Thinking of starting a HS...Please help

[kartrun]

Hey guys,
I am currently looking into starting a hobby shop.I am very serious about this and need help getting started!I've been in the hobby for about 13 years and am at the age now where its time to make some decisions in my life!what i am wanting to know is any pointers that i should know and is there any website that offers help for someone wanting to start this type of business?I am tired of the average "expert hobby shop" and feel like i have a plan for a hobby shop with a little "flare"!Any help i could get concerning this issue would be greatly appreciated!Thanks guys and wish me luck! :)

[HumbleEagle487]

You wouldn't happen to be building it in Syracuse would you. Oh BTW I wish you good luck and lots of money.

[kartrun]

Thanks humble!!Sorry...shop will be in north carolina!But hey,give me a call,i'll ship it to you ;)

[bluesy]

Good on you, mate!! Every time I had the money I ran out of nerve and visa-versa. When I retire I'm going to operate a home based jewellry repair and custom jewellry manufacturing business.

Long lineups and great profits....

BTW.. The Canadian Govt has Small Business Development Offices. Could be your State or Federal Govt has the same thing. Good Luck!!

[HauntedMyst]

kartrun,
The guy who opened up the hobby shop here in town did it with Hobbytown USA and he's been very happy with it. I would check out their homepage for contact info. They seem like a great company, and help you set up the store, ordering, etc.

[Interceptor]

If you wanted to come to Charlotte, there are a couple of hobby shops, but none have decent customer service, or a track. The closest we have to a local track is in Rock Hill, Which are a great bunch of guys. I think that a tore with good service and a track or two would do really well.

[KIWIRCGUY]

I used to have a small "store" that I used to run from home. It is hard work but very rewarding (not only in cash), its really cool to see a guy win at your local track and be able to say " that guy bought his tyres etc from me!!!!" I suggest the very first thing to look into is customer base. NOT only RC but static models, model railways etc. Checking for a good location is very important also. Dont get the cheapest place nor the biggest, you may find you have to pay a little or even a lot more for a smaller place in a great location than a huge shop 2 miles from anywhere. A shop in my town moved about 1km away from its old store and was broke within a year!!!!! And that was with cheaper rent etc. Most wholesalers wont let you purchase from them until they see evidence of your store front.

BEST OF LUCK TO YOU..... Cheaper postage to New Zealand please ;)

[nsane]

Sounds like a good idea to me Kart - Then you can pick up the tab as my sponsor :)

How was vacation? Any word on that enduro / cars / when you want to do some running?

[Interceptor]

Yeah, and me and Nsane can work for ya :p

[rc10gt_bb]

Thats funny? I almost thought there for a second that you meant you wanted to start a High School! (HS, High School!) :rolleyes: Good luck though. I have dreams of one day owning a hooby shop with a track. Maybee when I retire! I am almost seriuosly thinking about working r&d or something for Associated or Losi. If I got a masters in Mech. Engineering do you think they would take me. (I'm a high school student with high hopes!) Godd luck with the shop! Too bad its not at least 500 miles from me. It would be closer than any others. :mad: :D

[mikemann]

In all seriousioness...I was looking into doing the exact same thing. I have a local track with very little support and two small mom and pop hobby stores that really do **** . I wish I could give them more business and wish they were better but I don't have anything decent that is not more than 75 miles away and I live in a very highly populated area!

In any case, I very seriously was considering this as I have recently become unemployed due to the market conditions and tech fallout.

Of all the options Hobbytown has put together a very smart and easy package for someone to get into this business. I am very impressed with the completeness of their program and the several stores I have visited.

If it's something your looking into I highly suggest you contact them. Or if you'd like feel free to contact me as well - mikemann@value.net.

I have no affiliation with these guys other than going the the motions with them recently.

