Comments on: Small Retail: 5 Cheapest Strategies to keep your retail store alive

By: Robert A

Robert A — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:53:37 +0000

Well good luck and I hope you have done research in your niche before you invest in your business.

Here goes a quick list of things you need:

Business lic, save time and register your business lic as the domain name of your business

You should have at lease one years worth of money in the bank for your personal living. Worst thing for you to do is think you will live off the business during your 1st year. Any money coming in you want to reinvest into the company for more income

A Keyword Driven Domain Name for your business. Since you are thinking of a local pool business think of something that will tell your clients where and who you are

A website created from a blog like wordpress. Give advise to people on how they can treat there pool and stuff like this. This will get people in your area to notice that you are a pro and seek out your advice

A hosting account to host your business

Merchant account or someway for you to take credit cards. You might be able to use paypal and have your clients locally pay you online.

Some marketing tools to hand your door to door clients.

A unique way you do business. Give your clients a reason why they should use your business over the other businesses in your area

Email marketing system, it's the cheapest and best way to stay in contact with your clients and continue to market to them

Hmmm that seems good for starters Good luck and below are a few sites to help you with some of the online idea

By: Amber

Amber — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:11:43 +0000

Go to http://sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/index.html or http://www.bplans.com/ where you will find sample business plans and instructions on how to write a business plan.

By: the king7

the king7 — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:45:51 +0000

When you sell to retailers like Walmart, that activity is wholesaling.

When you sell directly to end-users of your product, that activity is retailing.

If, in the future, you end up doing both, then you are both a wholesaler and a retailer. For tax purposes, these 2 activites have different tax rates for things like B&O tax, etc.

By: Billy K

Billy K — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:02:30 +0000

I run 5 websites (none in retail though). I can say that this is a hard question to answer. Clearly, overstock.com will cost more to run than joesglass.com. I personally use bluehost.com for hosting, so my monthly expense is under $10 for all 5 sites (non-retail though…). I see anywhere from 8k to 20k visitors monthly with no speed issues. You should probably look into some e-commerece software solutions like this:

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/

It looks like their starter package is about $40/month, and its scalable in case your business grows unexpectedly.

By: audemars

audemars — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 05:40:47 +0000

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Chinese+retail+businesses&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

By: blackbag4795209

blackbag4795209 — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:30:42 +0000

Besides the SBA, look around for microlending organizations in your community. Many of them receive funding from the SBA, and can help you develop a business or marketing plan. The loan amount are small, but for the kind of business you're talking about, it may be enough.

Good luck!
Pamela Johnson
http://www.SewingMachineRepairing.com
(also a community college business instructor)

By: Mikelo

Mikelo — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:41:23 +0000

How about a book store, if you are looking retail?

I cant say if it would work in your town, you need to do marketing research to see what would succeed in your town.
Also in business .. Location, Location, Location is VERY important to success .. not only do you need the right business, you need the right location ..

Passion, YES .. you do have to work long hours but passion because you believe in what you are doing.
I work from home and have the utmost compassion and belief for what I do, I believe that is what brings me success ..

If you don't like books, don't like to read .. then a book store probably wont make sense. Did deep .. Only you know what you really want to do.

GL!

By: markbenj_a

markbenj_a — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 07:07:49 +0000

yes. place an aquarium with piranhas and a sign "Do not feed the Piranhas" and put the business cards next to the aquarium.

By: a11city

a11city — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 06:55:38 +0000

important is you need to have some money, make a business plan, go to the small business administration in your town, get some in formations.
Look where you want to open your store, where is located, is there more stores like that, this will be not so good, find a some name for your store, and make the registrations for taxes, if you are making money over the years and your business working very good and you can open another store and more and more….
Good luck for your business…