Buying a Coffee Shop Business price now reduced further

Rossie_Cheeks

I did not pursue the coffee shop purchase, but the seller as emailed me directly again and has reduced the sale of shop from 35,000 to 20,000 so there really must be something very fishy to reduce it by such a large amount.

Suarez

Ask for a copy of the accounts. 100k net profit??? No way!

nomoneytoday

£20k? Is the building about to be demolished or has a chain bought the site next door?
Is it a scam?

Also there are very few barriers to entry with a coffee shop. What's to stop you leasing next door instead and saving the £20k ?

Suarez

It would cost 20k to fit a coffee shop out..

Snakeeyes21

Rossie_Cheeks wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for all your advise regarding the coffer shop venture.

I never actually met the owner on Saturday, he rang and cancelled the appointment. My partner will go and visit owner during the week. The coffee shop is more a Sandwich Bar, its very small indeed, and like others have said here there is no way it can be turning over 200k.

We are going to knock this on the head, but will be good to go and meet the guy to see what he has to say and get ideas if we decide to pursue the coffee shop business.

Thanks again

Dont be fooled by the size of the outlet, you can send a surprisingly large amout of food out in a small space, take this from somebody whos been in the trade for a good 10 years, £500 turnover a day from a takeaway / sandwich shop is nothing thats only 100 people buying a roll and a drink / coffee or something, and a person that has a bit of experience can easily handle that by themselves.

If you ask him where the turnover comes from I can pretty much guarantee quite a bit will be from local businesses / offices who have their lunches delivered, even a small office that has lunches for 15 delivered a day will give you 10% of that turnover for 20 minutes work a day.

Edit.. Damn dates, I should look before I type..

paulwf

I'm stating the obvious here but unlike a house a shop doesn't have any set value. House values may have declined 10% or whatever in the recession but they can be sold for a value within the same ballpark as what they are purchased for. Not so with businesses, I had a friend who knew what his business should have been worth but as no one would buy it had to drop it by 50% until someone came along. Another recent case I know a business owner that invested nearly £100K in setting up a shop, a year later it sold for a figure in the single thousands just to get it sold. If the P&L sheet isn't showing enough profit or you just can't find a buyer than a 50%...or in the case I gave a 90% drop...can easily happen.

Sounds like the shop isn't making a profit and the owner is bailing before sales decline any more and he runs out of money.

barneygumble

paulwf wrote: »

£200K turnover with only 1 member of staff...unlikely.

Why not our company does £500k with 2.

s_b

barneygumble wrote: »

Why not our company does £500k with 2.

thats an awful lot of lattes for 2 people
well done
do you sell cakes too?