From beginning to end : Starting my own business

[Mustang]

I figured the dynasty thread was as good as any place to start a thread to track my progress in opening our own business. If you have paid attention to me over the last few months, you probably already know that I have my own online business and have been contemplating starting a B&M (brick and mortar) store. At some point, when we are official I'll put out what we sell, but until then.. we just sell widgets. :)

The LLC was setup in January of this year and should have been done sooner in order to take advantage of a lot of our business expenses rather than just reporting income, but for whatever reason, we never took the time to fully make it official. Probably was more procrastination on my part and fear on my wife's part as she really didn't have the foggiest idea and she wants to know everything about everything before committing to something. Don't get me wrong, that is a good thing, but at some point you need to proceed forward and just realize that you aren't going to know about everything, but you just need to know where to find the answer.

So, January 09 came and we setup the business at the beginning of the year. (To this date, no one in my family or my wife's family know that we 'own' a business. There are a lot of reasons for this, but that is a whole long topic right now. The main reason is my wife's mother who is very money driven and thinks that my wife should be providing money to her and her sister).

Anyhow, the first few months were spent flushing out some of the items for the business side - tracking expenses better, estimated taxes, how to write off loses (They just write it off Jerry!) and inventory tracking. It was business as normal from what we had been doing for the last few years. And then March came. In March, we branched off in a different direction that was related to our widgets, but was a different line, we also became more aggressive in what we were doing. Our shipments and sales raised dramatically from March to June from around 100 mailings a month to around 350.

My typical day right now consists of 10 hours day job, 3 hours family time, 6 hours sleep, 3 hours business and 1 hour whatever else. So, my time is stretched thin.

We hit a point in June where we just had to make a decision. Tone down what we were doing and ratchet back some or go full force forward. But, to go forward, we needed to open up a brick and mortar store which would allow us to carry some different products lines that are closed off to us because we are online only. At that point, I started to do some research and tried to formulate a plan on what we needed to do from a business standpoint , but also from a personal standpoint.

My wife has tried to stay out of the planning for now, she is just overloaded with information and was just wanting me to do the research, explain things to her and proceed. Last week I gave her a brief overview of what I saw us accomplishing with this business and had another discussion with her this morning and she sounds way more excited now than see was 30 days ago.

So, sounds as though I'm pressing forward. Our goal at this time is October 15th. Lots to do between now and then so, I'll throw down some updates in this thread from time to time. Some of the items will be new stuff that I'm currently working through and some will be items I've addressed in the last 30 days so, any comments, feel free.

Wish me luck. Hopefully this thread will be interesting for people in a similar situation to me. If not, at least I'll have a place to just list my thoughts. :)

[hoopsguy]

I'll be reading along. Good luck!

[PackerFanatic]

I'll be reading along. Good luck!

+1

[JetsIn06]

I'll definitely be following this. Good luck!

[BYU 14]

Best of luck, this type of thing is always exciting!

[Izulde]

Good luck! :)

[path12]

What everybody else said.

[chesapeake]

Ditto

[Mustang]

Thanks much all.

Location, location, location....

Nothing new here, this has been going on a few weeks now. My first objective that I wanted to get a handle on was where to open up. I've pretty much decided on my own town given that there is a hole as far as what I'll be selling that pretty much covers a 20 mile radius. (Even further to the south given that the one business I'd be concerned about down there is poorly run.)

I had considered being closer to Milwaukee, but that would not work out from a logistics standpoint. At this time, I do not foresee any employees beyond myself and my wife so, if need be, I'd need my wife to potentially be close by to fill in rather than have to drive 25 miles. Granted, I will miss out on a larger population center, but if I become successful at the location I plan on opening, opening a second store in Milwaukee wouldn't be a competition vs myself.

I would prefer to open a place downtown. A walk around on a Saturday or Sunday, I saw a lot of foot traffic that could draw in people (much more than I though originally). Unfortunately, at this time, it does not appear that there is any space downtown other than office space in some of the buildings. This surprised me given that amount of businesses that I've seen come and go from this area - Comic stores, Sword Stores, White Elephant, Collectibles, etc, etc... guess the stores that are there now are doing ok. (Damn the luck).

I also looked into some of our newer strip malls in town, but I ruled those out rather quickly. For starters, they want a five year lease at a minimum, plus you need to get them up to where you can even open up a business. Thanks, but no thanks.

Some of the other ones I have weeded out - one place I looked into was too large. I'm trying to stick to around 1300 sq ft, this place was 1800. Much too large. Another place was a prior cafe so, I'd have to redo the walls and take out the plumbing sticking out of the walls and fix the floors since there were areas where there were sinks, but the floor was removed. Actually, there are several places in town that were old cafes that are like this. I don't want to have to do a lot of interior work.

My initial list that I came up with is quickly being weeded down due to too large, too much remodeling or too long of a lease at this point. A week ago, I added a few more places to the list because I didn't fully understand NNN. There is NNN and absolute NNN which I did not know. I was thinking that everything NNN was absolute which means that you are responsible for everything including the roof/foundation. NNN is just the guts and common area maintenance (CAM)

Surprisingly, there is not a huge amount of available space in town. Large spaces there area (5000+ sq ft plus), but ones around 1,500 sq ft? Not so much. So, I continue to look.

Humorous side story, on particular place I was interested in had just went off the market the day I called. I guess the people that leased it were opening up a combination Horse tack and bread shop. What the hell? I did not know there was a big demand for a saddle and a loaf of bread...

[Chubby]

will be folloing along!

I'm going to guess baseball card store :)

[Mustang]

I'm going to guess baseball card store :)

Everyone can feel free to guess. I won't confirm or deny anything though. :)

[JeeberD]

Porn store! ;)

Very interesting so far, I'll definitely be reading...

[Mustang]

Porn store! ;)


Who the hell pays for porn??? :)

[PackerFanatic]

I think you might have mentioned this somewhere else on the board, but whereabouts in WI are you? Just curious if it is near me :)

[Mustang]

I think you might have mentioned this somewhere else on the board, but whereabouts in WI are you? Just curious if it is near me :)

About 70 miles to the south of you. I'm in West Bend. I grew up in Menomonee Falls though.

[Mustang]

Supply / Inventory :

Another one of those things I was researching for 2 weeks prior. If you are doing a business, good chance you are selling something. And if you are getting something to sell, chances are you are getting it wholesale. Quite honestly, beyond this, when I started doing the research into this, I had some slight ideas of how to get this information, but nothing concrete. People that are in the business are a little hesitant to give out this information with reason. 'Hey, I want to get into this business, where do you get your stuff?' That doesn't work too well. You might as well go up to them and go, "Hey, I want to be your competition and put you out of business, could you tell me how to stock up so I can achieve this goal?"

My searches basically began with going to the actual producers of the item and inquiring who did the distribution. I've found that some do their own distribution and others had a list that they dealt with. It will definitely not be a one stop ordering place and more than likely, I will be dealing with multiple sources to place orders. (Not unexpected). I have also found out that each place has it's own order levels, discount, product availability, manufacturers and rules. Some even setup you up with a generic line of their items, but I'm not sure I want to go that route. Seems most of this lines are flooded with donkey material. (unsellable stuff... not porn donkeys)

So, I have the basic parameters about what I need to do for most of what I want to carry. I've tabled it for the time being because I really can't do any setups or ordering until I have a lease in hand. The vast majority of wholesalers I've found won't even touch you if you do online only and if they will work with you, I've found that the supply and ordering points are prohibitive. For example, one place required a $5K upfront order and $1K every month after that for an online only store. If you did online and had a store, it was $1K order with no minimums after that. $17K/year vs $1K/year, that is HUGE. And that is one product line. Granted, that is an extreme example of one. Most require no initial order or at most $2K.

[Mustang]

Had a lead on 2 different places. When I went to look at them, the one was already filled in so, must have been an old advertisement. The second is doable. It is 2000 sq ft (1000 up/1000 basement). Bad thing is it is about a mile outside of town. Can't beat the price though of the lease.

The owner though wanted to make sure I wasn't a rock band. They just had a person inquire about the place because they had a band and needed a practice place. I had to assure them that no, I was not setting up a rock band.

Sidenote: The last few weeks I've found myself really paying attention to what businesses were in town and I'm amazed at some of them. (and how some of them survive just given the basic costs). I even found out there was a Mexican grocery store locally. (I had no idea... smart though. They must be doing good because they are expanding)

[chesapeake]

The second is doable. It is 2000 sq ft (1000 up/1000 basement). Bad thing is it is about a mile outside of town. Can't beat the price though of the lease.

They just had a person inquire about the place because they had a band and needed a practice place.

From an earlier post, you iindcated the downtown would be good for picking up foot traffic. How is this place on that point?

It looks like you already have a lead to sublet that extra 1000 sq ft in the basement :)

[Mustang]

From an earlier post, you iindcated the downtown would be good for picking up foot traffic. How is this place on that point?


Not good on the foot traffic point. I'm not sure any place other than downtown would have foot traffic and based on the current businesses that are downtown, I would have no expectation that any of them would be available soon though as most are well established.

With the basement though, it does free up the storage unit I'm renting out freeing up that expenditure. I have to remind myself sometimes why I'm doing a b&m store and that is to help expand the online store right away with different options. Plus, similar types of stores I know of are off the beaten path and not in the core areas of traffic and they are doing fine. I need to weigh location vs this fact.

Wouldn't be able to sublet though. Most of the available business space along the main street are combo business space/residential units so, they were making sure my business wouldn't be noisy. :)

[Mustang]

Received back a message today for 2 items.

1 was a realtor that I had contacted on and off about one particular place. (The cafe noted above). He said he had other places and could discuss with me. I responded back that I might be interested in the cafe place still, but was there anything they could do for an allowance to upgrade the inside. He responds back pretty quickly so, maybe I'll have more leads. I know he is the realtor on alot of the strip malls in the area so, not real hopeful for anything to come of that, but it is worth the email traffic to ask.

The second was my insurance agent. I wanted to get a rough baseline for insurance (liability/property). Wasn't too horrible based on the figures I gave her. One thing I did not know for insurance was you can add endorsements which ranged from employee theft, robbery and business loss due to inability to open the store. (like it there was a power outage for a week). Did not think of those things so, something new.

[Mustang]

I'm pissed today.

For the most part, every business is in competition with someone (save for say a monopoly, but not going to get technical here).

Found out today that someone is using my work, my pictures, my information AND undercutting my price. Anyone that is even remotely ok with piracy should run their own business or create something, have someone steal it and then revisit their feelings. Absolute pure laziness.

What perplexes me is the undercutting. If I see that the market is at say $25, you might go a little lower, but 50% lower? One thing that you need to be careful on for competition though, is if you have a product line that is doing well and you go into someone else's product line that is doing well, you can damn well guarantee that that person could potentially intrude back into your product line. Which is what we fully intend on doing now. Their product lines were something we dabbled in before, but didn't put alot of effort into it. Well, that is going to change.

