Any advice on opening a shop?

So I've been wanting to escape my daily grind (in TV broadcast) for a few years now. I've toyed with various ideas, but the one that has been there through it all is a store, selling specialist apparel and accessories, as well as hopefully using the space for small workshops/events. Ideally there'd be coffee and other refreshments for sale as well.

I need to kickstart this now or never. Currently looking into what would be involved, as it seems like such a huge task. Where to start?! But realise it would be easier to view in manageable bites. I know the internet is a founatin of knowledge on everything, but thought I'd see if anybody on here has firsthand experience of launching a retail business and has any advice or words of warning etc?

BTW - I have no personal savings, but looking into loans and crowdfunding options. And I have no real retail experience, other than working in Sainsburys through school and uni...13 years ago.

How poor do you want to be?

Maybe hit up @jammy - he’s got tonnes of experience in this area. I’d imagine a good chat with him would help you understand if this is a viable venture for you.

some stuff in here maybe

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/301778/

I know. It'd def be tough financially, to begin with. Guess that's the bonus of being 37 and never really having had a 'well paid' job. Better to be getting job satisifaction at least, if I'm gonna be earning peanuts.

I am keen to see how Camber and the whole Business As Usual collective goes. Sounds like it'll be awesome. And it's Forever Pedalling that's inspired me in part recently (although wouldn't be in exactly the same field).

I’ve have owned a shop in hackney for almost 7 years now.

Started from redundancy and an idea, through a laughably stock empty shop, to being in a enjoyable life/work balance though still with restrictions and stress with it, but hopefully will never work
for anyone again after doing it.

^ sounds like massively wanky spam

PM me with any questions

I manage a bike coop in Leeds. Retail is hard work, high risk, for no financial reward. Selling bikes and helping people is fun, though.

Be v careful and take advice. My mate john opened rawligion near Tottenham court road a while back. Put everything he had into it and it folded about 18m later. He was busy and had a good client base too. Such a shame.

Going by how the markets is going... and which shops are surviving.
Try and do a tailored approach with bike fitting service and possible team up with a frame builder.
Get a decent mechanic and provide a good service and have a most parts in stock. Market it towards high end road bikes.
You will not survive selling socks and inner tubes.
Coffee and chill out area will attract the right crowd may be even sublet a small area to some one to run it.

Also a dream of mine - if you find a space and want some brand / interiors design help (from a qualified / bored Architect ) - I’m desperate to pick up more interesting projects for my portfolio.also I like building stuff .. do it !!

Why not just open a coffee shop without the stigma of cyclists attached?

high end road bikes.

I don't think so. That's terribly focused. As much as it irks many people to say this; the future is in e-bikes. There's too many competing high end stuff.

All depends where you are based, as to what style of outlet you run. Cities have more of an open mind to mixed outlets, but possibly more competition, large towns similar, small market towns can be quite blinkered in their wants/needs and also have smaller client bases. My wife and her friend (the financial clout) run a small cafe/craft/boutique type place in Cheshire, after salaries, bills, and stock expenditure there is fook all left, and it's been running 3 years. You're never gonna be rich but you may enjoy life more. Good luck with whatever venture you decide to go with.

There are issues with having lots of high end stuff in stock:

1. It's expensive to buy in
   
2. For the items that people actually want you'll be paying more at trade than your customers pay Wiggle at retail
   
3. Combine 1 and 2 and you'll end up being left holding the baby, as it were, with thousands of pounds of stock that you eventually have to sell at a loss - or the receivers will sell for you
   
   

I'd say the stock of parts that you should carry are those that support low effort, high margin, rapid servicing - drop the bike off in the morning and collect in the afternoon type stuff. Punctures, brake pads, chains etc.

If I'm dropping a frame in to have a full groupset and finishing kit fitted then a) I don't mind it taking a few days and b) I'm highly likely to provide the parts alongside the frame.

Honestly I'd run as lean as possible on parts, poor cash flow will kill your new business really, really fast.

Critical thing to focus on, in my view, would be services based stuff - service and experience.

What does that mean? Run me through a bike fit that I can send to Burls, whilst selling me coffee, then get the frame delivered to the workshop along with the parts and build it for me. ~£400 of high margin work that I can't order from Wiggle.

I'd also, as mentioned, focus on eBikes - I personally would like an eCargo bike, if there was a place that I could test one out that was on the way to work I'd probably own one by now. Competition is currently low which likely means that margins are high in comparison to other types of bike.

Aim for a minimum margin of 70% on everything - for a high-staff business, if run lean, that means you can (hope for!) around 20% pre-tax profit (in my experience of FMCG).

I personally would like an eCargo bike

I'm not business minded and suck at math, but the potential within the e-bike industry is quite interesting.
They still need regular service like bicycles, but with the added service for the electronic components, all which is set in the same method as cars do. Spanner comes up, go in. People can't ignore that like they do with normal bikes, so that's another consistency that's welcome.
At least for me as someone who repairs bikes.

My sister could sell you an e-cargo bike but she operates out of Hackney so a bit of a trek for you.

