ACOT Message Board

 I guess it would depend on how popular scrapbooking is in your area. The LSS are having it hard here. One already closed and I just don't know how the other one is surviving. She never heard of Stickles and Felt Fusion! and thats just minor stuff.

 I guess it would depend on how big your town is as well as how popular scrapbooking is there as to whether it could support another store.  With the downturn in the economy I wouldn't have thought this was the best time to start.  When people starting economizing, spending money on hobbies is one of the first things to go.  In the city south of us - 30,000 the LSS just closed. 

 My mom just closed her scrapbook store, not really because she wasn't making money, she made a little but not enough to hire anyone to help her so she never had time off. She tried selling it too and couldn't find anyone to buy it. Scrapbooking is pretty popular where she is but with the economy, she really felt the downturn in peoples spending habits.

I just may have another creative idea.  It is the closests scrap store for at least 30 miles ... I'm writing down a few ideas here.  I believe we need one in our town but our town is a little bit less that 30,000 people ... will see what other suggestions pop up. 

 Run one out of your home online. Give your shoppers the oppurtunity to come pick it up or to have it mailed. See how it goes. If you are doing well enough, THEN open a walk in store.

dianagirly wrote: Run one out of your home online. Give your shoppers the oppurtunity to come pick it up or to have it mailed. See how it goes. If you are doing well enough, THEN open a walk in store.

That's a brilliant idea.  I would *not* recommend starting a retail store right now especially if you don't have retail experience.  I have friends who ran one for several years and it's a very hard business in which to make money.  There are a lot of items that you're required to buy in bulk and often the trend changes before you can sell all of them.  Also small-price items are hard to make money on because they require so much time (inventory, straighten, etc.) for little return, and that's what many scrapbooking supplies are. 

One other thing, are there any general crafting stores in your town?  Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Jo-Ann, etc.?  If so that makes it even harder since any big chain gets better prices (since they buy more at once) & can offer better (lower) prices than LSS.

And it's a huuuuuuge time-consuming project for years, certainly not something you can only do 9-to-5.

Other options would be signing up as a consultant with one of the direct sales companies (CM, etc.) or try a scrap-for-others business.

 I'm guessing right now isn't the best time to open up a scrapbooking store!  But, if I had lots of money, I'd like to open a multi-craft store!  It's my dream!

 My husband and I seriously considered this about two years ago.  We are retired and wanted to do something.  We interviewed lots of store owners and decided against the store...we even had a applied for a small business loan and had been approved.

Here is why we stopped the process

1.  the time commitment is incredible...even if you have reliable help in order to be a successful one you need to be open from at least 10a.m. - 9pm six days a week. 

2.  the inventory has to be varied and constantly changing to appeal to all types of scrappers

3.  you need to be able to cover your expenses for at least the first year to eighteen months without profit

4.  you need to offer high quality classes and fun crops (these require staff)

You are probably much younger than my honey and me and if you decide to take on this adventure, I wish you the best of luck.  We didn't want the time, energy and money effort and investment at this time of our lives. 

 I befriended the local sb store owner in my area, and honestly the store became her life. She was there all the time, and after 5 yrs. she ended up closing her doors. I think unless you have the funding, it's very difficult to compete with let's say the online stores who receive all the newly released product. Good luck with whatever choice you finally make.

dianagirly wrote: Run one out of your home online. Give your shoppers the oppurtunity to come pick it up or to have it mailed. See how it goes. If you are doing well enough, THEN open a walk in store.

Great idea! 

 I don't think you'd be able to make much profit.    The competition from the big store pricing is just too much.   But I love shopping in LSS - they often have such cool things.

 I agree with the other ladies - running one online and from your home might be a good idea, but the demographic of your area really makes a huge difference. I live outside of Philadelphia, and there are only 2 within an hour of my house. Apparnetly Philly just doesnt have the right demographics because there were more here but they closed.

With all the big box stores and the online shopping, the competition is really tough.

I just wanted to add one thing though. I was thinking of going into some sort of craft related business until I went to CHA with the woman who owns an online store that I design for. I saw her stressing over what to carry and how much of it and I was having such a blast just looking at stuff and giving my opinions on it. But in the end, I wasnt the one who had to decide where to spend the money.  and I was REALLY happy about that. I mean, it is probably not easy for a big store like ACOT, but it is REALLY hard for the smaller stores because you have to decide from among hundreds of manufacturers, which few do you want to carry, and they all (or most) have minimum orders so you can't just get a tiny bit of each, adn then you think - should I go with popular stuff (which people can get LOTS of places) or the less popular stuff because it is different. etc. Anyway, the point is that it is just tough and I am ADDICTED to scrapping but it just seemed like it would take the fun out of it for me.

 I would advise that before you start running a business out of your home (any business), you check as to what your local zoning regulations and your deed restrictions are.  You could wind up with a great big fine.  Otherwise starting out with doing it out of your home is a much better idea.

I totally would! There's nothing in my area, but I know I'm not the only one scrapping! Mine would have computer stations, too, for digi scrappers like me!

 I personally would love to start up an internet store myself. But Def don't have finances to start it upat the moment. That way I could ship to everywhere and not worry about just my local area supporting the store.

Well, all of the LSS's around here (4 of them!) have closed in the last year or two. Yet everytime I go to Archiver's the place is booming with business, maybe because I am always there at a crop and they are always full, who knows.

That's great you are doing a business case though, see what your research comes back with. I own a successful small business that is solely based on-line and I wouldn't dream of opening a physical location for it, but that's just what my research comes back with, every business is so different (mine is wedding invitations). Sounds like you might also want the "fun" social aspect mixed in as well, so operating solely on-line might not be what you want.

Do you have any other interests/hobbies that could turn into something? That's how my business started, and it really grew because of my passion for doing it as a hobby. I threw myself into it and unintentionally created a full-time business within a year.

Let us know what you end up deciding! Come back and bounce some more ideas around.

 Right now - absolutely not!  Our economy is in a huge hole that only gets deeper.  We're living on the edge, as are many others - the FIRST thing I stopped buying was scrappy stuff.  Anything NOT a necessity is not even looked at.  At least I have a HUGE stash, so I continue to scrap...until I run out of stuff.