Having dinner tonight with a friend that is somewhat interested in coming aboard. At this point, sounds like he might be more interested in being a helper/advisor/employee which might be better anyways. Business/Family/Friends aren't a good mix. If he was just a straight up employee, I know his work habits and it would be great.

[Mustang]

Have a meeting scheduled Wednesday with someone to look at a property. It is downtown, is in the price range I want and has alot of space.

Unfortunately, what might be a killer is that the rent now includes utilities. They are wanting to distribute that costs to the tenants so, depending on how much it is, the price right now is good. The price right now + added utilities is bad. Not going to hold out much hope on this one because of that, but I'll still look.

I'm starting to think that the place that is currently a Mexican grocery store might be the best option short term.

[MacroGuru]

Sorry I missed this when you started it..I am definitely liking it...

Are you actually mailing the product out? You are saying only certain lines are open to you because you are Online only, have you explored Drop Ship relationships with some of the companies out there with the lines you want?

Just curious..

[Mustang]

Are you actually mailing the product out? You are saying only certain lines are open to you because you are Online only, have you explored Drop Ship relationships with some of the companies out there with the lines you want?


I'm mailing the product out. I like to physically own the items that I'm selling as opposed to doing a drop ship relationship. I'm sure some of the manufacturers will do that so, I'll never say never, but at this time I'll be buying/owning the product.

[Mustang]

Have a second meeting setup. How your tone can change when money and free stuff is involved. Previously, there was a former cafe I looked at. I noticed that the interior needed some work so, didn't think much of it and when I did some follow up, the numbers came out to around $2200 a month that I'd have to shell out for rent/insurance/utilities and the broker believed they wanted a 2 year lease.

Well, 4 days later, the lease is now at 1 year and the initial numbers were way off due to some miscommunication. When dealing with the NNN items, I know enough now to get the cost per square foot and the NNN charges which are broken out into CAM, Insurance and Taxes. I had asked for CAM and he gave me a high CAM number and I computed the taxes (which I found online) and estimated the insurance which resulted in number that wasn't workable.

Well, the CAM number he gave me was actually the NNN number and even that was off. Also, if I do the work in there, they will give 2 months rent free. What was a $2200 a month is now effectively a $1475 a month commitment. The building is owned by a large company that is the anchor of the stripmall. I got the impression they own the building outright and anything they get is free money. Not sure if $8 is their bottom line, but if I could get it at $7.75, even that would save some $40 a month. Every little bit helps. Can't hurt to look.

[Mustang]

The excitement of last night has faded quickly into personal conflict (again) and it is the same questions that I've fought from the beginning. Actually 3 questions that I keep asking myself. Can we? Should we? Could we? I say we because whatever I decide, it will have an effect on the entire family.

Can we? I don't doubt we could. Effectively, we have been doing this for the last 4 years so, we know the time commitment needed to do this and the business side we have a handle on so, I'm pretty comfortable with saying yes on this.

Should we? I don't think it is any big revelation when I say I dislike my current job. Nay, hate my current job. I've soured on the corporate world greatly and it just seems like such a waste of my life to be sitting in a cubicle. At the end of the day, when I leave this planet, I don't want my crowning achievement to have been 'Fixed Betty Sue's Banking Statements'
I want to be my own boss, run the show and have a different professional life other than this so, ya... this is a should we.


Could we? This is the question that is killing me right now. For the short term, I would be doing all of the heavy lifting. Just working this job, running the business so, that would suck up 70 hours of my time in the short term of 3-6 months where I don't see hiring any employees potentially. My wife has concerns of me burning out, I'm worried that my relationship with my 2 year old daughter will suffer. The business is a way to improve our lives potentially and change our lives. I don't want to be one of those people 3 years from now working 80 hours and my wife and little one(s) only seeing me 30 minutes a day and justifying it with 'I'm doing it for us'. I can endure the short term pain, but I have to absolutely make sure I have a plan to make sure that short term pain doesn't turn to long term pain***


*** anyone feel free to insert sagely advice. :D

[DaddyTorgo]

set aside part of the basement for a playroom so the faily can be there?

[MacroGuru]

The excitement of last night has faded quickly into personal conflict (again) and it is the same questions that I've fought from the beginning. Actually 3 questions that I keep asking myself. Can we? Should we? Could we? I say we because whatever I decide, it will have an effect on the entire family.

Can we? I don't doubt we could. Effectively, we have been doing this for the last 4 years so, we know the time commitment needed to do this and the business side we have a handle on so, I'm pretty comfortable with saying yes on this.

Should we? I don't think it is any big revelation when I say I dislike my current job. Nay, hate my current job. I've soured on the corporate world greatly and it just seems like such a waste of my life to be sitting in a cubicle. At the end of the day, when I leave this planet, I don't want my crowning achievement to have been 'Fixed Betty Sue's Banking Statements'
I want to be my own boss, run the show and have a different professional life other than this so, ya... this is a should we.


Could we? This is the question that is killing me right now. For the short term, I would be doing all of the heavy lifting. Just working this job, running the business so, that would suck up 70 hours of my time in the short term of 3-6 months where I don't see hiring any employees potentially. My wife has concerns of me burning out, I'm worried that my relationship with my 2 year old daughter will suffer. The business is a way to improve our lives potentially and change our lives. I don't want to be one of those people 3 years from now working 80 hours and my wife and little one(s) only seeing me 30 minutes a day and justifying it with 'I'm doing it for us'. I can endure the short term pain, but I have to absolutely make sure I have a plan to make sure that short term pain doesn't turn to long term pain***


*** anyone feel free to insert sagely advice. :D

Not much in the realm of advice as I am keeping my business purely online but i am going through the same thought process right now. My job is stable although commission based so income is down to the point that my online sales are actually equaling or paying more out than the job. The one thing keeping me there is the health insurance (Wife with a bad back and personal health care insurance here is expensive) however, I have been in talks with an insurance agent and with me incorporating the company he can come in and give me premiums a hell of a lot cheaper than even what I am paying at my current job.

So I have that going for me...

The biggest thought is growth and an exit strategy for you. Being a small business owner with a storefront will require that you or your spouse is there at all times. It's part of the reason I am able to sell our software easier and fast to SBO's than any others out there as they are tired of losing money if they aren't at their place of business.

Write in your goals for your business plan on long term growth and an exit strategy and include the way of life you are looking for in it, that way you have a sound strategy written down and will be more focused on it.

[Mustang]

Thanks for the notes guys. Yesterday was bad, today is good.

One of my friends actually has an interest in potentially working at my place. He was wanting to do the same type of business at some point in his life, but due to monetary constraints, it just isn't feasible for him. He wouldn't be a partner, but rather an employee and I wouldn't have any issues hiring him. If I can use him even 20 hours a month, it would be a huge relief valve and I wouldn't need to stress about certain things as much.

One place I checked out last night was WAY to large. Like 4000 square feet too large. Not to mention that the ceiling had no less than 20 ceiling fans and probably 100 lights with 3 bulbs each on them. I swear, if you flipped the switch on it that place it would cost you a $1 a minute to power everything. If the owner doesn't divide up that space, not sure what he will get in there especially since it is a few floors up.

[law90026]

If you do take a large space, make sure you check whether sub-leasing is possible. Some rental agreements tend to make that a breach of contract and you want to avoid unnecessary legal issues arising.

[Mustang]

If you do take a large space, make sure you check whether sub-leasing is possible. Some rental agreements tend to make that a breach of contract and you want to avoid unnecessary legal issues arising.

At this time, I wouldn't want to even entertain the thought of getting a larger space with the intent of subleasing a space. The one exceptionally large space has been vacant for some damn near 3 years I think so, not a good opportunity.

Although, the spot that I looked at yesterday I really liked from a location and potential standpoint. It is along the main strip, centered in town & cheap rent. The downside is that it needs some work inside. Not a huge amount, probably in the neighborhood of $500-$750. Needs to be painted, have a 12" x 12" section of the drop ceiling put back in, the old cashier stand area needs to have the flooring replaced and some of the wood flooring needs to be replaced, but that is all pretty basic stuff. The landlord would cover repairing the bathroom that was basically destroyed.

My friend also said he could commit to more hours than I thought he would. He said he could do 2-3 days every week and 1 weekend so, that would be huge. He also mentioned that if his wife got a different job and took over the insurance, he'd work there full time for $25K. (Getting WAY ahead of ourselves here!)

So, with the potential of possibly putting in an offer to lease it, I need to clear up the following items. (In no particular order)

1. Accountant Discussions - Need to get the items in order to allow myself to hire employees and discuss a better inventory system than we are already using.

2. Finance - We have the cash to cover doing a startup, but I'd rather not burn through that. I'd rather get a loan to cover the costs of starting inventory, fixtures and probably 3 months of rent/utilities. Our cash on hand would cover the repair costs, 3 months of expected employee salaries, 6 months of rent and cash for new product lines. The local bank we use is pretty flexible. I'm not sure if they will need a full business plan so, we will have to talk to them. They are a small town bank so, pretty informal and my wife used to work there and keeps in touch with everyone still. Regardless if they need a business plan or not, I'll probably just go through the excercise for my own benefit. Bank finance is not essential to doing any of this anyways has I have other avenues.

3. Fixtures - I need to put together a store layout plan so I can finalize what I need as far as fixtures (Shelves, Counters, Register, Safe, Security Cameras). I won't be able to fix a hard number because I fully intend to use secondary markets to buy cheaper fixtures (going out of business sales, auctions and anything else I can find). I'll have to use past data to get a rough estimate though.

4. Credit Card processing. A black box for me right now, but the wife mentioned that the bank (see above) can help out with this. Not sure if the terms will be good though, but I can use as a starting point.

5. Business Association. There is a business association that I will need to join here (voluntary), but they help out with alot of items and have a mentoring program and other programs such as deals on credit card process and also a group health plan that you can join into. Basically a 1000 people have joined together to give them cheaper health insurance raters since they are acting like a large business.

6. Inventory. Need to work out the exact items I will be carrying and the amounts I want to order. Once I do that, I need to run items past the suppliers to make sure I'm not missing anything.

7. Admin Stuff. Primarily stuff like licenses, ADA items and employee rights. What I need to make sure if available or what needs to be posted. (Like signage about Employee Rights). Need to make sure my bases are covered.

Hopefully in 2 weeks, I'll have everything down and at that point, I'll make a go/no go decision on whether or not to proceed on this location. I had rough drafts of everything above, but now that I have a space in mind, I can fix more hard data to it (which is probably more important to present to the wife rather than the bank)

[rjolley]

Following along. Good luck with your venture.

[Lorena]

Stopping by to wish you luck!

[Mustang]

Quiet week.

