how to decide to shut shop ???

[Wobble]

I brought my company early last year from my old boss who retired , the company has been trading since 1948, its current location is on a main road out of town and has difficult street parking and has been in this position for 25 years, its a converted 2 bed house in a terrace.we lease the shop and can exit at any point .

Over the years my specialist shop has seen a decrease in sales , the shop used to generate enough sales to pay for lease , utilities and a staff member , the staff member no longer works here since i took it over and i man the shop myself or my business partner does while the other is out on the road installing .

We are the only shop like it within 30 miles if not more , some days we have no customers walk in some days 10 buying small items worth under £5.

The shop has never done very well and i feel never will due to the stock and trade we are in.but on the other side of the coin we do get walk ins for advise and external work .

Now the tricky bit , our main income is externally installing equipment which we are quite busy ,sometimes turning down work or losing it as we can not act quick enough, We have some nice contracts in place. ratio is around 30% business installs and 70% private house hold for installations.

I cant help thinking that we should shut the shop and trade from my house as fitters only and stop all sales .

It would be great to free up the person in the shop to actively seek work in person and generate meetings in person as well help with installations so we can achieve all work that comes our way. Also the fact we could save a fair bit of money not having the shop.

what does concern me is the fact that if we where to shut the shop would people think we have shut as a business , we are very known within the town and have a very good reputation , there are plenty of other companies doing what we do and run from home , some only achieving 2 jobs a week ( we do approx 15 jobs per week). We have never really advertised as word of mouth has always worked very well.

The question that i need answering ( and no one really knows the answer ) is if i shut the shop will business decrease more the amount i will save in not having the shop , i expect less work due to the shop not being here but will we be committing business suicide .

 

[mhall]

If the business is working well, I would use the shop front to advertise your "move" A simple "we are moving" and a website address and telephone number should do it. That way, if you get walk ins who ask where you are moving to, you can be honest, but people driving past will know you are still trading and will know where to go. Do this for a month or so and then close, but keep your posters in the window. I doubt the landlord will take your posters down for quite a while (he will also want people to know you moved and not closed down)

 

[Chris34]

Can you not open a second business doing exactly the same as you are now but under different branding and classing it as 'working from home'. Essentially acting like it's a new business and not telling anybody about it being related to the one you have got and registering it to your home address. This way you will get the answer your looking for without taking any risks.



Chris.

 

[Page]

Is the problem that staffing the shop is not cost effective

In which case what is the person doing in the shop all day ?

Can you at least not have them earning their wage in some shape or form and so keep the shop as a front for the rest of the business

Even if earning their wage is in another business activity

Or

Maybe they could be setting up a great web site and blogging away to promote your business activity that is profitable
Visiting forums and spamming away etc etc

 

[aussiecameras]

The first thing I would do is set some shorter opening hours together with a note to say that you are indeed open at any time by appointment. You can then work out if certain hours are useful or indeed if the B&M location is useful. That would be a start!

 

[Doodle-Noodle]

Wouldn't bother wasting too much time on this one - looks like Wobble logged on, posted question and hasn't been anywhere near it since (profile reveals last activity was 11.20 on 10th June - 4 minutes after his first and only post).
Shame as this could have been an interesting thread.

 

[Wobble]

Apologize for the lack of response i did view the responses and have taken in the advise , i am more a browser on forums so only log on when required .

nothing has really changed , the shop is still trading and still achieving poor sales , we have kept it going as we felt we could generate more sales which has not been the case and we wanted to see where every job came from and why they have used us.

It seems to be we will start the closure of the shop at the end of may , with us fully departing in july.

We will cover the shop front with livery along the lines of relocating .

there was a time when the shop was open 6 days a week 8 - 5.30 a few years back and the sales only just covered the wage to man it let alone the running costs , we are rarely open untill 10 am and closing regularly at 3pm now which must be an annoyance to customers , this is due to the volume of external work we have and i feel takes priority of the shop as it is most of the companies income .so sales in shop have also dropped in accordance to this .

Its a worrying time as i dont want to be the one that kills a very known local company due to a mistake of loosing a shop front .

We will be getting another vehicle to aid more external work so hopefully that presence on the road will be of advertising help.

Thanks for the advice .

 

[peggyprice]

If the business has a longstanding local profile and you're worried about people's perceptions, try talking to your local newspaper - 'well known local business folds' is the headline you'll get if you don't take control of the story, but 'well known local business moves with the times' could be the story instead if you play it right.

Local papers are desperate for stuff to be given to them on a plate these days, they don't have the staff to get out & find stories anymore, so do them a nice positive upbeat press release explaining what's happening, with a great picture of a happy smiling team, and you might get some coverage. And even if they don't use it at least they'll know you haven't gone bust and therefore won't run the negative story.