I know this isn’t a business forum, but there are people here who have their own businesses (or have in the past). I’ve discovered that although my shop is online-only, I’m getting a much bigger sales volume and better marketing ROI of my shop from in-person sales events. I’ve been doing pet expos and things like that. Which makes me wonder about things like pop up shops or co-retailing. I’ve done some Googling and emailing some local resources but I would love to hear if anybody here has tried these with a retail business.
In my research so far I’ve found that it will be some years before I can afford a “normal” lease for either a small warehouse or small retail space. I currently run my shop out of my house. One property manager for a large retail mall near me said that they’ll do temporary retail leases for no less than a 90-day period. That doesn’t work for me yet. I’m thinking I would love to do something in a small space one or two weekends a month. Sharing a retail space may be the solution but I don’t know who to inquire with on such a thing.
I’ve also found that there are several “business incubators” around me, but they all cater to businesses that are more office/research/meeting oriented, not retail. Do you think I should reach out to them and suggest they try some sort of “retail incubator” where two or three small retailers share a space for limited time periods?
I have seen this done, and worked with entrepreneurs who tried to sell the concept to small retail partners. Honestly, the practice comes off like a flea market, an antique store (that rents spaces, as above) or some kind of middle eastern souk. Nothing that will attract worthwhile customers, and you’ll forever be “covering” for your stablemate who wants to go to the bathroom and wanders the mall for an hour.
Something that should work better, but has too much baggage to ever work right.
I’ve seen retail stores that divide their space in half. Just one entrance, shelves dividing the space. Sometimes commercial realtors are aware of these spaces. Otherwise you may just have to ask around. Maybe there’s a local business association that can help you. You have to be aware of potential problems with two different sets of owners and employees with access to the same space. I’ve seen the open malls as mixdenny mentioned where the individual owners have to remove all their merchandise when they aren’t there or keep it in locked containers. Sounds like you’re looking for a moderately high traffic area but out of the way low rent places may be more practical for you. Glad to hear your business is doing well.
Ah, antique mall isn’t something that I thought of. It’s not quite the right demographic, but it’s worth investigating at least just to see what’s out there.
I’ve reached out to a small business “assistant” from our county SBA. Maybe we can work together on something like an upscale version of the antique mall.
There was a local game store that sold RPGs, war games, and collectible card games, and all of the assorted accessories and supplements. My buddy dealt in old action figures and similar collectibles.
The store did not sell any merchandise like what he sold, but the kinds of people who shop at the store are the same kinds of people interested in what my buddy sold.
So my buddy sub-let a small corner of the store and set up his own shelves, signs, etc. He ran his own register and handled all of his sales. His little corner was a completely autonomous store inside the bigger store. From what he told me it was mutually beneficial; he’d catch the eye of people coming in to shop gaming supplies, and lots of people who came to buy from him also shopped in the rest of the store. He eventually moved on but it was a nice arrangement at the time. He also avoided a lot of the headaches associated with finding and maintaining his own physical store property and the game store got a monthly income from him.
ISTM this is exactly what the very common “pushcart” in the enclosed shopping mall was invented for.
Namely businesses that have a small physical volume of slow moving merchandise that need to feed off foot traffic they can’t generate on their own. And whose sales would never pay for a multi-hundred square foot storefront in the same mall.
I have also seen “pushcarts” that are also pretty effective IRL ads for their websites. So if some of your stuff is too bulky to have at the cart it can be advertised on your displays and folks can see the smaller products as teasers.
There are probably lower limits on how many hours you need to have your cart staffed and open. Which might be the biggest obstacle to starting down that path.
The good news is that malls come in all demographics and assuming you don’t live in a small town you can find one nearby that attracts the types of customers you’re targeting.
Yes, the mall carts are the basic idea. However, from what I’ve seen mall property owners (or leasing agents) price the darn things as if you expect to make a million dollars a day. In other words, they’re not actually affordable despite their small size. The company that quoted me the 90-day minimum for a popup shop in their shopping center said that this short term lease was over $3000/month. If I could afford that, I could afford a lease for a regular small retail shop.
What I’m thinking is sort of a small scale version of what Tesla does, and what Amazon is starting to do: brick and mortar showrooms to support an online business. For my shop specifically, I would invite customers to bring their pets to try out my interactive puzzles and other products. I would have limited inventory to support onsite sales, but for the most part my sales would still be online.
Atamasama, are you still in touch with your buddy? Could you ask him how he managed to make that arrangement? Was the main shop owner already someone he was friends with, or did he have to introduce himself and sell his idea?
This is very popular in beauty salons: the owner will sell jewelry or hair decorations from an independent crafter or importer. There’s a common audience, so why not?
Also, in a farmer’s market near me (Jean Talon market), a duck farmer and a sausage maker share a retail shop. (The sausage maker uses various meats as well as duck.) Makes sense to me: they’ve got shared customers and similar hygiene requirements.
The difference is that kiosk sales in a mall are a long-accepted idea, and they are parasitic on the massive traffic the mall (already a sales collective) brings. As you note, kiosk or pushcart space is not a particularly low-end entry point for retail; you don’t see independent jewelry makers, but tiny-footprint presence from either giant companies (Verizon, Bose, big banks) or the “junk” collectives that have a thousand perfume, gift or engraving kiosks across the region.