Been working on a business plan to present to a few banks for a loan. Interesting experience, I feel like I'm back in college as a lot of it, other than the numbers standpoint, just feels like fluffy goodness.

Talked to the broker again about the price. He seems pretty adamant about the price not going lower because it is the cheapest in the area. True, but it has been the cheapest in the area for 1 1/2 years for some reason. I do like the space though, I'll probably have to get creative on my offer to them to try to cut down more on the rent. They offered 2 months free which effectively means the cost per square foot is $6.77 for year one which I'd rather have instead and spread it out over year 1.

All for now, don't expect much until the plan is done and I start sitting down with banks.

[Mustang]

There are some people that should not run a business or consider running a business. Like my friend's wife.

This is the friend that has offered to help out, without pay, for three months while the business is going. (Which is going to amount to probably 40-50 hours a month and for which I'm extremely grateful for).

So, last night we were going over details of the store, specific lines, fixtures, hours and things of that nature when she started asking questions.

"I think it would be a good idea to serve cookies."

I'm thinking cookies? What the hell? Before I have a chance to say anything, my friend chimes in "So, he is going to work 40 hours in a regular job, 40 at this job and then go home and bake?" She then suggests that my wife bake them to which he replies that my wife will be doing items during the day like customer service tasks, packing and oh.. taking care of the little one.

"What about incense, you should be incense.". Incense? I'm not opening a Amsterdam coffee shop here, let alone want something burning in my shop. "No, sorry, no incense. Some people might not like the smell so"

"Muzak, will you have that pumped in?" Oh, hell no. Maybe I'll have music in there, but it will not be Muzak.

"Oh, I know how you could decorate, in this section, you could run tire tracks up the wall and do blood splatters." How about a human head on a pike? Should we do that as well? Maybe we could advertise by having a guy being disemboweled yelling SAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!!! "No, sorry, not really productive to having a family atmosphere."

"Comics. You need comics." I wouldn't wish my enemies to have a comic book store. You buy 10 Wolverine #295, sell one and 1 year later you have 4000 sq ft of sh-tuff. "No, too much space and startup costs"

Then we get into one of the main lines and I explain it. I could tell she has a look of amusement on her face as I explain it to her. "Well, I wouldn't do that, anyone that would buy that is stupid." That is where the gnashing of the teeth start. "Look, you don't have to like it.. you don't have to understand it, you don't have to do it, but the bottom line is this demand exists. You know how I know that? Because it is what I'm doing now."

That is probably why a lot of businesses fail (and why people like my friend's wife should never contemplate opening a place). You can't just throw things into your business because you like it or think it is cute and you have to ask yourself what the general public will think about your place.

Lady opened a place in town, called it "Lisa's Cafe". Opened it down the street from Starbucks on the outskirts of town. The week she opened, she was a dead man walking and I told my wife who agreed. She had to have dropped $50K plus into it (if not more.. coffee equipment isn't cheap). She also had named it Lisa's Cafe so, it implied a place to eat. She only served coffee so, by the time she realized this mistake, she had to take out more money to rev up a food line and increasing prices across the board.

At the end of the day, while your perfect place might have cookies, blood splatter, incense and Chicago's If You Leave Me Now playing 24/7 your customer base might not be keen on that and it will kill you. Hopefully I can separate myself from my ideas and look at them from a business standpoint objectively.

[DaddyTorgo]

lol - that's pretty amusing about your friend's wife

[chesapeake]

I just stopped by the thread because I heard there were cookies! Any left?

[Mustang]

I just stopped by the thread because I heard there were cookies! Any left?

No. I have some chocolate covered pretzels though.

True Story. Was at work and there was this rather large woman in our office. (Probably 5'4", pushing 350). One day, I was walking and she was walking towards me, after she passed I heard her say "Hey, Kevin."

I stopped and turned, "Yes?"

She cocked her heard to the side with an inquisitive look, "Got any chocolate chip cookies on you?"

"Umm.. no. Why?"

"I was wanted some chocolate chip cookies, thought you might have some." Then she turned and walked away.

Never underestimate the power of the cookie I guess....

[Mustang]

For anyone that wants to chime in...

Have a property I'm looking at. 1800 sq ft. Local market is around $12 for units that are in the < 1200 range and dropping down to $6-7 for units that are 3000+.

Some of this is repeat from above, but the unit I'm interested in, they threw out that they would give 2 months rent free and would do a 1 year with 1 year option. The 2 months free was because it needs some TLC in the inside. The bathroom has issues (they would fix) and then I need to do the rest, but it is basic stuff. Simple drywall repair, repair a section of flooring, paint and a 12'x12' foot section of drop ceiling. I asked about the $8 and the broker said he doubt they would move since they were the lowest in town. (eh.. not really). They've been vacant for at least 1 1/2 years in that spot, the owner is not local and it is my impression that the building is paid off.

Given those variables, I'm mulling how much haggle room on the price / sq ft I have. Granted, I could ask them to go to $7.99 and they could tell me to get lost, but don't want to miss an opportunity for a really good deal.

[chesapeake]

You mention that it is not really the lowest in town -- how far out of kilter is it? Is the difference made up for by any variables -- location, size, fitting your particular needs? How much do you estimate your share of the repairs will cost? Do you get to deduct that from your rent or is it in return for the 2 months they are knocking of?

[Mustang]

You mention that it is not really the lowest in town -- how far out of kilter is it? Is the difference made up for by any variables -- location, size, fitting your particular needs? How much do you estimate your share of the repairs will cost? Do you get to deduct that from your rent or is it in return for the 2 months they are knocking of?

They are pretty close, I've seen a few in the $6-8 range, but they are a little larger. I'd say that they are pretty close to be the lowest, but even with being the lowest, the unit has sat for 1 1/2 years. I estimate there are probably

They are offering a free 2 months regardless of the cost to me. I estimate the repairs to be $600 + my time (2 weekends worth)

It feels right to go there and the price is decent, but unfortunately then I feel like I'm shorting myself and just saying 'oh.. ok, looks good'.

[Mustang]

Plans change.

We have been working on finding the spot to setup. The main place we were working on, I went and talked to the tenants that were in the strip mall. A few things set of my spidey sense. For starters, the tenants were saying that during the winter, the roof leaks in spots. I'm not too keen on that. Secondly, I found out that the spot has been vacant for four years. Four years? Wow. And last, the manager of one of the spots didn't have a number for the landlords, didn't know how to get ahold of them nor spoke to them in years. Leaky roofs, 4 years of neglect and the potential issue of not being able to reach a landlord if issues? Sometimes it is better to just walk away.

Or walk in circles because after talking to the wife, we are back to where we were several weeks ago. Discussing the Mexican store. We had to really step back and ask ourselves why we wanted to do this and that was to get a distributor, get an online store and go in a different direction. The spot might not be in the greatest location, but I can still accomplish that by being in this spot. If I can drive local customers by advertising and word of mouth over 6 months, that would be great, but I really want to get a toehold in the online world and getting this place, saving nearly 850 a month and rolling that into inventory and the business, I think that would accomplish our short term goals.

[Mustang]

Someone flip a coin for me and make a decision.

I've essentially narrowed my choices to 2 places.

Place A : It is downtown, $750 a month, no NNN charges. Total rent, utilities and insurance would put me at around $975 a month. To offset it, I would need to increase sales 40-45%

Place B : On a higher traffic road, NNN charges (I'm responsible for everything). Total of everything is around $1900. I'd need to increase sales 100% to offset everything to retain the same profit level I'm at.

My business 'advisor' (well, one of my friends that is going to help out) seems to think the first place won't work and I'd be throwing money away, no one will come because it wouldn't be 'cool'. Where as the other place is along a high traffic area (25,000 cars a day per stats).

Location is of the utmost importance, however.. I have to remind myself that one of my main drivers is to get a store front to allow me to have better entry into the internet and to have a storefront.

On a separate front, I am really really glad that I have no partners. There is no one that I know that shares the same vision and business goals.

[Izulde]

How likely would it be that you'd be able to increase the sales to the level you need at each location?

Furthermore, which location do you think has the highest upside for your particular target customer base?

[Mustang]

How likely would it be that you'd be able to increase the sales to the level you need at each location?

Furthermore, which location do you think has the highest upside for your particular target customer base?

I believe I'd be able to increase sales in 45-60 days at the first place to cover the first and probably 180-210 days at the other place.

For upside, if I was needing 100% store driven sales, it would be the one with the higher lease. I'm targeting a 50%/50% split within 1 year though starting at 100% internet/0% retail location at day 1.

The area I'm looking at, there really is no anchor store that would drive traffic. The main store is a hardware store and my client base would be 180 degrees from that target base. The town doesn't have any malls or super large strip malls (most are clusters of 4-5 spread out).

There was a similar business next door to where I'm looking at downtown that went out of business. However, I don't think that is a good gauge because I believe it was poorly run. The person started with $80K in inventory/debt, bought a bunch of stuff, sold it and never replaced it. I don't care what business you do, if you don't get in new stuff and sell the original inventory to pay bills and your debt, you are dead in the water anyways. There always seemed to be 10-12 people in the store when I was in there though. (Now, how many were spending, I don't know).

I know location is important, but assuming that just because I'm in X location, I'm going to get all this drive by traffic to come in is just as bad think that if I'm in Y location, I'm going to get no traffic.

My friend said that if cost was a concern, should wait a year. For me, if the other place makes more sense financially, I could go there, build up the internet base more and see what happens on the retail side. Waiting a year seems like lost time and right now, I'm almost capped out at what I can do without going to the retail side.

I could probably ask 10 business owners and would probably get 10 different answers unfortunately.

[Mustang]

I just read an article that laid out some good advice on separating yourself as a destination store or a store that will drive traffic via foot traffic. The advice from several people was that if you are wanting to be a destination store, location is not as important. I'm really going to become a destination store so, I think I have the information I want/need to make a decision.

[Mustang]

A typical Mustang weekday day.

Monday - Friday

6:00 AM- 6:30 AM : Get up, check out morning messages, browse night time sales. Shower, grab lunch and head out to work.

6:30 AM - 7:00 AM : Morning commute.

7:00 AM - 4:00 PM : Day job. Sit in cubicle all day. Answer questions. Run tests (browse FOFC while jobs running, tapes being pulled, waiting on phone, etc)

4:00 PM - 4:15 PM : Head out. Head to post office for daily international mailings.

4:15 PM - 4:45 PM : Drive home.