-Mike

[very low budget racer]

Yeah, if you go an make a HobbyTown USA franchise all you need is a 35k inicial investment. Keep that for a few years till you meet people (like distributors and such) then make your own since you know how they really work. I saw that you could make a HobbyTown USA franchise a while ago and though, hrm... I could do this after college and even with a career. But anyway, my LHS is a HobbyTown USA, then the guy changed it into his own hobbyshop Hobby USA. He was talking to this guy saying he is raking in the money now, he competes with Tower Hobbies excellently, gets alot of buisness, and he is retired. So good luck and many riches to you.

[mavrick0611]

i dont know much about buisness, but ill tell you what to do that causes me to order from tower instead of my lhs. They dont usualy have any thing in stock. Have a good selection of chargeres, motors and stuff. try to anticipate what items are going to sell first and order more before they sell out. At my LHS i guess they think once its sold out its a good idea to then order more of it, and you have to wait 2 weeks to even months.

Once you get enough money, put in a REAL r/c track. It will make your customers happy and it will draw more buisness in for you. basicly just think what you would want in your LHS.

hope i had some thoughts that may have helped.
aj

[very low budget racer]

My hobby shop gets stuff 2-3 days later all the time.

[mavrick0611]

they usually get stuff that I DONT NEED in a few days. But parts that i need, say a suspension arm or piston and sleeve for my trxxas cars, have been on order for a while. :rolleyes:
aj

[chucksolo]

Having been a business owner for over 20 years, (I owned a commercial Laundry and Dry Cleaning plant before I got into the IT game. At one time we did all the laundry and dry cleaning on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base in Oceanside, CA.), I can only say that make very, very sure you have plenty of money in the bank to cover the lean times and do as much work yourself as you can handle. Employees add to the complexities of running a business in a manner you cannot imagine (both payroll employment taxes and Workers Comp Insurance can become administrative AND financial nightmares). One of the biggest fallacies that people have when they open up a business is that people will automatically flock to their doors once they open for business. It just ain't so!!!! A business has to be built up and worked to succeed. It took me 15 years of 12-16 hour days to make a comfortable living! I would urge you also to take some basic business courses at a Community College to get a feel for what to expect and also to join local business organizations for networking and exposure. Remember too, as a business owner, you are really never off work, I can't tell you the number of times I had to go to the plant in the middle of the night to stop a false alarm or to meet the police after a breakin.....I could go on and on. But the best advice I can give, is never, ever, mess with the IRS. Always play by the rules, you'll be sorry if you don't. Good luck in your future business.

[ATeam]

Listen to Chuck. He has given the best advice in this entire thread. Opening a new business is TOUGH! Don't let it discourage you, it can be done with LOTS of hard work. I know what Chuck is talking about. I've been running a new store for three years now and are just starting to break even. In all honesty if your not totally prepared for lots of stress and lots of long days, wait until you are ready to do this.

ATeam

[chucksolo]

Thanks ATeam, you know exactly what I am talking about. Glad to hear you're finally breaking even. Keep at it and you should see black ink soon.

Kartrun, one thing I forgot to mention was that there are a lot of organizations where you can get advice on things like financing and regulatory compliance. One of the best is an organization called SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) that can be called on to advise on business matters. The fee for advice is nominal or in most cases free. I was president of my local chamber of commerce in 1993 and that is also a great place to make contacts and get advice. Prepare yourself in advance and with a lot of work you will succeed. Again, good luck.

[ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: chucksolo ]

[rc10gt_bb]

A good trick if you were building an offroad track with a shop is too make it a real rough track so that they might break things. But now too often or they will get frutrated and not come.

