Opening UK Shop?

ahh some excellent advise again, so do all you guys think that the yellow pages is better than any online solution?

We did have a meeting with the business gateway to make a business plan but the meeting was at night and no one could attend it.

There is only one computer shop and its about a mile and a half away, the guys just setting up but i get the impression he's just a reformatted, and the one i mentioned i worked in is about 6 miles away.

There are alot of small town up this way and no local computer shops, thats why i feel the need to jump at it.

We are under 30 i am personally 22 although while we are keeping part time jobs at night to fund it the princes trust won't give us a grant :(
 
We did have a meeting with the business gateway to make a business plan but the meeting was at night and no one could attend it.
Three partners and not one of you could attend an evening business meeting! :confused:

I you going to set up a business, you'll need to be totally dedicated to it and expect to work long hours, especially in the early days. I think you'll find there will be a lot more competition out there than you envisage.

Good luck with getting this going with no business planning, especially on a three-way split.
 
Also, have you drawn up a contract between the 3 of you?

Ie, you could decide a couple of months down the line, this isnt for you, or you cant afford your split of the bill. Your partners would have to put up another 1/3 between them. You decide to leave the business, the other 2 could have to buy your options.

Being a ltd business, also means you will have to send in your accounts to companies house, have you lined up an accountant to help you, do

A your tax return
B your annual accounts

who will be doing your day to day accounts, have you got systems in place for this?

Have you budgeted for the extra costs involved, ie Accountants fees, rough estimate of £300 pa, sending in your details to companies house, again rough estimate of £250 pa.

Have you even done a business plan yet? I really do feel like your trying to run before you can walk here, and I don't think, i'm the only one with these thoughts..
 
Hi guys,

myself and two of my friends are thinking about opening a shop, we went to see one today and i think the guy said it was just under 500 square feet, im not sure how that goes in the way of shops but its plenty big for us, the guy wants £75 a week in rent, ive put a list of all of the costs i think that would be involved at the bottom of this posts if you guys can look it over and tell me if ive missed anything please let me know, id love to open a shop but im not sure we can afford it especially if there are any hidden extras ive forgotten about :P

the other concern i have is that we obviously don't have any stock/can't afford any and the front of the shop is bigger than the back so its alot of empty space i don't know what we could do with :/

any thought on this would bre really appreciated :D

Rent:£300
Line Rental/Broadband:£20-ish
Electricity:£30 - no idea if this is accurate its a total guess
Business Insurance:£40
Yell Ad:£140

ive got the total to £530 per month.
I am also opening a shop. i own the shop so i dont have to pay rent but please concider what i am going to do, so it may work for you too.

My planned budget is around £15000 and i am not sure if i can keep my self busy for the first 6 - 9 months. Here is what i am going to spend;

1 i am not a big fan of fliers and iv done about 60000 lefleting for my onsite business & didnt work! but if the shop is the case i think i must do some leafleting and let people know my business or it could take months if not years for people to find me.

2 websites, thompson local and yellow pages as well as yell.com my main sources and i will spend £5000 with leafleting

3 3x monitors for my repair worktop, electric sockets and 2x computer for repair and office use £300

4 my outsite sign must be good and eye catching. my one will cost £1000

5 worktop and display cabinet with the locker £1000

6 Tools & mini air compresor £250

7 programmable LED, neon pc repair sign & open neon sign £200

8 Alarm system and Locks £200

9 logo printed T Shirt (6) £100

10 logo printed hats (4) £60

11 Fire Extinguisher (2) £80

12 Stationary, and PRICING GUN £ 80


13 Shelfs for walls and positioning wall light £200


14 £4000 for the stock of all type of computer related stuff
 
Last edited:
Sorry Haktar, forgive me for saying this, but I feel as if I have to.