4:45 - 9:00 PM : Family time, dinner, dishes, play with daughter. (Me and the wife rotate giving the daughter a bath from 8:00 - 8:30. The other one usually does the dishes and picks up the house)

9:00 PM - 11:00 PM : Various business related items. Answer questions, prepare shipments (15-18 a night), adjust inventory. (They key to shipping is having the right boxes on hand. We always have 4x4x4, 12x9x2, 9x6x3, 10x10x4, 20x12x4, 15x15x4, 22x12x6, 24x12x4, 4 types of priority and 2 types of bubble mailers, 8-12 rolls of tape, 15 cubic feet of peanuts. I spent $8K at the post office this year so far. For all the crap that USPS gets, I estimate I've sent probably 7500 packages out, I've only had 1 go missing and I don't even think that was missing and I think it was a scam. Fact: You can't send playing cards to Spain. Interesting reading some of the stuff that is/isn't allowed)

11:00 PM - 12:00 PM : Relax with a show, read or surf net.

We try to cut off one day (Tuesday or Wednesday) at 9:00 PM after the daughter goes down and do nothing business related. Although, for us, tonight was that night.

[Mustang]

It has been a very quiet 2 weeks. More so on purpose. I needed a good head clearing.

My business plan was done, in hand and sent off to our bank. We had done a sit down with them without our plan in hand just to go over the basics of the business and what we are doing. At first, he seemed rather skeptical, but once I started laying out what we were planning, what we have done and where we see ourselves in a few years, their mood definitely shifted to more of a 'Ok, they know what they are doing and have thought this through'. Which is expected.

We expect to hear back from them this week on our business loan.

Our search for a place is in limbo though. I definitely believe I'm stuck in paralysis by analysis as I wildly swing back and forth between several options, but I'm just trying to cover all the bases and make sure that I'm doing the right thing.

The building above, the old cafe, that is pretty much dead. Being vacant for 3-4 years, they wouldn't tell me what has been done maintenance wise with the HVAC system nor would give me any guarantees. Replacing a 5 ton unit 1 month into the lease isn't something I wouldn't want so, gotta let that one go.

One particular unit, where the landlords seem REALLY wanting to get someone in one of the units ASAP, seems willingly to negotiate on length (even would do 3-6 months), give guarantees on HVAC and dropped the price without me even doing any negotiating (went from $13 to $9 right off the bat). I reworked the layout and while tight, it works out better than I thought. Other good things is that it is dead bang off the highway and is part of a busy restaurant franchise.

The website is in a holding pattern. I've decided to go with an Ecommerce package that will allow me to setup pretty easy and has hooks into what I currently do. I'd rather go with a standalone, but that requires me to do alot more upfront work or hire someone at around $1500 to do the work. I'd rather use the money somewhere else.

Distributors are in a holding pattern. I have my stock picked out, but to get the best price I need to be a customer and to be a customer, I need a lease so.. no movement there.

Fixtures. Researched and holding pattern.

I have a high level of confidence that once the bank gets back to me, and it is positive and I get some concrete numbers from the place I'm now looking at, I'll sit down this weekend and give a go/no go and move forward at a breakneck pace. October 15th is still the target which is pretty aggressive. I could realistically push to November 1st, but I feel that is the absolute latest.

Fun Fun Fun.

[Mustang]

Oh, and in other good news, for the month of August, we had the highest sales volume that we have ever had for a 1 month time period.

[Mustang]

Got the call today and we are approved for the business loan amount that we wanted and I can move things along more quickly now.

Only some minor things that need to be answered such as what to use as collateral. (They don't want to use the store inventory). We will probably lean towards using home equity as even if the business would fail, we still have equity. Other options we have are probaby CDs or 401k. 401k would probably have negative tax implications, CDs are cash so, don't want to use straight cash as collateral.

[PilotMan]

Congrats!

[Mustang]

Congrats!

Thanks much.

I wasn't too concerned about it, we are in pretty good shape financially so, for the amount I was needing I thought it was more of a formality to get the loan. Had to go through the entire process of building up a business plan and collecting or personal finance information so, it was a good exercise. Still was 100% sure until they called us today and let us know so it is one more item to check off.

The only thing I didn't submit with the business plan that they requested was a list of inventory we were buying. I had asking if they really wanted some 20 page list of some 1,000+ items. In the end, guess they didn't need it.

From what my wife said, they were impressed with the package I submitted and it was an easy call so, guess I did something right. :)

[Mustang]

Fixtures.

Note 1 - Retail businesses need display shelving. If you know nothing about business, you know this. Note 2 - New fixtures are expensive. Note 3 - Buying new fixtures is for suckers.

Unfortunately, not all retail businesses make it. Bad for them, good for the person that is starting up a business because after a business fails, those shelves gotta go somewhere and 99.9% of the time, it means they are sold off at a pretty good discount. It is like an invading army leaving, they leave behind all the infrastructure for someone else to use.

I've been hitting several areas in search of used fixtures.

1. Craigslist. Pretty good resource for people that are getting out of business, have extra items or have upgraded their fixtures and need to unload the old stuff. Can get some pretty decent deals. Anywhere from around 40-75% off retail.

2. Word of mouth. Everyone knows of a store closing, just have to go in and do a little research on what they are going to do with the items. A local blockbuster is closing soon so, going to go tomorrow to see what they are doing. Pretty much the same as Craigslist as far as prices although, the closer it gets to the lease expiring, the more the price might drop if the person has no where to go with them.

3. Auctions. There are many auction places whose sole purpose in life is to liquidation businesses that have failed. These are the absolute BEST places to find retail fixtures. Unfortunately, you have to match up the right business with what you need and some auctions might be too much in the way of what you have to buy. The last going out of business auction I went to a year ago, it was a complete liquidation (fixtures and merchandise.. normally it is just the fixtures). The merchandise came it at around 8% of MSRP and the fixtures were about 3% of MSRP. 6 ft long glass display cases were going for $5. That is about the equivalent of getting a new video game release for 50 cents.

It would have been nice to purchase some fixtures over the last 6 months, but I didn't want to take up space and waste money so, held off. With all the options, I should be able to round out the store with what I need.

[Mustang]

Just purchased a large portion of the fixtures for the store from a local Blockbuster that is going out of business.

6 - 4' Wall mounted metal Shelf Units
3 - 12' Double Sided Shelves (The ones in the middle of the store)
24 - Wire Baskets for the shelf ends
2 - 4 shelf wire basket stands.

Final cost - $350.

To compare what I was looking at for Lozier shelving, the same 36' foot of shelving would have been around $900. The wall mounted shelving will take the place of any slat wall (around $500). So, I figure I'm on the plus side around $750 right now. All total, I was computing around $1750 for fixtures.

Will be picking up in the next 2 weekends and placing in temp storage while I sort out the lease.

For fixtures, I need 1 display case, 1 checkout counter and possibly 1 more run of shelves and I should be pretty sound on fixtures. Once I get the fixtures sorted out, I can concentrate on office equipment. The Blockbuster didn't have much in the way of office equipment that I could use since alot of it was pretty dated.

[Mustang]

Looking at a place tonight that I'm pretty sure I'll submit a proposal on. Actually, I'm pretty confident that I'll be submitting one, so I already tweaked my existing proposal. (which is below for your reading pleasure. Ok, actually it is boring, but it is somewhat interesting if you've never done this before)



Basic Lease Terms Proposal:

PREMISES: +/- 1,100 Square feet

USE: Porn Store

TERM: One (1) year with 2 optional years


OPTION: 1 (1) at the end of one (1) years, and one (1) at the end of two (2) years. Option is at the Tenant’s discretion solely.


MINIMUM RENT: 1st year - $8.75 PSF; five percent (5%) increases every year thereafter.


RENT COMMENCEMENT: (30) days after Tenant receives possession of Premises


ADDITIONAL COSTS: Tenant responsible for a certain share of real estate taxes, common area maintenance and insurance costs, which will be no greater than $4.25 PSF for duration of 1st year of lease. Tenant is entitled to yearly reconciliations from the Landlord as to the expenditure of these funds. At the end of the calendar year, any unspent funds will be credited towards the next calendar year. Increases in these costs are capped at $0.20 PSF annually.

UTILITIES: Tenant responsible for cost of utility use at leased site to include telecommunications, water, sewage and power. Any exterior utilities costs are paid for by landlord or laid out in common area maintenance charges.

CONDITION OF PREMISES: Landlord shall deliver Premises to Tenant in “As-Is” condition, with HVAC in working order. Landlord is responsible for any major repairs to HVAC. Major repairs are defined as any single instance repair requiring the expenditure of $750 or more not to exceed $1,500 per calendar year. Tenant responsible for regularly scheduled maintenance. The landlord is responsible or maintenance of exterior walls, roof, foundation, exterior parking lot and common areas. The tenant is responsible for interior walls, plumbing, electricity, flooring above concrete slab/foundation and HVAC per above proposal.

TENANT BUILD UP: Tenant will construct a 8 1/2” wall extending from edge of restroom extending the length of the building. Area will be used for storage. Wall will not go to top to avoid interference with existing air flow.

EXISTING INTERNAL WALL: Tenant will be responsible for removing internal room divider. Tenant can use or dispose of this divider as they see fit.

SIGNAGE: Tenant will be have rights to place signage in monument along highway 33 and in display outside of units. Landlord will ensure that electrical display is in good working condition upon tenant occupying. Tenant will have signage up NLT 15 days after taking over after starting rent. Tenant will have rights on business that is used to construct signage. Tenant will provide samples to landlord for approval. Signage will comply with any local regulations.

INSURANCE: Tenant will provide personal property and liability insurance for interior of unit lease.

SECURITY DEPOSIT: $1,000. Deposit is fully refundable to the Tenant upon termination of the lease, or at the end of two years, whichever comes first. Tenant will pay first and last months rent up front.

RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL: On units next to leased unit, tenant will have 30 days to match any existing lease offer on the unit to expand store footage from 1,100 square feet to 2,200 square feet.

STORE HOURS: Tenant has the right to set individual store hours not to conflict with any local, state or federal ordinances or laws

NON-COMPETITION: Landlord may not lease out other available spaces in unit to other businesses that may conflict with tenants stated use.

TERMINATION RIGHTS: Tenant has the right to terminate lease if unit becomes unusable or business can not be conducted at leased location for a period not to exceed 10 days.

Landlord may terminate the lease if it is determined that tenants business is detrimental to landlord’s other tenants.

[DaddyTorgo]

porn store? :D

rock on!

[Mustang]

porn store? :D

rock on!

You win, you were paying attention. :p :D

[chesapeake]

I was thinking comic books. I guess graphic novels will still be involved. :)

[DaddyTorgo]

i'd order porn from you but i don't think i want anybody on the messageboard knowing my tastes. maybe if it was just the more generic "girls gone wild" style dvd's or something...

[Mustang]

Had my meeting in the place we are looking at last night and it went oddly. There is one thing I don't like in negotiations and that is playing stupid about what you offered or acting like you forgot.

In past discussions (both email and phone), the landlord made every indication they could get in the $9-10 range, 1 year lease and put caps on the HVAC stuff. Unfortunately, at the meeting, it suddenly turned into, well, we want $13 and not sure about the caps, but maybe they could do $11. What.the.hell? The meeting left with me saying that if they hit $9 with caps, I'm certain that I'll do it. At $11. No.

