My shop is doing a little better this year than last. By that I mean I'm averaging 2 orders a week as opposed to 1 order/month last year. And my average order size is about $28. My average monthly operating expenses are rock bottom, around $150, but I'm still not profitable yet. I have an appointment with a SCORE (small business) mentor next Tuesday where I'm going to show him my numbers and plans and ask how I can bring my sales up. But there's something else that I've been thinking about. Would love to just chew it out with you guys here, if anyone's interested.
Oh, just to level set, my shop is online retail, the link is in my siggy. So my business needs are a little bit different from consultancies or service businesses. Everyone is welcome to chime in, but keep in mind that my area of focus is retail.
I have a day job that I'm really hating lately. I'm an IT business analyst for a corporate company. I like the work, it's just that there's a LOT of dysfunction at this company. So a couple weeks ago I started job hunting. But, I'm 54 years old and agism may make a job hunt rough. I'm not of the mind to let that stop me, it's just something to consider. I have a little over $700,000 in retirement savings, and by my calculations if I continue saving at the current rate, I'll have a million in 1.7 years.
Back to my shop and my low sales volume, I'm wondering if I'm starving the business either financially or timewise. I've been extremely financially conservative because I don't want to lose my shirt (and my husband is especially risk averse). I have no loans in the business, only our own cash investment of $8,000. If I am starving the biz for cash, I can apply for a small business loan for anything more that we're not willing to invest ourselves.
If I'm starving the biz by treating it like a part time hobby (which I realize that I am), I can ask my day job if I can go part time and then spend more time on my shop. I would LOVE to do that, but it would of course cut my income down. Or if the company refuses or gets pissed off that I've started my own business, they may sideline me (I doubt they'd fire me), and if they piss ME off enough, I may just quit. So then no income.
I recently discovered that one of the local metro stations near me, one of the new ones where they're still building apartments and condos around, has set up several popup shops and community entertainment area. It's NICE and the metro station brings a crap ton of foot traffic especially morning and evening. The hours for the popup shops are 3 - 7pm Monday - Friday and when I checked it out yesterday, I noticed that some of the merchants in the popup shops also had Saturday hours. That got me excited. If I dropped back to part time in my crappy day job, I could easily work a popup shop there without having to hire staff. I would of course need to spend some money on the lease, some shelving and signage, insurance, etc. So I'm not saying it will be a free ride. But it's a VERY cool opportunity to try out a short term lease (they have 30-day, 60-day and 90-day leases on these little shops).
The way I envision a popup shop working for my biz is this: a close partnership of the B&M and online points of sale. The B&M would be a place for customers to play with the products, ask questions, get to know me... so marketing and sales. I already have a smart phone POS and card reader for my online shop, so it would continue to be my POS software and primary shop. In other words, when people buy in the B&M shop, I'd process their order through my online shop using my phone card-swiper (or cash). All my inventory and sales analytics would continue to live in my online shop platform. And I can also continue to accept online orders.
I think that's definitely the next level of growth for my shop. The main question is if I'm ready for it, or if it's too early. And the thing that's making it hard for me to answer that question is the other question of whether I'm starving the shop for time and/or cash.
Anyway, thoughts? I don't expect other people to solve the problem for me, but I think discussion might help me work it out for myself.
Oh, just to level set, my shop is online retail, the link is in my siggy. So my business needs are a little bit different from consultancies or service businesses. Everyone is welcome to chime in, but keep in mind that my area of focus is retail.
I have a day job that I'm really hating lately. I'm an IT business analyst for a corporate company. I like the work, it's just that there's a LOT of dysfunction at this company. So a couple weeks ago I started job hunting. But, I'm 54 years old and agism may make a job hunt rough. I'm not of the mind to let that stop me, it's just something to consider. I have a little over $700,000 in retirement savings, and by my calculations if I continue saving at the current rate, I'll have a million in 1.7 years.
Back to my shop and my low sales volume, I'm wondering if I'm starving the business either financially or timewise. I've been extremely financially conservative because I don't want to lose my shirt (and my husband is especially risk averse). I have no loans in the business, only our own cash investment of $8,000. If I am starving the biz for cash, I can apply for a small business loan for anything more that we're not willing to invest ourselves.
If I'm starving the biz by treating it like a part time hobby (which I realize that I am), I can ask my day job if I can go part time and then spend more time on my shop. I would LOVE to do that, but it would of course cut my income down. Or if the company refuses or gets pissed off that I've started my own business, they may sideline me (I doubt they'd fire me), and if they piss ME off enough, I may just quit. So then no income.
I recently discovered that one of the local metro stations near me, one of the new ones where they're still building apartments and condos around, has set up several popup shops and community entertainment area. It's NICE and the metro station brings a crap ton of foot traffic especially morning and evening. The hours for the popup shops are 3 - 7pm Monday - Friday and when I checked it out yesterday, I noticed that some of the merchants in the popup shops also had Saturday hours. That got me excited. If I dropped back to part time in my crappy day job, I could easily work a popup shop there without having to hire staff. I would of course need to spend some money on the lease, some shelving and signage, insurance, etc. So I'm not saying it will be a free ride. But it's a VERY cool opportunity to try out a short term lease (they have 30-day, 60-day and 90-day leases on these little shops).
The way I envision a popup shop working for my biz is this: a close partnership of the B&M and online points of sale. The B&M would be a place for customers to play with the products, ask questions, get to know me... so marketing and sales. I already have a smart phone POS and card reader for my online shop, so it would continue to be my POS software and primary shop. In other words, when people buy in the B&M shop, I'd process their order through my online shop using my phone card-swiper (or cash). All my inventory and sales analytics would continue to live in my online shop platform. And I can also continue to accept online orders.
I think that's definitely the next level of growth for my shop. The main question is if I'm ready for it, or if it's too early. And the thing that's making it hard for me to answer that question is the other question of whether I'm starving the shop for time and/or cash.
Anyway, thoughts? I don't expect other people to solve the problem for me, but I think discussion might help me work it out for myself.
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