Oh and she wants a shop. Just to you know keep it relevant.

I'm not business minded and suck at math, but the potential within the e-bike industry is quite interesting.

They still need regular service like bicycles, but with the added service for the electronic components, all which is set in the same method as cars do. Spanner comes up, go in. People can't ignore that like they do with normal bikes, so that's another consistency that's welcome.
At least for me as someone who repairs bikes.

If you were well capitalised then a model where you lease an e-bike to a punter with a service plan for the life of the lease would make sense.

I (as the punter) pay you £whatever per month rather than having to find £3,000, you get a subscription based income stream each time you sell a bike.

Funny you say that, as that's an idea I've been toying around whilst out in the Mediterranean rental world.

I'm not totally sure on feasibility, but it broadens the spectrum of customer acquisition/usability. Some people don't ride winter and therefore see no point of buying a bike only to store it during those months. Like wise, majority of people don't have a mind or a care to service the bike. Adding convenience through a mailing/subscription base would alleviate a lot of grey areas around for people.

Lease bike for amount of time (summer), all inclusive. Done.

To maybe further push that, possible contracts with manufacturers could alleviate the issues of start up capital. Dunno how that would work, but it's an idea.

All of this can be run in parallel to how a normal bike shop operates. Doesn't take anything away. It all has potential.

Maybe I need a bloody bike shop!

I'd work hard to avoid any situation where you get given the bike back and are then reliant on making some money from the sale of it, ideally you'd want to write down the cost of the asset over the lease period so anything realised upon sale is a bonus, and the usual action at end-of-lease would be to provide the punter with a new bike with a new lease.

Providing the bike for six months would mean that you have to get the cost back over that period - around £500/month for something decent (I'm paying ~£450/month for my Cannondale Scalpel as it was interest free for six months, as a point of reference).

To make that £500 is, I suspect, easier if it's rented out in week long chunks at £125, rather than finding someone willing to pay out £500/month for six months.

Back to e-bikes - bear in mind that you have a much, much larger audience for these than for MAMIL-chariots, an e-cargo bike is a car replacement/alternative, rather than a posing pouch cum sports tool.

To make that £500 is, I suspect, easier if it's rented out in week long chunks at £125, rather than finding someone willing to pay out £500/month for six months.

This is a a tricky part I haven't quite figured out yet. Finances aren't my strong suit, so it takes time. Assuming this concept will be directly implemented from a car platform would be folly. Reckon weekly as you said, would be significantly more alluring from a consumer perspective. Punching into the high three figures starts to creep into alarming digits.

Back to e-bikes - bear in mind that you have a much, much larger audience for these than for MAMIL-chariots, an e-cargo bike is a car replacement/alternative, rather than a posing pouch cum sports tool.

This. This was a basis for the whole idea. I can't fathom why focusing on a single spectrum would be beneficial business wise. There's plenty of high end shit, and the people that hang around that world so tend to buy their crap, nor are they an indicator of majority users.

e-bikes numbers are up everywhere, as are their future projections, leaves much to reason for why they can't pick up in the UK as well.
Saying that, the initial purchase cost is exceedingly high for the likely user, which is to say casual riders.
Stands to reason then, to look at this from a different perspective.

Who was the dude who worked at TFG?

Maybe he could tell you why that folded to give an idea of the pitfalls.

Jammy

Co-op?

I didn't want to create a new thread, just because I also need advice on starting a business.
I want to open a shop in the UK, but I am from Poland. So I need help with localisation, since I don't know anything about all the legal stuff in the UK. I am well prepared to open a shop, but I need help with market research, distributors, lacalisation and all that.
Many have suggested hiring someone for that. For example, in other forums I've seen Point one (https://pointoneintl.com/) mentioned a lot, but I didn't really get if they are actually worth hiring. Anyone heard of this company? I believe that they would save me quite a lot of time and nerves, but I want an investment like this to pay off.
What do you all think? Is it better to just continue my work alone or to hire professionals?

If I were you I'd get some experience in bike shops first if you have none. Read my bio if you're interested (Second, third paragraph) ( http://www.perlierides.co.uk/bike-repairs-and-sales-in-hackney-since-2005/ ) I opened my shop about ten years ago and my one regret is not spending more time in the industry. When you start your own thing you have to either hire in experienced individuals or learn it yourself. What better way to learn than whilst being paid. By working for others you can highlight the lucrative elements of a business as well as learn about the hurdles and headaches. As with anything big in life I like to rush in slowly and do my research.

I started with a note book. The first thing I did was list all the things I needed to learn. I listed mechanical gaps in my knowledge as well as accounting / business / legal topics I would need to read up on. The list got huge but I ticked enough thing off the list that I became confident enough to commit.

My approach was an organic growth of the business. You could start small and part time and slowly let it build momentum like I did. For the record, I started out with a debt, A DEBT of seven thousand pounds! It is doable but it has been hard. Do I love it? Yes. Do I hate it? Yes!

Really useful information, thanks!! I was sure it becomes a pain, but it's great that you still keep going!