Your question seemed to be more about shared retail space at a low cost point along the lines of antique stores (another established practice). As I said, I’ve seen it tried - micro-retailers sharing a store - but I’ve never seen it succeed, not really, because shoppers won’t make any special effort to visit. Traffic will be low and idle and competition for the scanty bucks will be high, and cooperation in running the operation will be fragile.
It’s an idea that should work, that could work… but mostly doesn’t.
Since you want to get exposure for your pet products you may want to arrange demos at local animal shelters, groomers, kennels, etc. Offer them a small cut of anything you sell there. Virtually no fixed costs in that kind of arrangement.
I’m not a store owner but, if I was, I wouldn’t want someone who was only there two or four days a month. That feels like not enough time to create a significant draw but then I also have to deal with the occasional straggler asking where that pet stuff is.
It feels to me like you’d be better suited for a flea market situation. We have a big one around here that runs one weekend a month that would be a good fit for someone who just wanted to retail on the same schedule. It draws in a ton of people including folks with considerable cash in pocket who are looking for antiques, yard decorations, jewelry, etc.
Yep! I’m actually working on this angle already also, with more success. My background in dog rescue gave me a starting point for networking with local rescues. This may ultimately be my successful growth booster, especially if I can refine my approach of making them educational seminars/demonstrations that happen to have products for sale, rather than just pure sales.
Good points here (and also Barbarian’s points). I think that although some flea market shoppers might have a lot to spend, they’re not quite the right demographic. My shop is positioned slightly upscale rather than bargains, and I try to appeal to people interested in giving their pets a better than food-and-water lifestyle.
This is off topic but do you ever advertise on Facebook? I’m in your target demographic (dog owner with no kids, so extra income to spend on my babies) and like 90% of the ads I see are for dog-related stuff. And I have bought many of the items that come across my feed.
Just by virtue of what I post, Facebook has got me pegged.
The one I visit now and then has plenty of more upscale shoppers (seriously, a lot of that stuff ain’t cheap) but I can’t speak for your local area and what’s available. If your local markets are all selling bootleg DVDs, salvaged lawn mowers and PloyStaytion consoles from China then, yeah, it probably wouldn’t work.
Another point out of favor for store retail – what does the owner do with your space the rest of the time? Put his or her stuff back? Move it a couple times a month to accommodate you? Leave it empty? Just feels like a 1-2x a month schedule wouldn’t work there.
Yes, sometimes. I ran a FB ad in February. Online advertising can be pretty costly before you get any ROI from it. Or in other words, you need to spend quite a lot before you get enough exposure to bring in sales. For the campaign in February, I used Mailchimp’s new FB ad integration. They’re able to track your sales to actually report which sales came from the ad as opposed to sales resulting from other channels. It’s very nice!
Okay, I’ll see what flea markets we have in the area. Good point about moving the merchandise around in the retail sharing situation. I was thinking that we co-owners would move our stuff in and out, just like setting up and taking down for one-off events. But that could get old pretty quickly.
Just anecdotally, a woman with a similar background (vet tech, worked in rescue as well) opened a specialty pet food and supply store here in our small town. She had a very inexpensive retail spot in a somewhat hidden complex, and was open very short hours around her other job(s).
She completely failed and vanished after about a year. Of course, she was of the small-town New England stripe that thinks business is done by hanging out a (small, tasteful) shingle in the dark of night, then sitting quietly behind your counter waiting for business to find you. After six years of trying to deal with one failing merchant after another who thinks “marketing” is flashy preening done in other places - and I mean “marketing” as in “let people in the area know you’re here” - I will be glad to see Nwingland in my rear view mirror soon.
Just a word to the wise that however you actually do business, letting people know you’re there, and when, and what your products are, and so forth is essential to even modest success. But you’ve hinted you already know that.
Yep! That’s my biggest goal this year, to get my shop “out there” in front of people, both online and physically. So I’m spending a lot of time on various marketing goals. “If you build it, they will come” never works.
Thanks for the flea market mention, it led me to discovering a local “indie open air market” that I didn’t know existed. It’s not a flea market but more of a drop-in vending market in an upscale area. I checked their vendor registration rules and they have two ways to register: a small fee for a dedicated 10x10 tent space in the plaza (bring your own tent and supplies), or drop-in (first come first served) space for a lower fee. The rules and policies are very fair and favorable.
Both would work for me, so I’m going to go check it out as a shopper one weekend real soon, and then maybe try it once or twice as a drop in. If the venue works for me, I can “upgrade” to a dedicated vendor.
In some parts of the country those are part local small agribusinesses actually selling fresh local produce plus a bunch of crafters selling their wares. And a couple of tents selling chinese trinkets. The last one I attended I bought fresh local corn & berries from a farmer, some homemade jam from a jam-maker, and a silkscreened shirt from a crafter.
At least around here we have a number of these things that don’t run weekly but rather only on the 1st, 3rd, or whatever Saturday or Sunday. Which makes it possible for one person with one tent to make the rounds of several locations over the course of a month.
The more venues you know about the better you can decide which one(s) to target.
