Close or Carry On?

Percy1983

Have you you ever hosted an event in the shop inviting locals and local media?

motorguy

assj wrote: »

Thanks for the info, so to answer questions, yes the events makes profit - but we spend it on the shop (some of it anyway)


The shop is located on a busy road, i.e. stop ten seconds and you nearly get hit by traffic (cars I mean)


There are very few passers by, originally we thought our current customers would come in and buy - but apparently not.


Our contract ends in December of this year and we can leave. I'm probably more disappointed that it wont work yet we were so confident that it would.

I would pull the pin in December then. Seems like a no brainer to me.

lincroft1710

Renting a shop and only staffing it for half the week does not make economic sense. You have established competition 7 doors away, why would anyone visit your shop when it is likely to be closed? Cut your losses and close in December.

Icequeen99

If the events business can make money without the shop - then close the shop, seems like a no brainer to me.

As for having premises - you can rent meeting rooms/venues if you really need somewhere for the events management business, say to meet prospective clients.

IQ

Percy1983

I will say with my video business, some of my competition have small studios for green screening etc. I sell with the opposite angle, why loose time coming to us for filming when we can come to you.

Yes a premises is nice but the cost of one will just push up prices for everything else.

Savvy_Sue

assj wrote: »

The shop is located on a busy road, i.e. stop ten seconds and you nearly get hit by traffic (cars I mean)

There are very few passers by, originally we thought our current customers would come in and buy - but apparently not.

These two things, are they linked? Does the traffic whizz past too fast to see you are there if people don't know already? And if they do realise you're there, is there safe parking?

It's possible that it's all about location, and this was the wrong one, but worth watching to see how the new one gets on!

[Deleted User]

Thanks everyone, we had a customer for the first time in two weeks after posting this! From that customer we covered our weeks wages -so sometimes even small amounts of customers can help.


The traffic is either very fast, or traffic jams. I have found that the footpath is dangerous, for example when I was walking last week a large HGV mounted the kerb and nearly hit my foot, this was caused because of the lack of space on the road itself.


People seem to pass by on the other side of the road, because the footway is bigger.


We thought at first because we have 3 customers a day from the other business, they would come in store and perhaps buy more or at the very least use the facility to make payments book etc.


I understand what people have said about being closed most days, that's true, but we only did this because we couldn't afford to keep open after seeing the first couple of months take from our reserves.


The staff in the shop are using a computer, but they are not the best in respect of this. One day last week they turned a customer away from booking and passed the contact details to us - I don't even know what to do about this because I have told them so many times to take deposits and book people in (they have a booking system on the shop counter and touch screen epos system)


Thanks again, feeling like I want this to work but I just don't know how, or I have given up because all ideas have failed to date.


For example we did valentines and mothers day and sold next to nothing, so we haven't bothered with fathers day rightly or wrongly.


I'm considering taking another risk, a new shop has been advertised and this has much larger premises and bigger and better location. Maybe still not customers, but who knows.


The difference with the later idea is that it includes two on site kitchens, we employ staff as part of the other business to cook and prepare food, the shop staff can also do this well - so in theory we could save by only having one set of staff?


The cost variance is £250 PCM, however we would gain two commercial kitchens, a larger shop floor, two offices. Currently we just have a small shop floor, nothing else.

Savvy_Sue

If the staff aren't good enough at their job, then follow your disciplinary procedure and get rid.

Although you do have instructions in writing, the idiot proof kind, for how to use the EPOS system and the booking procedure? If staff don't have to do something very often, then it can be a big learning curve to work it out on the spot.

colino

You seem to be yearning for what a lot of retailers are moving away from, a physical retail outlet that you don't need!
While the locus might give marginal benefits in promotion etc., paying staff to do nothing, storing stock where it might leak and being known as the company that has a shop that nobody goes to isn't positive in any way.
As soon as you can walk away at minimum cost, do so. Re-engage the staff if you must as promoters for your core business, you want sales and profit, not overheads you don't need.

Opinion

I hate to say it but your staff sound incompetent and if that is the case you have to wonder how many customers you've lost because of them. Customer service is everything, it sets you apart from your competition and if your staff can't handle even handle a booking then it's no wonder no one goes in to the shop- there's no point as the shop isn't offering any service!