Moving from a market to a shop

[Charlie's Chocolate Box]

Hi looking for a bit of advice from people who have shops or who have made the jump.

A bit about what I do : I have a sweet shop with bottled sweets , pick n mix , the normal packaged sweets and I also have a ice cream freezer selling ice poles ect . I can not sell any drinks or crisps due to a no competition clause and the café doing them.

I'm currently in a Indoor market that is slightly out of the town but not too far and seconds away from Tesco where a lot of people park and walk into the town, I am only paying £50 a week and on average £10 electric a week The only downside to this market is its very run down, leaks like a basket in the passageway's, always cold and dark (new lights are being fitted right now though) the café also does not have a extractor so sometimes we get the smell of that too which many people have commented on. we have herd the comments from passing customer's that they would never buy food from the market. I am Taking my rent each week with a bit over but not making it, I have been close but not managed It yet. I have been fully trading for 10 months and have nearly run out of room to expand much more. also a lot of my stock gets close to date or out of date causing a lot of wastage and lost profits or a total loss in some cases.

The shop im looking at is around £500 per month on a proportional (due to a flat upstairs) full repairing insurance lease tied in for 3years then on top there is your insurance, water, electric no rates until reassessed in April 2015. the shop is close to the golden square of busy shops but not directly hence the lower rent. the town has a population of 22,500.
I would be able to increase my range and also add the drinks, crisps, and looking into a slush machine and also a coffee one not sure how well the coffee would go as There is a lot of cafes and a costa.

has anyone been in a similar situation and made the jump or has any advice?
my biggest fear is the profit on the sweets is so low that it may never pay.
hope this all makes sense and I've given a fair amount of information

 

[promdressers]

Hi looking for a bit of advice from people who have shops or who have made the jump.

A bit about what I do : I have a sweet shop with bottled sweets , pick n mix , the normal packaged sweets and I also have a ice cream freezer selling ice poles ect . I can not sell any drinks or crisps due to a no competition clause and the café doing them.

I'm currently in a Indoor market that is slightly out of the town but not too far and seconds away from Tesco where a lot of people park and walk into the town, I am only paying £50 a week and on average £10 electric a week The only downside to this market is its very run down, leaks like a basket in the passageway's, always cold and dark (new lights are being fitted right now though) the café also does not have a extractor so sometimes we get the smell of that too which many people have commented on. we have herd the comments from passing customer's that they would never buy food from the market. I am Taking my rent each week with a bit over but not making it, I have been close but not managed It yet. I have been fully trading for 10 months and have nearly run out of room to expand much more. also a lot of my stock gets close to date or out of date causing a lot of wastage and lost profits or a total loss in some cases.

The shop im looking at is around £500 per month on a proportional (due to a flat upstairs) full repairing insurance lease tied in for 3years then on top there is your insurance, water, electric no rates until reassessed in April 2015. the shop is close to the golden square of busy shops but not directly hence the lower rent. the town has a population of 22,500.
I would be able to increase my range and also add the drinks, crisps, and looking into a slush machine and also a coffee one not sure how well the coffee would go as There is a lot of cafes and a costa.

has anyone been in a similar situation and made the jump or has any advice?
my biggest fear is the profit on the sweets is so low that it may never pay.
hope this all makes sense and I've given a fair amount of information

You may wish to give this long standing "sticky" post a peruse:
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/the-sweet-shop-thread.275434/

 

[Charlie's Chocolate Box]

hi yeh I did think about posting it there but was looking for general advice from anyone or people who may of been in the same situation but selling different items and thought if I did post it there I may only get other sweet shop owners reading it. hopefully I've put it in the correct section still fairly new to the forum.

 

[kelvin1950]

my biggest fear is the profit on the sweets is so low that it may never pay.
hope this all makes sense and I've given a fair amount of information

The mark up on weigh outs is far from low if you buy from the right place and price them correctly.

 

[ImpGit]

Quite interested in people's thoughts on this, too. We're also in a market and (sometime) will be looking to move into a shop. However, the overheads, in comparison, give us the willies! Roughly (very), I think we'd need to take 5-6 times as much in order to break even, putting aside initial start-up costs. That's a scary thought!

My thoughts are: unless you have a good reputation then you can only really view this as starting a new shop with all the attendant risks and costs. You have a little bit of stock you can take with you, but presumably not much else. How are you looking in terms of funds for fitting out the shop, paying upfront charges, plus buffer until you start making money? How is your relationship with the bank and suppliers? You really need sit down, calculate what your costs will be for the month and work out whether or not you can realistically achieve that and hopefully sometime make a profit. It's a risk, but it sounds like what you're doing at the moment isn't really working for you either.

 

[Fred_the_frog]

Don't forget that when you're in a market it's acceptable to have a small sign with your business name scribbled on hanging above your stall. When you move to a shop that doesn't cut it anymore. (Not saying that you do, but stay with me here!)

When you open your shop you need proper signage and a proper brand. In my town centre I always see new shops who have clearly designed their own logo and had it printed on a sign that they've just stuck above the shop. You can walk through the town and you can see a clear difference between successful shops and new 'one man band' shops.

I personally think fitting out your shop shouldn't be where you try and save money, you want it as professional and as good as possible. People should look at your shop and think 'Oh I wonder if they have shops around the country' and not 'Oh god not another cheap shop'.

There is always the option of a 'pop-up' shop that you open in an unused unit in your desired location for a day to see how it goes. Then you'll know if you're likely to increase your takings or not.