Starting out small...advice on a few things please?

[Feanorous]

Hi all,

Background: I have a degree in fashion design, and I have been working as a retail buyer for 7/8 years now, in the fashion industry. I have worked for large and small companies and have experience of developing own brand product and branded product.
Quite honestly, I have learnt how to run a retail business and figure I can do it for myself!

I had a baby 6 months ago, so am on maternity leave and noticed the town where I live doesn't have an independent baby/childrenswear shop at all. The selection in the bigger shops (M&S, Next, H&M, TKMaxx) is very limited and doesn't have the full collections. We don't have a mother care or mamas and papas so nowhere sells baby essentials. There is also the potential to pick up on the gift market because there is nowhere to buy anything for babies. I would love to open up a shop, but I realise this is a big undertaking and I need to start off small. The rents are expensive in the good locations, although inside the main shopping centre they have those freestanding units to rent which could be a progression and the footfall is good. They are about £700 a week to rent though (eeek!)

The town has an enterprise market on the last Sunday of every month and it is free to start ups to trade there. I am thinking of buying some stock and to start off in this way. It's not ideal though really because I would have to buy off the peg wholesale stock, or I can buy from China but the quantities will be quite high - too much for just one market stall once a month. I want to look into doing other markets or events too though as a way to get out there a bit more.

The idea is to speak to local Mums and find out if they think there is a demand for this sort of shop. My baby group Mums certainly think so! Then eventually open a shop and along side bought product, start to introduce my own range (better margins).

My questions are - should I register as a sole trader for now? I am due to go back to work 4 days a week in Oct, not sure how this will be effected?

Does anyone have any advice for me, anything I haven't thought of or anything I should consider at this stage?

I have a name, someone has the ideal web domain but it isn't used. Any ideas how I could go about getting it?

Thank you so much in advance! This is very exciting

 

[Scalloway]

You would be better to register as self employed. If you also work your self employed profits will all be taxed at 20%. When you do register you can apply for an exception from liabilty for Class 2 NI if your profits are low.

I would check out the insurance position for the enterprise market.

 

[Feanorous]

Thanks for the reply

They just require public liability insurance for the enterprise market.

When you say register as self employed, do you mean through a ltd company?

Thanks again

 

[Scalloway]

When you say register as self employed, do you mean through a ltd company?

No. You register as self employed as a sole trader. This is the simplest way to set up in business.

https://www.gov.uk/set-up-sole-trader

 

[amac]

Thanks for the reply

They just require public liability insurance for the enterprise market.

When you say register as self employed, do you mean through a ltd company?

Thanks again

You could either run as a sole trader or register as a limited company. Search for both terms here or on Google to see summaries of the pros/cons of both.

Broadly, it's about liability i.e sole traders are responsible for debts, limited companies by their nature limit downside. I guess it depends on your resources and ambitions as to how you start out.

 

[Alan]

I have a name, someone has the ideal web domain but it isn't used. Any ideas how I could go about getting it?

Firstly we have a family friend in her 80's who did something similar in the 60's. In her case, when she her daughter, she saw that the UK baby clothes were lower quality than her home country (Netherlands), she started off just importing Dutch clothes, initially selling to other mums, and then moved up to getting shops to display them. Then on to designing and manufacturing her own range. In her words she became the Mary Quant of baby clothes.

Regarding the domain name you need to find out who registered it and when the renewal date is. (this is easy, but if you PM me the domain I can tell you) If the renewal date is soon, then you can wait to see if it becomes available, but even if it is not renewed you will hav eto wait 90 days for it to be released.

You can approach the owner, but of course they may be hanging on for a large sum. When we decided on our 'local' branding for our website building service, we approached the owner of locally.com, they wanted $600,000 so we went for http://locally.com for the normal domain registration fee. The point I'm making is if you can't get what you want, you can be creative.

 

[Feanorous]

Thanks so much for the replies, I really do appreciate it.
I have found out who registered the domain name and it is up for renewal Sept 2015. I think I can do something creative and figure a way round it for now.

 

[Eddie77]

Wow, very exciting. You sound like you've got the business bug!

The enterprise market sounds a great way to 'test the water'. Maybe back it up with an online shop, maybe even just an eBay shop to start with.

Rents are quite high but you might find some empty units that the council can do you a deal on. There's a few incentives out there. Maybe someone established with a clothes shop could rent you a 'baby corner', supplements their offering and gives you even more chance to test that water.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head, just get out there and do it! Once you get set up, you'll wish you'd done this years ago!

Feel free to DM me anytime if you think I could help at all

All the best

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Hi

Good luck with what you are doing, but have you thought about how you will take payments apart from cash / cheques ?

Being able to take credit / Debit cards will greatly enhance your professional image and is quite easy to put your toe in the water without having to get involved with a contract or merchant account.

Google Judopay and see what you think, it only costs £ 35 to set up and you can be live next day..

Re your online presence as much as I hate PayPal it is by far the best way to start online trading but once you are trading £ 400 - 500 a month get a proper merchant account and payment gateway, it will be a lot cheaper and much better Customer service to boot..

You can even get one stop shop solutions which will enable you to build your own retailing website for example shopcreator.

Hope this helps and good luck with your venture.

If you want to discuss further please feel free to PM me.

Rgds

Mark
LMD Services

 

[DMQS-UK-LTD]

I would suggest online, facebook is good for local selling pages etc. Also an idea would be to use your local community centre or church hall if you have one and have a 'pop up' shop. You could do it on a Friday afternoon or a weekend and then you could have both an offline and online presense at the fraction of a cost of renting a shop.

People could also then place orders and collect them from your home etc too. If your storing and working from home though check with your home insurance provider as some can be funny about business.

Hope this helps,
Dan