Tweet

Entrepreneurs - Got a Great Retail Concept But Can’t Afford A Shop?

Written by:

Article Overview: Sometimes circumstances dictate that you can’t afford a retail shop but you really want to get your business started. Many small, retail businesses are not suitable to run from your home base or via a warehouse. Web sites, whilst having low start up costs, also take a lot of marketing and time to become profitable. Why not think about starting a kart or kiosk in a shopping mall? Here are a few points to consider.

Entrepreneurs - Got a Great Retail Concept But Can’t Afford A Shop?

As always Location, Location, Location: Many businesses need to be physically located out in midst of everyday life, in broad daylight where shoppers can easily find them. The location of your business is crucial to its survival. A store’s location can often spell its success or failure. Without sufficient store recognition, a business can suffer poor cash flow and will inevitably fail over time.

The location itself of the mall plays a huge role in your kart’s success. Is the mall located in an isolated part of the city or town, or right in the heart of the action? You must forecast the level as well as the timing of traffic your business will receive during the morning, midday, and late afternoon on each day of the week. Therefore, you can efficiently establish an employment schedule as well as appropriate operating hours.

Choose your mall carefully so that it has ample traffic of potential customers. Go there with a “clicker” and see how many people pass by per hour. Visit on several different days of the week as well as at different times.

Quality of Traffic: It is one thing to have steady traffic, and another to have the kind of traffic that your business needs. Some malls attract low-to-middle income people, while some other malls are targeted towards the upper class. Ensure that the kind of traffic in the mall is the kind that may buy your products.

Position in the Mall: Your success in a mall will depend on whether you are located in a section that is conducive to what your business is selling. You should look at the complementary nature of the adjacent stores. If you are a gourmet store, you may want to be located near a restaurant where people are already in their “hunger fulfilling” state of mind. Complementary businesses, such as fine jewelry and gourmet food, have also been proven to work well together as both its customers are likely to have disposable income and a tendency to spend for these two genres of luxury products.

Similarly high volume areas where lines of patrons form, such as theaters or department stores, are also good mall locations as it could give potential customers several minutes to look in your display or listen to your sales pitch.

Costs: Rental costs in shopping malls are often higher than rates in downtown Main Street. You main consideration should be: will the higher traffic compensate for the increased rental cost? If you can easily recover your monthly rental payment and overhead expenses, you’re in a good position to make a profit.

People Buy with their Eyes!: Lastly ensure that you display your products in an tempting manner. Karts and Kiosks are very good in selling items that are “impulse buys”. Make your products appealing and your sales pitch interesting and your sales will increase!

Lastly, as business improves, you can easily buy or lease another kart!

Consider all of the above and good luck with your kart business.

Related Articles
  Open a Second Hand Store: 4 Ways to Increase Your Success
  The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Franchise to open its fifth outlet in India
  Social Media for Retail Marketers
  Raymond eyes 40% rise in retail biz revenue in 2 years
  Taé Flagship Store, Lagos by Bisola Edun

Article Tags: broad daylight, cash flow, clicker, complementary businesses, complementary nature, days of the week, different times, disposable income, everyday life, fine jewelry, gourmet food, gourmet store, high volume, late afternoon, location location location, luxury products, midday, operating hours, right in the heart, steady traffic



Related Forum Posts
Happy Worker as of Dec 31 2007 - Here's mine... I'm now off to make an offering to the business planning gods for their help in getting to these goals & beyond. To the combined success of Prophets 2 Profits! ----------------------------------------- 1) Corporate a) Retail - Sales reps covering all major markets (1M or more) - Retail product launch plan - 1 more retail release (TBD) b) The Toy Agency - Systems for: o Creative process o Pricing o Manufacturing o Logistics - Marketing agency strategy in place - 1 new customer every 2nd month (5 new customers); 1 of which will be rev of >= 500K/year c) Business - Creative talent pool management strategy & process - Outsourced and/or weekly bookkeeping - Monthly budgeting & forecasting - Better banking organization (Line of Credit, CCs, automate billing for appropriate vendors) - Team total of 5 - Larger office d) Web site - Daily updates - Start of separation of Blog/TTA/Retail 2) Personal - Most weekends “off”! - Entirely separate personal finances; basic personal financing plan - Family….?
Here to Meet Great People! - Hi Matthew Ferry here! I am a life coach and also an entrepreneur. I work with people from all walks of life, Real Estate Agents/Brokers, Entrepreneurs, Businessmen. Great to be here in this forum! Looking forward to hear from you! Thanks!
CEOs and Email - Slaves? - I wonder if the emails they are responding to are filtered thru their assistants first 'cos they seem to spend a lot of their off hours responding to them. True they are successful but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that price. I'd be interested to know what's the in the typical day planner of Entrepreneurs on the Forum. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than Paid Employees- so it would be interesting to view the contrast.
New Women Entrepreneurs to Profile - Thanks Mikki! We've got Madam C.J. Walker on the list as well as Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), Mary Kay Ash, and Ruth Handler (Mattel). I'm not too familiar with the Debbie Fields story - what do you know about it? Sheldon, Are you connected with these two companies? What can you tell me about them?
Fundraising for 3rd world Entrepreneurs - How great to learn that Evan is doing something for Entrepreneurs in Africa! It just makes me even more thankful to be part of this forum! After helping create a new charity for animals in my local community last year, I created a vision for a charity empowering Women Entrepreneurs. It won't happen for a while yet, but I know it is something I will do within the next few years. As we allow ourselves to think bigger, the opportunity to impact people becomes much bigger as well. Does anyone else have a desire to really make a difference in the world through this means?


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Ways to Improve Your Landing Page Conversions

Let's Skip the Offshore Horror Stories

Civility in the Workplace---Is it Decreasing?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.