We shall see. I'm due a proposal by next Monday so, I'll see where they come in. They need me, I don't need them. I'm not the one with 50% of my building sitting empty. Probably a tad arrogant on my part, but there are probably more than 50 open areas at any given time to lease and at the end of the day it is my money.

[DaddyTorgo]

hold firm on your price range. knowing now what kind of business you want to open i'd say it definately falls into the "destination shop" type of range (aka you're not likely to get much "random passer-by foot traffic" that will actually purchase anything). get a price you can live with.

[rjolley]

Porn store was my initial guess, though I could see comic book or some other novelty store.

[Mustang]

Cash Registers / Payment Processing

For something that literally everyone uses, I can not believe how little information is out there related to registers and credit card processing. Oh sure, it is easy to find people that are selling them, but trying to find a FAQ or related reviews has been darn near difficult. All I've been able to do is cobble together bits and pieces. This piece is definitely not my strong suit although, I do have some familiarity with processing so, that task wasn't too difficult.

The issue is trying to find all the pieces to go together - register, terminal, printer and make sure they will all work together via the Internet to process. This might be the one area I will spend more on then I expected as I want something relatively easy to setup and run with. Appears Quickbooks has a package that allows you to use and existing computer and run it as a register. Has a receipt printer, cash drawer and terminal and Intuits CC processing (and the fees are in line with other places that I see). It is a little more then I had thought although, I haven't done any searches on price yet)

If there is a business that you really really like and you want to put a little extra in their pocket, remember that on a $100 sale, their processor is probably taking a cut of around $1.90 so, pay in cash. :)

[Swaggs]

I would think that the porn business would see a higher percentage of folks using cash over credit cards due to annonymity. I wonder if there is any research on the matter.

[DaddyTorgo]

Porn store was my initial guess, though I could see comic book or some other novelty store.

you didn't register your guess in the thread so it doesn't count

[rjolley]

Damn, so no free merchandise for me?

you didn't register your guess in the thread so it doesn't count

[Mustang]

Damn, so no free merchandise for me?

I wonder what kind of samples porn stores get from their distributors.

[Mustang]

Well, just had my first financial jolt. Everything that I've researched and have budgeted for has been on track. Fixtures, inventory, office equipment, credit card processing fees, etc. Even the leasing fees have been in the ballpark of what I want and their haven't been any surprises.

Until now.

The first few places I looked at, I had estimates on the signage. A 2' x 10' sign, I was getting quotes in the $300 range. So, the place I'm currently looking at, I need 2 1'x10" signs and 1 2'x20 signs. I figured around $1250 and the landlord said the last business that did signs was around $1200 and that was for multicolored larger signs.

First estimate in - $2500. :eek: Someone is off the mark here. I have a few more calls in, but if the estimates are $2500, I have to reconsider that location. That much for signage wasn't in the budget.

[Mustang]

Looks like I should have stuck with the first estimate.

2nd estimate came in at $2900.

That news is rather deflating. I'll have to relook at the numbers to see if I can even justify that expense at this time. What is killing me is that I need 3 signs. Most of the other places I've looked at have needed 1.

Blah.

[Swaggs]

Just wanted to say that I have enjoyed watching your progress. Keep it going and let us know how things go. Good luck w/ the signage.

[rjolley]

I wonder what kind of samples porn stores get from their distributors.
If you get a list of choices, let me know...

[Mustang]

Just wanted to say that I have enjoyed watching your progress. Keep it going and let us know how things go. Good luck w/ the signage.

Thanks. Something will work out.

Worst case, the plans get pushed several months into the future. It is not all bad I would have had a nice bump in sales for Christmas, but not having that doesn't hurt me. Christmas sales last year were rather blah, but if the last 3 months are any indication, it should be solid this year. If anything, I just build up my coffers more.

Although, I have not heard back from the landlord of the one place and they said they would have a proposal to me by today. Signs could be $1, but if I don't hear back from them, won't matter.

[Mustang]

If you get a list of choices, let me know...

Probably all stuff no one will buy like 'Hairy Bushed Nuns visit the Vatican'.

Come to think of it, one of my friends had the idea that he was going to buy a wholesale lot on Ebay of porn and resell it. Paid $250 bucks or so for some 500 videos. (For those that think there is no such thing as bad porn umm... ya.. no, there is) I saw the 'box o' porn' in his house once, but I don't think he ever sold it... I think he might have just watched all of it or gave it away by inviting people to just grab a bunch out of the box.

[Mustang]

Got the proposal today. The base rent looks decent. It is basically a 14 month lease, 2 months free on the front end and the 12 months to pay is at $9.81. Plus, they capped the HVAC stuff at $500 on the first year. That is the good news.

The bad news is that the NNN charges, where I was quoted $4.25, really is more like $6.07. They would charge $465 a month which comes to $5580 AND in 2008, the tenant was undercharged $1100 so, in 2008 the total NNN charges for the tenant was $6680 or roughly $6.07 so, looking at roughly $175/month more than they initial quoted me. I don't think that is workable. I've found NNN charges in the area to be around $3.50-$4.50, this place is definitely high.

[Mustang]

The more I think about the NNN charges, the less I like them.

1. NNN costs in 2006 were $4400, 2007 $5700 and 2008 $6800. Landlord claims that there were extenuating circumstances in those years, but the 3 year trend is an increase of around 25%. While it is only 3 years of data, it is concerning. I can't assume that 2006 was the norm and that the norm might be a 20%+ increase a year and can only look at the data given to me.

2. $600 building repair fees in 2007. Landlord says they are responsible for the walls out, foundation, roof, etc. I have not dug into the reason for $600 in building fees, but if there is some loophole that they apply fees for building repairs, it is concerning.

3. 12% management fee. Seems rather high and I would think rates would be more in the 3-5% range.

4. No caps on the CAM portion. I really don't want to be funding a new parking lot or space needle.

5. Landlord says they can't control costs and what I owe. Personally, I think this is the biggest flag. There is a difference between can't and won't. They could waive the management fee or reduce it, charge me less for other areas, but they choose not to.

[Mustang]

Checked with a few people that are in the same business and they agreed with my concerns and it just wasn't right. I sent the message to the landlord rejecting the proposal and citing the reasons.

I very much doubt they will come back, but they can shoulder that $6K in cost for the time being.

I guess that is why 4 out of 6 slots are empty right now. Note to self.. an area with alot of empty units should send up warning signals. (In this case, the NNN charges)

[Mustang]

Well, after much review, appears that the full blown retail store front will be on hold for the time being. Definitely need to do this right rather than just slam something in and accepting this last offer would have been slamming something in. From a lease standpoint, definitely a good learning experience because I know a few more questions to hit on and I have a better understanding of signage costs which I was way off on.

Amazing that I've ruled out the other options due to size, cost or location. I could look outside of our town, but that has other logistical issues.

I could look for a smaller space and just open up on the weekends which is still on the table, but probably only for another 2 weeks and everything would have to fall exactly in line for it to happen.

I'll still be putting notes in here on things going on for my online business so, hopefully that will still be interesting.

[JeeberD]

you didn't register your guess in the thread so it doesn't count


You weren't first either, DT... :p

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - From beginning to end : Starting my own business (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showpost.php?p=2080048&postcount=12)

[Mustang]

Was hoping to be up for the holiday, but unfortunately it looks like I'm stuck with 50 copies of 'Sucking Santa' until 2010.

Damn you holiday merchandise!!!

[Mustang]

We added on another line of items that we are carrying and everything seems to be going ok except that there is alot of time expense right now from an educational standpoint, that should thin out once we have a more solid base. We enlisted the aid of someone to help out for a few hours on the weekend. The only 'payment' he was wanting is just to be feed. (Guess that is easy enough).

One item I've been looking at is discounting though. With the new line, there are a lot of existing businesses selling the product line we are doing now. One thing I've noticed with new businesses online is they want to discount everything to undercut everyone so they can make a sale. That is fine and dandy when you have just 1 item, but if you are selling more, discounting actually hurts you and it is pretty basic math.

If you have 100 widgets that you sell for $100 (at a cost of $50 to you), you will have sales of $10000 and a profit of $5000.

The same item, at a discount of 20%, increasing sales 50% will actually cause you to do 50% more work and make less. 150 widgets sold @ $80 at a cost of $50 results in a profit of $4500.

Granted, I'm not near that level of volume where I am selling 100 units of one item, but unfortunately what I have to deal with is people doing the discounting where it hurts you and it is no longer profitable to even bother selling the item. I sell an item for $5 consistently, a new business comes in and decides to sell it for $4.50, causing me to adjust and then a new business comes in and sells for $4, etc, etc.

You don't always have to undercut everyone all the time, just be creative in what you do. For example, one item I have I sell for $19.99 with $5.00 flat shipping. Another seller has them for $24.99. We are both technically selling them at the same price ($24.99), but I'll make .75 cents more a unit sold then he will just given the costs of selling on Amazon/Ebay (which charge roughly 15% of final cost which doesn't include shipping)

Enough babbling today... :)

[DanGarion]

You win, you were paying attention. :p :D

Is it a porn store or adult toy store? I have a friend in the latter that I might be able to get in contact with you if your businesses match up...

[DanGarion]

By the way, from my understanding selling on Amazon can really increase your sales...

[Mustang]

By the way, from my understanding selling on Amazon can really increase your sales...

Assuming that you are talking about non-porn here. :)

We are planning on setting up on Amazon in mid-January 2010. Certain categories were frozen in September 2009 to make sure that sellers in those categories were solid for the holiday season so we are locked out right now.

I should have set one up earlier, but with putting any extra time/energy into researching the store, I did not want to spread myself too thin doing too many things.

[Mustang]

Have the potential to top our last months sales which were our best to date. I think we will fall just a little short though. For whatever reason, we had a little burst in the last 4-5 days where we have been shipping around 25 packages a day. (Normally it is in the 15 range)

Dedicated time last night to doing some business orientated stuff. I had slacked off in the last 7 days.

[Mustang]

So much for just the potential of topping our sales record, we topped it by 10% so far with 1 more day to go. Good start to the holiday season for us.

In other news, the person that was going to work at the store, he had a strong desire to quit his job and work full time in the store if I want to hire him, but he couldn't because his wife's job didn't have insurance through her company. This week, she got a new job with health benefits so, it is not important that he carries the health insurance in the family. Potential is there when I open to potentially look into hiring him at more of a full time position during the week although, I would probably look more into giving him more of a sales/commission type salary in that the better the business does, the better he will do. But, that is a long way off.

In hindsight, while I really wanted to open this year, the extra 6 months won't hurt from a business standpoint. We should double the money that we will have going into the business. Also, it gets us completely through 1 tax year so, if we have missed anything from an accounting standpoint, we can tighten that up for 2010.

