in that boom area out there, but I want to see how it pans out next year with all those foreclosed homes out there. Those are a large contributor to our "lead" in national foreclosures because of the hundreds of cookie cutter subdivision, contractor mass sell houses.

[Country Crafter]

One loss we never considered upon opening a store was our local wholesale accounts. A few we kept however sales from these accounts did drop with our products available instore which didn't make the retailers happy with us and a few outright stopped purchasing wholesale from us as we were selling from a retail location of our own. (They had no problems with us selling on the craft circuit but didn't not want to compete with a brick and morter store that we operated. )

Although total sales of our products were not impacted greatly with these losses of venues that sold our products overall we definately sold less on the whole but dollar value did not drop greatly as we sold more retail.

Just a thought.

[bwc]

The north end - the "rich" side, or maybe Monument. There's a strip near Veda salon on North Academy that's expensive, but given the scale, size, traffic and location - it might be worth it.

Other spots I was looking at, though it's a bit of a drive would be out near Falcon in that boom area out there, but I want to see how it pans out next year with all those foreclosed homes out there. Those are a large contributor to our "lead" in national foreclosures because of the hundreds of cookie cutter subdivision, contractor mass sell houses.

That would be a wicked drive up to Monument during the winter. The area where the Veda salon is sounds like a good area, though. I've always wanted to go to that salon, but it never worked out. Hope the weather behaves next week; I have a sleep study at Memorial 11/11.

[MissMary]

That's very true too. I never paid attention much, so I'm going to watch how often different streets get closed too. Academy was only closed once since I've been here, up here and that was 2 years ago. Cars, left right smack in the middle all the way across. Thought hey! Let's go get some food.... yeah right. We failed to check the road reports thinking Academy was okay. Took us 2 hours to get off base, down to Chapel Hills entrance and back.

I've wanted to go to Veda too, but damn if it ain't insanely expensive! I can't justify with myself the costs, but I'm a tight wad on luxuries.

[Chele]

I have read thru most of the posts and agree with many of them. I had a very successful retail store for over 4 years.. heck we even turned a profit our first year in the retail business. I sold my retail business this past summer and took home enough profit from the sale to build a new building, pay off a car and lots of bills. So we have done it.. and done it well... that being said....

• If I had to do it all over again I would not have gone into the retail business. The hours are long, you have NO family or personal life, and when the store is slow - you will have to bail it out.

• I realized real quick that a successful store hurts fundraiser, internet, and wholesale business. You can only make so many candles. In hind sight I should have focused on internet, wholesale, and fundraisers... in reality that is where I make my money.

• The cost a retail space in much higher than anything you have planned. My rent was only $700 (my location was golden in my town - and yes it's location, location, location) but just to turn on the lights with the cost of bags, credit card fees, insurance, displays, holiday decor, advertising, heating & cooling, window decorating.. etc.. it was easily over $2500 a month and that's not paying a soul to work there.. add in employee costs and trust me you won't be drawing a decent, steady salary for a while.

• Good help, that you can afford, is HARD if not impossible to find!!! If I decided to take a day or two off from the shop.. I would return to mass confusion for days. They will not run your business like you do, they will not care about your business like you do, and you will find this a constant source of frustration. All this means.. you are handcuffed to your store...

If it were me, I honestly would pass on opening a store right now I think the economy is gonna get worse before it gets better and retail spaces will sit empty and will get cheaper as time goes on. However if you are bound and determined to have a store... It can be done successfully if you have a good product (and yes we carried B&B and candles, accessories etc.) and for the record I am pretty hard headed and no one could have changed my mind 4 years ago Just sharing my hindsight information.

Here's a link to pictures of our old store. (if you are curious) http://www.buggytowncandles.com/storepics.html It had it's fun moments and I learned a ton about business in general. I do miss chatting with my favorite customers.

Good luck in whatever you decide,

Chele