Your Own Pad – Reasons to be (and stay) Cheerful?

Part 1 ““ the layout: If you’re lucky, and successful enough, to be able to consider opening your own bricks and mortar “˜shop’, we’ve got some hints and tips below that will give you some food for thought. This week, though, we want all you Linus Torvalds (Bill’s day off) esq/Alan Sugar success stories to contribute to our advice ““ if you’ve opened your own place, either a workshop or a reseller, WHAT do you think our newbies should know? Here’s our take on it ““ and let’s get some input from you guys during the week (our very own Wiki article!). If we get enough input, we’ll include it all in the Part 2 we’re doing for next week. Here goes….

1. Where is your pad going to be, and why is that a good place for it? Are you going to be relying on passing trade, and if so, how much potential trade passes? If you’re new, with no existing customer base, your word of mouth referral rate is going to be nil or next to nil ““ so if you want to tempt people in, you need to be where you can be seen. However, one of the key things that contributes to rent for a building used for commercial purposes is its location, and the better the location, the higher the rent. Unless your long lost cousin twice removed was lucky enough to leave you a space in a mall, you’re going to have to be inventive as well. Some things to make your passing trade notice you more easily are;

a. Banners ““ great big ones you put on the front of your building, especially if it can be seen from a main road

b. Sandwich or a-boards ““ often placed at the corner of a street or at the entrance to a shop to make it more obvious.

c. Signs on the corner of the street, on another building.

d. I’ve even stooped to footprints chalked onto a pavement (you’ll probably have to get permission for this) pointing in the direction of a building, and followed that up with balloons streaming through windows and the like to raise attention on an open day or launch day.

e. Good window graphics ““ the norm is yellow or white, as they are easily seen, but be careful if you plan to have blinds as you could undo all of your good work.

2. How is your building going to be laid out? What’s going to draw the customer in, and what will they see if they walk in to your shop/den?

a. Do you have window space, and if so, how are you going to use it? You’ll have to be wary about security and where you intend to work, especially if you are going to be mostly on your own, as this makes you an easy target. If you do intend to have a window display, make sure you have either a secured area or are not going to put yourself at risk or put your stock at risk.

b. Where is your workspace going to be? Computer parts tend to look like junk, let’s be honest, so you’re going to need to be smart with your storage, and to be clever with your work area. Shelves, screens and storage boxes can all be used well, and having power points and network and phone points in the right place can cut down on mess. You also need to make sure that any workspace installed is in the right place (can you see people coming in and out of your pad), and is at the right height for you to work at.

Next week we’ll look at stock, credit card and tills and general appearance of your store….and give you the benefit of the wisdom of all of our veteran readers.

Veterans, choose Discuss and leave us your comments on starting up in your own place. As always, comments are open, you dont need to signup to make a comment and you can even post anonymously. Best of all, if you are one of our top 10 commentators and you leave a URL, it will appear on all Technibble pages on the lower left.