[Mustang]

Just hit 5000 feedback on Ebay so, just a few factoids from over the years. (Although, would have hit it sooner, but a year or so ago they cleaned the system out and I lost around 300 feedback)

First items sold - Narnia book set for around $10, Old mantle clock for $26 and a chess set for $15

Negative feedback received in 5 years - 3. One was for tape that was on the item, but it was supposed to have tape along the seem, one for someone that complained about the item not being new (item said used. They bought the same one from a different seller at the same time that said new so, I think they made an error). The third one was for some new books I sent out and they called me an ass. Still not sure what happened.

Worst customer ever - Tie.

Customer A ordered something at Christmas. Christmas takes longer to ship items. We sent it out the same day and it took 10 days. 10 days of enduring emails questioning my honesty, how I was ruining his granddaughters Christmas and then, when it showed up, getting complaints that I packed it too well.

Customer B sent 4 emails in a 6 hour period asking questions, bought the items before I had a chance to respond and then threatened me that I hadn't responded. (I kinda work you know?)

Most famous customer (that I noticed) - Mike Krzyzewski

Most expensive item sold - Sideshow Aragorn statue $960

Best advice on selling online - Sell what you know, know what you sell. Widgets may be profitable, but if you are in it just for the money, you'll get burned out

[Mustang]

Ebay had a bad outage this weekend. For around 8 hours, the site was pretty much rendered useless do to search errors. We typically would have probably sold 6-10 items during this time frame and ended up selling 0. The biggest people hit by this would have been people with auctions ending. Since people couldn't find their auctions, there would have been reduced bidding and a lower end price.

There is not alot of good that can come from this and Ebay botched alot of things. First, they should have extended auctions immediately and not allow them to end. They do this for system wide outages, but they didn't consider this a system wide outages because you could still get to the items if you knew the item number or had it in your viewing list. Semantics reallly because the system was down. (I know how businesses fudge availability numbers because our company does the same damn thing. If you hit the web page and it takes you 5 minutes, the system isn't down, it is degraded.)

Ebay should have take a more proactive approach in letting people know there was an issue. It should have been across the front page rather than tucked in the system announcements section. Savvy users will find it, but most people are not savvy users and will wonder what happened.

People are saying buyer confidence is shaken now on Ebay. I am not sure how buyer confidence should be shaken. Seller confidence, yes, but the ability to buy a certain widget during a 8 hour timeframe shouldn't impact the typical buyer, plus if they were watching an auction, they could still bid on it.

The one thing that could affect buyers if sellers decide to cancel items due to the errors and not honor bids. That could be a potential messy situation. In a perfect world, if a seller decided to not honor a bid because of technical issues, they could just cancel it and a buyer would understand that there were issues outside of the seller's control. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world so, there will be alot of messy cancellations and negatives left.

Another reason that I'll need to spread around my business in 2010. I'll be going with Amazon, finalizing my own website and still looking at setting up a brick and mortar site. Would be nice if another online auction site could give Ebay a run, but I just don't see that happening. I've checked out other sites(ecrater, bonanzle, etc) but they are just not designed that well, do not have the traffic or the merchandise to really drive people to them.

[Mustang]

Sounding like a broken record, but we topped our sales record again this month. Starting off to be a good holiday season for us. It does appear that pricing is considerable factor this year more than others. In previous years, items would see a bump in price of between 50%-200% compared to what I'd sell an item for from Feb - Oct, but this year, items are staying more in the range from the rest of the year.

My end goal was to increase sales 300% from the beginning of the year and keep profits around the same percent. This would allow me to potentially quit my day job and do this full time. To date, we would have increased sales 50%. Doing this with just me and the wife, I'm not sure a 300% increase is possible with my current workload and 150% would be more realistic. The only way I would get there is to quit my job and work up to that number. I have 11 days off coming up so, I'll be able to work on some things. We have a backlog of inventory to go through so, that is my goal the next 2 weeks.

Our local competitor had his 'Best Seller' tag removed the other day. Granted, in the overall picture I'm not competing with just him, I'm in competition with everyone, but in my limited interactions with him I've found him overly defensive, over priced and overstating of the condition of items that he sells. (He uses words that don't make any season.. like Big Boss Time. As in, the condition of this is Big Boss Time!! Which, I guess would be good). So, him losing that status is just a moral victory for me.

[Mustang]

Not related to my business, but if you are wanting to sell some things on Ebay for the holiday season, just some tips (some of these apply year round)

1. Prices will peak around December 10th and then slide back down. Seems to be the perfect mix of people realizing they need to act in order to get it in time for Christmas and panic so, prices flare up.

2. Ship priority mail. Parcel during the holiday season can be rather slow. Make it known that priority mail is not a guaranteed service and while the post office says 2-3 days, it can be longer. (Traditionally, I see it go from 2-3 days to around 3-5 days. Parcel comes in around 10-14 rather than 7-10)

3. Don't ship express or guaranteed mail unless you are willing to eat the costs for a returned item. This is the main reason I don't ship either of those services. A normal $8 shipping fee could turn into $25-$30 so, if they don't like it or have an issue, I'd be out that money.

4. Assume it is a Christmas gift and try to ship it out as soon as possible. Don't sit on it for 4 or 5 days. Assume your buyer is a panicky stressed out holiday shopper and plan accordingly.

5. If you are selling a 'hot' holiday item or items where there are a ton out there then go with a 1 or 3 day auction and start your price closer to what you want. If there are 100 items out there, people tend to look at the new items and the items ending in the next day so, if you have an auction at 7 days, you are looking at potentially 5 1/2 days where it probably won't be looked at.

6. Use a box to pack it. Don't use brown paper.


Good luck!

[Mustang]

Looking forward to December 17th. That is when we go on a 10 day holiday shut off our business.

There are a few reasons we do this.

1. There is a high probability that anyone doing Christmas shopping, if they pay for it on December 18th or later, they are not going to get the item. We don't do Express shipping or offer it because of the potential cost to us if there is an issue. (You wouldn't believe how many people are willing to pay to send a $5 to $10 item overnight at a cost of anywhere from $25-$35. Unfortunately, if it goes bad and I need to do a refund, I'm out that cost which I'm not willing to do at this time. Priority is 2-3 days typically so, I try to persuade them that it is in their best interest to just save the money)

2. Because of #1, panicky buyers don't understand that it takes longer for holiday shipping. Panicky buyers are bad. Panicky HOLIDAY shoppers are really bad. Panicky holiday shoppers that have no common sense... Those are the type that think you are out to destroy their holiday season and have made it a priority to do so. I would like to avoid those people at all costs. (By the way, Bill Smith... I eff'n hate you and your 4 year old daughter. I have run her Zhu Zhu hamster over with my car and you should receive it on January 6th.)

3. We need a break. It is our one time a year to just shut it off for a period of time to enjoy the holidays so, yes, we lose sales, but because it is pretty much a 2 person operation and not Wal-mart, we can do it.

My break time will include pulling out Arkham Horror which I haven't pulled out since the last break we took last year.

[Mustang]

Ahh.. gotta love the procrastinating Christmas Shopping freaks that are starting to just crest over the horizon. In about 36 hours, our holiday sales will be shut off and it won't come a minute sooner.

I'd love to stay open. Most people are smart enough to realize that once an item leaves my hands, it is out of my control as to how long it will take the UPS, USPS or Fed-ex to deliver a package unless you do a guaranteed service.

Today I had someone ask if an item would reach her by Christmas because it was the only thing her autistic son wanted. That is a red flag to me. Let me explain. We have seen it before where people bring up a reason to ask for a reduce price or to play on your sympathies because someone is sick or it reminds them of their dead mother or similar sympathy inducing statements. The statement is usually followed by a 'will you take less' statement.

Unfortunately, I'm pessimistic and usually don't believe people because I see no reason to bring up items like this unless you are looking for sympathy or an edge. So, if she doesn't get this item by Christmas, I will get a 'YOU RUINED MY AUTISTIC SON'S CHRISTMAS!!'. No, I didn't. You did by waiting until 12/17 to buy something and hope it arrives in time. I didn't do that. You did. Don't get me wrong, there are alot of times I go out of my way for customers, but I just fear 'the setup' type ones.

The second type I love are the demand ones. I had an item I was selling for a friend. It was a large item. In the box shipped it would be 30'x20'x6'. If you know anything about the USPS, they have large packages which are items that exceed certain lengths and for this box, for priority mail, anything outside of my zone gets a hefty charge. In my zone it was $12. To Virginia it was $30. This is the charge.. I have nothing to do with coming up with those numbers.

Yesterday, I was informed by someone that see was going to give me $10 for priority mail, that would cover it. I explained to her why priority was so much more and I got back a 'FYI, it will fit in a large flat rate. THANK YOU'. Ok, how the hell are you going to put a 30'x20'x6' box into a 12'x12'x8 box? It ain't a fucking bag of holding. Its a question of ratios. You can't put a 30x20x6 into a 12x12x8 box. Maybe I could buy a African Swallow and attach it to it and send it to her.

Saturday morning can't come soon enough.

[PackerFanatic]

It ain't a fucking bag of holding.

Awesome quote.

[MacroGuru]

Ahh.. gotta love the procrastinating Christmas Shopping freaks that are starting to just crest over the horizon. In about 36 hours, our holiday sales will be shut off and it won't come a minute sooner.

I'd love to stay open. Most people are smart enough to realize that once an item leaves my hands, it is out of my control as to how long it will take the UPS, USPS or Fed-ex to deliver a package unless you do a guaranteed service.

Today I had someone ask if an item would reach her by Christmas because it was the only thing her autistic son wanted. That is a red flag to me. Let me explain. We have seen it before where people bring up a reason to ask for a reduce price or to play on your sympathies because someone is sick or it reminds them of their dead mother or similar sympathy inducing statements. The statement is usually followed by a 'will you take less' statement.

Unfortunately, I'm pessimistic and usually don't believe people because I see no reason to bring up items like this unless you are looking for sympathy or an edge. So, if she doesn't get this item by Christmas, I will get a 'YOU RUINED MY AUTISTIC SON'S CHRISTMAS!!'. No, I didn't. You did by waiting until 12/17 to buy something and hope it arrives in time. I didn't do that. You did. Don't get me wrong, there are alot of times I go out of my way for customers, but I just fear 'the setup' type ones.

The second type I love are the demand ones. I had an item I was selling for a friend. It was a large item. In the box shipped it would be 30'x20'x6'. If you know anything about the USPS, they have large packages which are items that exceed certain lengths and for this box, for priority mail, anything outside of my zone gets a hefty charge. In my zone it was $12. To Virginia it was $30. This is the charge.. I have nothing to do with coming up with those numbers.