[ChazMan]

Well I guess I might as well throw in my two cents although you have gotten some good responce so far. I am currently the Asst. Manager at a hobby shop, and let me tell you from my experience in the industry, if you are looking for financial security, opening your own personal hobby shop may not be the way to go. The hobby industry is a very tough one to be in, especially the LHS buisness because of such things as mail order, and Hobby Tows, which will absoultely kill you because you would only be buying stuff in small quantites, where as mail order and Hobby Towns buy in super heavy duty bulk, this means that in the end it costs ~you~ not a whole lot less than what magazines are selling the item for retail, to purchase from distributors (mostly on bigger items) So therefor to make a profit you will have to sell it for a higher price, because obviously you payed a lot more for the item originally. I'm not saying that opening your own hobby shop is bad or that you would fall flat on your face indeffinately by any means, our shope is very successful here because we have little compition, offer great service on everything we sell (to encourage people to spend the extra dollars rather than go mail order), and have a very wide range of items, from cars, planes, boats, models, kites, pinewood derby, trains, coin collecting etc. So if you could make it work, GREAT!
But..if it were up to me (and hopefully someday I will get to make this choice as well and own my own hobby store :) ) I would go into a franchise, you get better prices, they help you set up, provide all the materials, programs, ect to get you going, and you have nation wide advertisement through a franchise, and it's just a more sound way in my opinion.

Well anyways...those are my thoughts on it from what I've seen, but I'm by no means an expert on this, just trying to help! Good Luck to you!!..and if I can help in any other way just drop me a line! dachazman@hotmail.com

ChazMan

Oh and P.S. - For all your people who are big on spelling, yes there are mispelled words, but I think you get the jist and it's too late to go through and correct it all, so I'm just going to bed :)
Have Fun!

[ 07-22-2001: Message edited by: ChazMan ]

[XXXER]

ChazMan! Fellow, Utahn, go to the regional forums man!

You work at a hobby shop? Me too, I am just one of the nameless bums behind the counter that fixes cars, and gets the parts that people ask for.

BTW, you may know my little buddy that lives down there, Nick, he is also a registered member here.

Hope to see you in the club/track and regional forums!

-Steve

[tarheelquality]

Kartrun,I do not know if you were around when Triangle Hobbies was here in Durham but I was very involved in that store from the start. The biggest mistake the owner ended up making was not listening to the customers and ordering what they wanted. Instead he sunk money in to items that he thought people ought to want or that he wanted and let the customers become disatisfied with his selection. The customer is always right! If you remember that it will take you far. I think a franchise as definite advantages but remember you will be paying out a franchise fee too. When you look for places to put your shop ask the land lord if running races on the property on a regular basis will be a problem and when you do start doing racing coordinate with the folks in Chapel Hill so you are not trying to compete for the same racers on the same day. I have thought for a long time that a hobby shop would do well near us and I just hate you are going to beat me to it. If you would like to get some courses on running a buisness Durham Tech has free seminars and courses on starting and running small buisnesses as well as Vance Granville commmunity college.See you soon. :)

[ATeam]

low budget, I was checking out Hobby Towns website and it listed the total investment around $200K. You said $35K, is this what they want you to have in Cash, and the rest can be in loans or other assest such as homes, cars, etc?

ATeam

[kartrun]

ttt :)

[HowieStern]

my 2 cents here...

i helped open a new HS this spring....

if you will actually be living off the profit of the store... don't do it.... there won't be much (if any)...

if you are only doing it for "fun"..... and you don't really care if it shows a profit... then go for it... just be prepared for a ton of work for your "fun" store....

as talked about above.... mail order has killed the LHS's of america... so if you are actually wanting or needing your HS to make money, you would be a fool to open a new one...

our track makes more money selling 5 hot dogs and soda's than the LHS does by selling a new M-8.... just something to think about....

peace out..... :)

[kartrun]

Tarheel,i do remember triangle.....i raced there about every weekend!And you are right about the owner buying up stuff he wanted and not what everyone else wanted!That by far was the best hobby shop i have ever seen!!I would have killed to been a little older so i could have bought him out!He had what he needed to be VERY successfull but you are right,he forgot about us!Shame it had to go...i think about that shop all the time.....i miss it!! :(

[BlackWolf]

best to open a track. and charge 5-10 dollars a day for each driver to practice.

having a hobby shop on-site would be even better.

[ATeam]

mail order has killed the LHS's of america

I'm also afraid it will kill this hobby altogether. Because when a LHS that has a track closes, there is alos another track that has bit the dust.

ATeam