So I thought about opening a LFS...

xroads

New member
In waterloo. If anyone knows Waterloo they have Petco & Hollywood Video in the same builing accross from the mall. Hollywood Video just cut their building in half & are renting out the other half. I thought it would be a prime location as Petco would help draw in a crowd & could steal alot of business. I was all set until I found out the rent was $8500 a month. That is just the rent & nothing else. And we wonder why they charge $60 for a bucket of salt.

I guess I will go back to fixing cars.

Craig
 
Look around the area & see how many commercial buildings are setting empty. Block buster. econofoods. old hobby lobby, big lots. And that is just Crossroads Area. No wonder some of these business' go out.
 
Man thats insane, that would be good spot too. Even if it was half of that it still would be rough. Going to look for other spots then?
 
Not right now, I was just seeing opportunity knocking considering it was right by Petco. In the future maybe.
 
Man i want to open up a store bad. I KNOW there is amrket for one here. I was just at the emporium the other day and was thinking if a person had a shop the total opposite of what they have it would be the best store ever. I think downtown Cedar Falls would be a good place to have a shop, nothing huge but something clean and nice.
 
about 3000 sq ft. I agree there is a market in waterloo. Look how many fish Petco (sea of death) sells in a week. There is that old Star Restaurant building about a block away from Emporium that has been sitting empty for awhile. That is for sale or lease alot more reasonable & has over 4000 sq ft. If you are serious we can get a few silent partners to kick in some cash & go to town.
 
The only thing I'd worry about is that it seems (to me) the Waterloo population doesn't have much for disposable income.

Wages seem to be really low comparred to Cedar Rapids/ Iowa City/ Desmoines. I'm sure if it was ran properly you could make a decent profit.
 
I can tell you it's way more work and way more money to run a successful store than you would ever think. If you get into that kind of rent you'd be hurtn. I opened mine 5 months ago and I never sit still.
 
Thc HOC. We will be sure to pick your mind if that time ever comes. I dont see how any business, let alone a LFS can make a profit with overhead like that is such a small area.

What would you say the hardest part of getting going was?

Craig
 
Write a business plan .. download some software and go from there.... wrote out a hugely detail business plan and I figured you needed to have about ~4200 sq feet ..... but a good business plan helps out a ton!
 
In my opinion people will drive to a good store. Point in case I went to manchester yesterday. You don't need a prime high dollar location.
But remember 4 or five years ago when tropicals umlimited, that reef place by europa cycles, Grahms shooting star pets and the place in Elk Run all opened at once and all failed? I think that someone should be able to make money in the waterloo market even with petco and petsmart, but I am a little too scared myself.
 
I don't think the location is as important as realizing the market in the area. We have several hobbists in the area, but I'm not sure we have enough to keep a larger based fish store in business. I think if a person was to open a smaller shop out of a garage or shop area it would keep the overhead down to a minimum. The other thing is keeping up with the tanks and still being able to work a normal job. For the first year or two the store would need the word of mouth to get and keep customers. After the store had a large enough base maybe a large store would be an option. If you look at every store the area has had they all have failed due to pretty much the same cause, lack of revenue. Pete closed under the sea because the rent was to high, the same with gram's and fish focus. It's extremely hard to keep something like this open unless you have a steady income comming in from somewhere. Hung is a good example, he maintains tanks, this provides the steady income to make things happen with the store. That and he has the customer base to keep selling things at the store.......it wouldn't be easy to keep a fish store open in this area but it could be done. The problem is getting the funding to set it up right......not that i've thought about this at all
 
What about the old Ace Hardware building down the street from Emporium? It would really be nice to have something nice next to them and put that hole to shame.
 
Probably super high rent there too....
Now im thinking its time to setup the table top in the garage.
Just need some insulation, furnace, central air, and ton of plumbing.

I wonder how hung is planning on doing water changes. It seems like you would have to have one heck of a resivour.
 
If you look thru the 180s there is still like another 1/2 the store behind the wall. I think he has the money and the space to do it right.
 
Most of the successful stores get their profit from tank maintainance. The stores just break even and allow them to get supplies shipped directly.
 
That's pretty expensive. No idea waterloo was like that.

My brother has a store on SE14th, one of the busiest roads in des moines and he only pays around 1700 a month. It's probably 1/2 to 1/3 the size of a video store though.

Maybe you should try and find a very small shop and do most of your sales online. I think the midwest location would be good because you are an even distance from the east and from the west coast.

Chris
 
Back
Top