Yesterday, I was informed by someone that see was going to give me $10 for priority mail, that would cover it. I explained to her why priority was so much more and I got back a 'FYI, it will fit in a large flat rate. THANK YOU'. Ok, how the hell are you going to put a 30'x20'x6' box into a 12'x12'x8 box? It ain't a fucking bag of holding. Its a question of ratios. You can't put a 30x20x6 into a 12x12x8 box. Maybe I could buy a African Swallow and attach it to it and send it to her.

Saturday morning can't come soon enough.

Amen brother...I have one hurdle in mine....my dropshippers are Nike, ECCO, Footjoy and Adidas and I am at their whim...although they have been amazing this holiday season I just received some after hours orders that I am going to try and fulfill because the customers are willing to pay extra (more than their normal shipping) to get their shoes.

We will see..

[Mustang]

Almost thought the holiday season went without a major hitch this year. Found out Saturday that I flipped packages and sent them out wrong to the wrong people. DOH! Got on the phone with them and straightened it out. Luckily they were understanding that mistakes happen.

I've done that one other time. In this case, the people were in Illinois and New York. In the previous case, they were in the UK and Australia. Might as well have been Mars and Venus.

[Mustang]

DOH! (again)

Forgot to file the 3rd quarter sales tax. Government doesn't like it when they don't get their taste. Then they send Guido out to get their money and they come up with some number that isn't anywhere close to what you have been paying. "Hey, I think you owe us $3000 this quarter.. prove why you don't."

Will not make that mistake again.

[MacroGuru]

DOH! (again)

Forgot to file the 3rd quarter sales tax. Government doesn't like it when they don't get their taste. Then they send Guido out to get their money and they come up with some number that isn't anywhere close to what you have been paying. "Hey, I think you owe us $3000 this quarter.. prove why you don't."

Will not make that mistake again.

I hate when it happens...I had one time where Utah sent me the bill for like $15,000 and I asked them where they got their figures and they honestly said "We made it up, figured it would get you to either respond or pay."

I provided the actual figures and paid them what the true number was which was a far cry less than the 15K

[Mustang]

I hate when it happens...I had one time where Utah sent me the bill for like $15,000 and I asked them where they got their figures and they honestly said "We made it up, figured it would get you to either respond or pay."


Glad to know it isn't just Wisconsin then.

Although, actually owing $15K in sales tax would be great because that means I would have had around $267K in sales for the quarter.

[surlyc]

Not sure how it works in the US (I am from the UK), but here HMRC can deliver a notice of liability to tax if you fail to send your return on time. This means they make up a number, generally just 30% of your total turnover per your stat accounts, and ask you to prove they're wrong.

Guess my point is, it's not just Wisconsin... it's a world-wide thing.

Interesting thread... good luck. I always like to see small businesses succeed. :D

[Mustang]

All the buildings that I was looking at leasing over the last 6-9 months are still available. Obviously there has to be some benefit to them not renting that I'm not seeing. If there is, wouldn't mind seeing some way to incent these businesses to actually try to get someone in empty buildings to start a business rather than just letting everything sit or at least trying to close off the ability for a business to not have it be a potential positive to leave a building empty.

(Not wanting to turn this into a political discussion and I'm not even sure if there is a benefit, but based on my negotiations, didn't seem like anyone was that eager to lease)

[Mustang]

Sometimes wisdom comes up in the oddest places

Joe Dirt: You're gonna stand there, owning a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistling bungholes, no spleen spliters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker donts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistling kitty chaser?

Kicking Wing: No... because snakes and sparklers are the only ones I like.

Joe Dirt: Well that might be your problem, it's not what you like, it's the consumer.

[MacroGuru]

Sometimes wisdom comes up in the oddest places

Joe Dirt: You're gonna stand there, owning a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistling bungholes, no spleen spliters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker donts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistling kitty chaser?

Kicking Wing: No... because snakes and sparklers are the only ones I like.

Joe Dirt: Well that might be your problem, it's not what you like, it's the consumer.

Awesome and I love it...I am in the process of switching out the inventory on the Golf Shoe website from the 2009 to 2010 models and I am seeing some of these shoes and not wanting to put them up and I always think back to that last quote...because seriously my most profitable shoe to me is the one of the ugliest pair of shoes I carry.

[Mustang]

Was having a discussion at work with someone else I know that is trying to do their own business. He has been doing it awhile, but I think there are 2 items that are really hurting him.

He is in the sports card market. (tough market, lots of swings although, seems we are past the 90s where it seems EVERYONE did sports cards because they thought they were going to become a millionaire, but are now instead stuck with 5,000 cases of 1990 score baseball)

1. Risk. As in, his wife doesn't want none. There are things you can do to minimize risk, but if you design a business with zero risk and make a decent amount of money, then you should probably teach people. Unfortunately his mode is digging through the $1-$2 stuff and maybe finding something for $10 to sell. That is all great and if you make it work for you, you can be successful. Unfortunately his wife doesn't want 2,000 $1 or $2 items to sell because she sees it as $1000 or $2000 rather than $7000-$10000 spread out over a 9-12 months and if he would sell 1500 @ 4 a piece and have to discard 500 at a loss, she seems to focus on the loss rather than the big picture. It is called inventory for a reason and I can't think of a store that would have a constant rolling stock that they sell once they get it in. (save for like a fresh fish market or perishable foods)

2. Selection. Another of his failings is that in many markets, you want a selection of items. He just doesn't have enough items at one time for people to buy alot of. Things like Comic Books/Magic Cards/Sport Cards/Scrapbooking/Grocery Stores, you have people that will buy many different things. Sure you can carry a selection of 50 Brewers cards, but it is better to carry 50 of each team.

Interesting how other people go about their business.

[cubboyroy1826]

Having owned a card shop back in the mid 90s i will say it is a very tough business. Customers want change in a heart beat and it is virtually impossible to keep everything. I found that it was good to keep a fair amount of new product but focused more on picking up older cards 50-70s or sets and had a steady group of clients that really wanted these cards. I would say finding a niche and getting becoming an expert in where to find it and what will sell is the most important and yet toughest part. When i sit back and look and the flood of product on the market now i just get sick.

[Mustang]

When i sit back and look and the flood of product on the market now i just get sick.

Hope you didn't think I meant that all people with card stores in the 90s thought they were going to become millionaires.. :D

The market is absolutely flooded with stuff. If I was going to get into that market, I'd stick with just selling new stuff by the box/case. Selling singles would be really brutal and you definitely need a selection unless your singles are top end stuff. Even then some people get stuck in the baseball cards = $ and they get caught up in Becketts and other price guides rather than what the actual market is doing. I see this with Star Wars stuff too. Just because it is Star Wars does not mean that it is worth $$$.

[cubboyroy1826]

Oh no i did not take your comment the wrong way. I actually took over the shop from someone who owed me a bunch of money and there was no way he was going to pay me. It was a business i knew a lot about from having tables at card shows for a couple of year before. Owning a card shop was a learning experience and something i would never do again. I used to love collecting cards and now i really could care less.

[Mustang]

I used to love collecting cards and now i really could care less.

I don't think you are unique in that aspect. People that open stores related to their hobbies have a tendency to do it less or get completely turned off by it.

I like collecting, but only non-sports cards.

This is my favorite.

http://www.lordoftheringsguide.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=11594&d=1112653352

Of course my wife has one..

http://www.lordoftheringsguide.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=11595&d=1112653352

[cubboyroy1826]

I do collect signed sports cards/magazines/photos still. I have a monster Cubs collection and a very special collection of Muhammad Ali.

[Mustang]

I have a monster Cubs collection

I'm shocked. :D

[Mustang]

Humorous side story, on particular place I was interested in had just went off the market the day I called. I guess the people that leased it were opening up a combination Horse tack and bread shop. What the hell? I did not know there was a big demand for a saddle and a loaf of bread...

So, from page 1, I can revisit this post.

That Horse Tack and Bread store. Ya, it closed. At 6 months, it lasted longer than I thought it would. I honestly drove by every day waiting for the lease/closed sign to go up and yesterday was the day.

Some business ideas just don't make sense. Maybe if they were baking their own bread and designing their own saddles I could maybe see it, but I don't see how the 2 go together unless you are making a old country store unique kinda place.

At least I have another place to look at although, I think the rent was a little high if I remember correctly, but it wasn't NNN.

[Mustang]

So I call the realtor to get the prices ($12/sq with all the CAM/Taxes/Insurance so, not a bad starting spot). I told him about how I was interested in the place 6 months ago, but the bread store got in there before me so, I've just been watching the place over the last 6 months waiting to call him back. The realtor could not stop laughing.. guess he thought it was a bad idea too.

[cubboyroy1826]

Yeah i would definitely scratch my head seeing a Horse Tack and Bread store. No matter how i look at it i am not seeing how the two go together or how the heck you would make any money unless you had some special product or niche.

[Mustang]

Yeah i would definitely scratch my head seeing a Horse Tack and Bread store.

It was a mother/daughter thing. The mother wanted a bread store and the daughter wanted a tack store. Of course, you do the obvious and mash them together.

[Mustang]

Wisconsin's state sales tax teletax system sucks. Took me darn near 15 minutes of pressing keys to get everything correct. Every time I entered sales for the quarter, it kept says "You have entered 3 Million Six Hundred Sixty million dollars". Ok, just a tad off there...

Going tonight to look at that space that was cleared out by the bread store. My target is around $1,100 for a leased space, right now it would be $1,200 so, have to see how much wiggle room they have. From the limited discussions I've had with them, they seem eager to get another tenant in there as opposed to some of the other places that did not seem to care at all.

Oh, and more information on the bread store.. I thought it couldn't get worse, but what they were doing was buying outdated bread from other stores and then marking it up and selling it. (Like a Hostess thrift store). Good god man...

[Mustang]

Still gets worse on the bread front. They opened the store, to sell old bread and didn't have any suppliers. Good god! How do you open a store without someone to supply the inventory? I think that the underwear gnomes had a better business plan. I'd like to think that I'm passing along valuable information of what not to do, but I think this kinda stuff is pretty basic. :)

Review of the place went good. Actually it is the best place I've seen to date and I really like it. Bigger than I thought (1,500 sq compared to the 1250 he initially said) so the $12/sq makes it a little more however when he said they want $12 then he changed it to they would want $10 and then he followed it up with 'thats what we would like' meaning that there probably is still room to go lower. I am guessing that they have alot of wiggle room because the previous tenants signed a 2 year lease and didn't make it through 1 year so, they will be doubling up possibly depending on what the other tenant had written into the contract.

[chesapeake]

I think that the underwear gnomes had a better business plan.

Clearly. At least the underpants gnomes had the supply end covered.

Maybe the bread store had some kind of deal with the bread gnomes?

[Mustang]

I want that spot I looked at.