It sounds like and forgive me if im wrong with this assumption, that between the 3 of you, you've decided, that you think you know about computers, and decided to start a business between you.

a) The 3 of you have part time jobs - Possibly no savings to back you up.

b) To open a retail outlet, you would require at least 3 months overheads in your bank account, to start you off. Do you have this amount of spare money?

c), have you even got a bank account yet?, as this will take a couple of weeks to set up.

d) From the questions you have asked regarding VAT etc, in previous threads it sounds like you have little or no business sense.

e) In order to be compulsary vat registered, you require a turnover of approx £68,000 pa. This equates to £5666 pr month, or £1307 pr week or £186 pr day, each and every day. Do you honestly think you will turnover this amount of money right away?

f) Most retail outlets, require either and or a deposit of at least 3 months rent up front. From the last post, you mentioned rent being £300 a month, so call it £900 in total.

g) The remaining overheads, you forgot about in an earlier post in this thread. Ave £1000 pr month. Are you 100% sure, you can achieve that amount of turnover, plus your expenditure on parts from day 1?

h) All 3 of you are going to keep your part time jobs, then phase them out?
When will the shop be open, who will be running it on a day to day basis?

i) Have you thought about the costings of setting up the said retail shop?, inc fixtures and fittings, workbenches cabling, networking etc.. This alone could cost a couple of thousand.

j) You have asked about "what is the best and most importantly the cheapest way to install a legit windows for a customer?"

This type of question, a tech should know, and not need to ask about on forums.

k) i just phoned the customer and she said the computer asked her to burn a recovery disc when she bought it, ive never heard of that before so im gonna pick it up and see what she has.

Again a tech should know what a recovery disc is.

l) Have you thought about who your suppliers are going to be?, have you enquired as to trade accounts

m) Business insurance - Do you have a definitive quote on this, public liability, professional indemnity, and stock loss?

I'm sorry, but I could go on. I'm all for people learning, and trying to start off on their own, but these ideas, and the questions raised, make me feel as if your just starting up in IT, and have little or no knowledge of what is actually required.

With the 3 of you, in part time jobs, why don't you all take stock, sit back chill, and relax for a moment and think.. Do we have a loyal, and large customer base we can start off from?

If not, how are we going to get one up and running fast.

Advertising - If your thinking of the Yellow Pages, then im afraid you may be too late for this years book, as it will possibly be in print by now. There fore it will be at least 10-12 months before joe bloggs really knows your out there. How else are you going to get your name out there?

Have you not thought about starting small, working from home for the time being, to get your customer base, get your name out there, as starting from scratch in a retail outlet, will be damned hard. Especially in the current economic market.

Have you heard of Business Link?, (Not sure where you are in the UK), but most if not all cities have one.) Google them, make an appt, and go through a business plan with them; and see what they say about everything.

Don't run before you can walk.

Like I said, I don't mean to put you down, it just sounds like you need to be level headed about this, and not thinking, oh cool lets open a shop up.. There are dire consequences should it not pan out.

Sorry if this post is harsh, but I stand by every word. Even if it means I get shot down in flames.. I feel like it needed to be said. Apologies for the really long reply everyone..
This may not aplly to Haktar but I %100 agree all you wrote here. I am going to open my shop after 1 year research and finally i am almost ready. i own my shop but i have £15000 budget and bearly enough. Please evryone concider what this guy wrote here before thinking of opening shop!!!!
 
Last edited:
i have though about a few suppliers ive registered with three of them, although i have settled on my main supplier, they have 32,000 products and im currently working on incorporating there csv into the mysql database of our site (me being the programmer of the bunch), i wasn't going to post this yet but seeing as were on the topic please take a quick look at our site and let me know what you think http://www.novatekk.com/

QUOTE] I prusume you didnt do any SEO to this site yet? it is nice looking website but my softwares gave your site below %10 Seo score. also it is more like an IT services website than local computer repair business and it looks Pricy company than cheap local computer repair technician. i tried this and it had negative impact. trust me you better of with the website cheaper looking local computer repair guy from the hood impretion. if you need any help on SEO contact me.
 
Last edited:
ahh some excellent advise again, so do all you guys think that the yellow pages is better than any online solution?

We did have a meeting with the business gateway to make a business plan but the meeting was at night and no one could attend it.

There is only one computer shop and its about a mile and a half away, the guys just setting up but i get the impression he's just a reformatted, and the one i mentioned i worked in is about 6 miles away.

There are alot of small town up this way and no local computer shops, thats why i feel the need to jump at it.

We are under 30 i am personally 22 although while we are keeping part time jobs at night to fund it the princes trust won't give us a grant :(
Yellow pages is better solution but dont under estimate yell.com after search engines yellow pages and yell.com my best souces

But by far the best one for me is my 3 websites with over 100 pages just gives me more than 900 first page keywords on google, bing, yahoo alone. it took me more than year to rank them well & everywhere that i cover ( 20 miles sq.) over 30 towns and 3 cties and i spend over £2000 for SOE & SEO Softwares. i Designed all my sites.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top