In a final analysis of it, the place has darn near everything I want

1. 1500 sq ft with an area sectioned off for store.
2. No NNN Fees
3. Potential HVAC capped at $500 / year in expenses
4. No buildout needed (just paint)
5. 60-70 car parking
6. Easy to locate and give directions to.
7. Price is good @ $10/sq (although, need to exchange numbers. I'd like $9.25)

Would I like it in a little higher traffic area? Yes. That is the main negative that I see. However, I can afford to build up the marketing side of the business over a 3-6 month period and not have it kill me as I don't need $10K of sales from day one. Plus, getting that spot where the traffic is at its highest is extremely pricey ($22/sq) and/or there would be direct competition between tenants and I couldn't go there even if I wanted since there is a 1/2 mile stretch owned by the same company and 2 businesses have products that could be seen as competition vs me.

From a financial standpoint there is really nothing stopping us from opening a place. If we opened, didn't sell a single thing, didn't get a single customer and closed after 1 year, the money we would lose is acceptable and wouldn't destroy us.

We have some questions on staffing that we need to work through, but I think I got some of those nagging questions answered this afternoon when I talked to the person I want to hire part-time. I had some good news yesterday because another person I know has offered to volunteer for 2 days a week and 1 or 2 Saturday's a week. He is a pretty stand up person so, I'm pretty confident in him coming through.

The only roadblock right now is just getting taxes squared away from 2009 which I'm working on this weekend.

Hopefully in a few weeks I can actually say what I'm doing and have some of you as customers in the future. :D

[Mustang]

Around our families, we have been pretty tight lipped about what we do from a business standpoint. Mainly for 2 reasons.

1. Loose lips sink ships (so to speak). We were burned once by people being too flappy with their lips so we just shut it down in telling people anything in what we do. There is nothing more frustrating in trying to purchase an item, and someone goes 'HEY, HOW MUCH YOU GOING TO SELL THAT FOR!!!!' or telling everyone how successful you are and throwing around numbers or having your own relatives try to do the same thing you are doing and compete with you. (That was the final straw to any information coming out)

2. There are elements of our families that believe that other members of the family should be giving them money. We just didn't want to have to deal with that. Unfortunately, this will come out when we open a brick and mortar store since everyone knows that anyone who owns a business is a millionaire. (/sarcasm)

Last night we pulled back the Wizard's curtain to my sister and her husband. We have been using them as a little bit of a reference on basic business dealings since he has owned his own stores in the past. (grocery stores, got out of the business several years ago). I think we completely shocked them to the degree that we do it.. I don't know what they thought we were doing, but after I showed them last night, I just got a 'Holy Shit' from them. I don't think they realized how serious we were into our business until that point.

The rest of my family.. ya, they can wait. Kinda sucks in not being able to share, but there are a few elements that are going to make it tough and we would just assume not have to deal with those elements at this time.

[cubboyroy1826]

Is this what they call building the suspense?:popcorn:

[PackerFanatic]

Is this what they call building the suspense?:popcorn:

Haha...I think so!

[Mustang]

Is this what they call building the suspense?:popcorn:

*L*

Nah, just trying to note different items going on for business side. Most everything in the last few months has been lease related which is pretty dry stuff.

I could spin a tale on the discussions of a 2x2 dumpster vs 4x4 dumpsters and the frequency of pickups if you so wish. :)

[Mustang]

Also, probably not that hard to figure out what kind of store I'd be opening. Unless no one pays attention to me at all, in which case, yes you might have trouble. :D

I think the only guesses I have seen are porn and comics and you can rule out bread store and baseball cards since I downplayed those businesses and the difficulties in them.

[cubboyroy1826]

Oh how about a horse tackle shop?

[Mustang]

Oh how about a horse tackle shop?

Sooooo close.

[Samdari]

Wait, porn store was wrong?

[Mustang]

Wait, porn store was wrong?

Very wrong, and if I tried to combine a porn store and horse tackle shop, I'd have to move my operations down to Tijuana.

I still don't know who the hell would buy porn nowadays. Although, guess it is like someone buying bottled water. "Um, you know you can just turn on the faucet right?"

[DanGarion]

Very wrong, and if I tried to combine a porn store and horse tackle shop, I'd have to move my operations down to Tijuana.

I still don't know who the hell would buy porn nowadays. Although, guess it is like someone buying bottled water. "Um, you know you can just turn on the faucet right?"
It's adult toys and such though, isn't it?

[MacroGuru]

I want that spot I looked at.

In a final analysis of it, the place has darn near everything I want

1. 1500 sq ft with an area sectioned off for store.
2. No NNN Fees
3. Potential HVAC capped at $500 / year in expenses
4. No buildout needed (just paint)
5. 60-70 car parking
6. Easy to locate and give directions to.
7. Price is good @ $10/sq (although, need to exchange numbers. I'd like $9.25)

Would I like it in a little higher traffic area? Yes. That is the main negative that I see. However, I can afford to build up the marketing side of the business over a 3-6 month period and not have it kill me as I don't need $10K of sales from day one. Plus, getting that spot where the traffic is at its highest is extremely pricey ($22/sq) and/or there would be direct competition between tenants and I couldn't go there even if I wanted since there is a 1/2 mile stretch owned by the same company and 2 businesses have products that could be seen as competition vs me.

From a financial standpoint there is really nothing stopping us from opening a place. If we opened, didn't sell a single thing, didn't get a single customer and closed after 1 year, the money we would lose is acceptable and wouldn't destroy us.

We have some questions on staffing that we need to work through, but I think I got some of those nagging questions answered this afternoon when I talked to the person I want to hire part-time. I had some good news yesterday because another person I know has offered to volunteer for 2 days a week and 1 or 2 Saturday's a week. He is a pretty stand up person so, I'm pretty confident in him coming through.

The only roadblock right now is just getting taxes squared away from 2009 which I'm working on this weekend.

Hopefully in a few weeks I can actually say what I'm doing and have some of you as customers in the future. :D

Awesome news! have you made the offer yet? Or are you just waiting to see what taxes bring you?

[Mustang]

It's adult toys and such though, isn't it?

Adult toys as in ... ?

[Mustang]

Awesome news! have you made the offer yet? Or are you just waiting to see what taxes bring you?

Last night I was talking to the realtor about it. My suggestion was that since they wouldn't take any options, I asked if they would put an option in the middle at the 6 month time period that would need to be executed within 3 business days.

I understand their concern about options being tenant biased. If the market prices go up, I do the option. If they go down, I back out. However, I'm not fully prepared for a 2-3 year lease. If I'm doing good at the 6 month point and sales are increasing, then I have a desire to stay because moving your business shouldn't be taken lightly. Also, executing an option at 6 months, I would not believe the marketplace for rentals would adjust that much. I've been watching places for the last 9-12 months and only just now have I seen a few places drop their price.

The realtor said they would put together something which I would assume to be a counteroffer to my unofficial proposal.

[Mustang]

I had a idiot moment today or maybe it was a revelation. I'm working with a bank on doing a business loan. The loan was approved last year in the amount of $20K. It would be a line of credit that I'd have to personally guarantee (it is all great that I'm a LLC however, in the beginning, everyone wants personal guarantees as opposed to being backed solely by the business)

Anyhow... while I'm fretting about getting together taxes, updating the business plan, etc to go back it, I suddenly remember that we already have a $18K line of credit backed by the home equity. I'm not sure if there is any benefit to securing a new line of credit when essentially the collateral is the same thing.

I sent the message to my accountant for his input. The only thing I can see is that if I do a new loan, it would be in the business name so, that might be a benefit long term.

[Warhammer]

So when did the game store open up?

[Mustang]

It has been awhile since I posted in this so, figured I'd post a 'ya well duh' update. In the abscene of posts, I have decided not to move forward with the brick and mortar store although, I'm still in business from an online/Ebay capacity.

And yes Warhammer, it was a Game/Hobby store. I'm shocked that it wasn't guessed since I frequently comment on the board game/Warhammer threads and my interests in my profile say games. :)

There were a few factors that ended my search.

1. A place. Despite the economy, just seemed every place I looked at either didn't match my needs OR the owner just didn't care if they rented it or not. With the amount of available space, it really was a surprise at how unwillingly many of the people I was dealing with just didn't care if they leased it or not. Many of the places that I initially looked at are still empty and I'd assume they will be empty for a long time (one is going on 4 years).

2. My daughter. On one hand, I wanted to do this for my family, but it would cost me time with my daughter in the short term. At the end of the day, that wasn't something I wanted.

And the capper, when my accountant looked at my numbers and what we were doing now, he looked at me and said 'why in the world would you want a store front when you are doing this good now?'. My brother-in-law, who also owned a store, said my profit margins were so high right now, why bother.

So, for the time being, I shelved the brick and mortar portion of my business 'dream'. I'm still quite actively doing the online portion and I'll have to deal with my inventory coming from failed businesses, sellers going out of business or people getting out of a hobby.

I have a crapload of Mongoose Publishing d20 stuff for sale cheap if interested... :D

[Mustang]

Funny side note.

When discussing what we were doing, when my wife told her Dad what we were looking at doing, we laid out the items we would be carrying. One of the items was roleplaying games.

He looked kinda quizzical and said, "Well, guess people like that kinda thing. What types of costumes?"

My wife was kinda confused and asked what he meant.

"Well, roleplaying, when adults dress up together"

Noooooo, not THAT kinda roleplaying. :D

[Mustang]

I'll post this here first in hopes someone sees it. :)

I'm a novice access user at best, but I have a business need where I need to build a simple database that would consist of an item number, price and quantity which is fine, but then I need the ability to query the DB using a text format (or whatever format would work).

So, If I have a database with items A, B, C, D, E.... and I submit a query looking for A, E, H... I'd need to output a report with the item/cost/quantity.

I gotta believe this is fairly easy so, if anyone want to assist, drop me a line. Heck, doesn't even have to be Access.. if I could do it via Excell even or something else, that is fine.

[Mustang]

Haven't had anything new come up recently so, not alot to add. With Ebay's new fees/rules starting up this year, really time to split up some of my sales and try to get my own site going.

I posted it in the random thoughts section, but if anyone is interested in a side job doing graphics, drop me a line...

[MacroGuru]

Haven't had anything new come up recently so, not alot to add. With Ebay's new fees/rules starting up this year, really time to split up some of my sales and try to get my own site going.

I posted it in the random thoughts section, but if anyone is interested in a side job doing graphics, drop me a line...

Are you looking for a logo? Banner? What?

I looked for logo design and just found one that had a style like I like and paid like 15 to 20 for it...got a ton of quality work that way.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Funny side note.

When discussing what we were doing, when my wife told her Dad what we were looking at doing, we laid out the items we would be carrying. One of the items was roleplaying games.

He looked kinda quizzical and said, "Well, guess people like that kinda thing. What types of costumes?"

My wife was kinda confused and asked what he meant.
"Well, roleplaying, when adults dress up together"
Noooooo, not THAT kinda roleplaying. :D

Can't believe I missed this bit of TMI from your f-in-law.
Gold:D