# Starting a business.....



## ♥samonthemoon♥ (Apr 2, 2007)

Hey ladies,

Just wondered if anyone had any expirience of starting their own business?? 

I'm thinking about opening a music store in my town as we don't have anywhere what so ever that sells music of any kind!!!! How crazy is that!!! Just wondered what your thoughts were though as i'd need to rent a premises to sell from as obviously my niggle is that there are no stores for those who don't buy online/download but obviously this is all money and a bit of a gamble too. Do any of you still go into music shops?? 

Sorry if thats a bit rambly   

Sam xXx


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## Scooby Doo (May 24, 2006)

Hiya

Im not much help on the setting up of a business side ( although we do have our own business, but its a fishing boat so i dont know anything about retail sorry)

However, our town also didnt have a music shop, the only place to buy cds was from tesco.    A shop has opened in town now, but they dont have much chart stuff ( most of the stuff is over 12 months old ggrrrr ) and the new stuff they do have is £12.50  ( against tescos cds for about £9.77), my point is you are gonna have to be competetive to make it work.........

Could you mabe have a bit of the store where you can download stuff if you want?  I have no idea how to download anything im a cd girl....... 

Good Luck!! 

S
xx


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## swhattie (Feb 9, 2009)

I LOVE music shops, and i mean real music shops where the people who are selling it know their stuff and love the music as equally as myself! You dont get that in HMV or Tesco! I would pay a little more for music if i knew that the place selli ng it was so passionate, i dont download music at all and what I do put on my ipod only comes from CDs anyway!! I dont know if im in a minority here though so who knows how you would get on!! But I do think that life is too short for not having a go at things and I would love to be able to do what you are considering!


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## Jasey (Nov 2, 2007)

Hi Sam!

Wow, so exciting thinking about starting your own business.  I used to manage a shop with my Mum and My DH has always been a self employed web designer but he wants a change so we are currently expanding an online retail business we have and we are starting another new business in the tourism industry together!  I have to admit I am really enjoying getting stuck into it all.

I'm not an expert at all but I have learned that being self employed brings its benefits and negatives. Its great to be your own boss but it can be hard work with long hours and mean financial insecurity.

I would say try and start as small as you can to minimise the risks, working from home for example may not be an option with your idea but you could start with a small premisis or even an 'area' in someone else's shop or maybe a stall in an arcade etc and build from that.

Get all the help and advice you can from others and from business support networks, your local council may be able to point you in the right direction and see what grants you may be eligible for too. Some counties offer a business start up grant if you meet criteria.

I would suggest doing as much research as you can into your business idea. You're doing the right thing in asking people. Carry on collecting unbiased opinions. Its not possible to predict how successful your shop may be but you would be wise to do a business plan, look at it from all angles such as who your customers will be and ask yourself lots of questions such as _why_ isn't there a music shop here already?

One thing I truly believe in and am totally anal about is good customer service. People are so disillusioned with it these day and are usually already gearing up for a fight when they have a problem as they are expecting to be fobbed off by sales assistants who don't know their ar$e from their elbow/not expecting an email reply/not expecting to be listened to or understood etc. People find it so refreshing when you are willing to help. (Even of they are wrong!)

I may well be teaching you to suck eggs  But those are just my views from someone who hopes to be running two successful businesses by this time next year!! 

Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Jasey (Nov 2, 2007)

I'm back!  

I spoke to DH about it and he is concerned because in his opinion selling CD's for instance is a shrinking market and you would have to be sure that there would be enough demand for it when most (not all) people buy online (from amazon for example) or download. I don't buy much music myself but believe you can also listen to examples of tracks online too which you can't always in a shop. He thinks in 10 years its possible that CD's may have been phazed out completely.

He also says that the mark up and therefore profit isn't very big on CD's, that's assuming that that's what you would sell. 

Of course we don't know how big your town is, so you may have a massive population to draw from. Maybe something to think about is to become a specialist niche business selling the kind of stuff that is hard to get anywhere else such as rare or collectable albums, vinyl records or even grammaphone records?  

So like I said before not an expert opinion, just an opinion.  

HTH


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## Catb33 (Aug 1, 2006)

Hi Sam, 

good luck with starting a business. It's really hard work but can be very rewarding. You'll need a bit of Vera Lynn where you are though to go with the more modern music    

When we started ours we went to our local business enterprise centre (Colchester has one not far from the Colchester Town railway station called ColBEA www.colbea.co.uk ). They give free advice and can also give you access to courses on things like business plans and book keeping. I think there'll probably be one closer to you if you do a bit of googling. The advice we got was great, and a friend used one in Braintree that gave him loads of training he would have struggled to find and pay for himself.

Good luck with it. 

cathie x 

/links


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## ♥samonthemoon♥ (Apr 2, 2007)

Hey girls,

Thanks so much for the advice   After speaking to a lot of friends the general opinion seems to be that we'd all LOVE a proper music store but that as your husband said Jen there is probably not enough profit to be made to stay afloat due to people downloading   
Hmmmm guess i'll have to put my thinking cap on and think of something else  

Sam xXx


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## C0nfused (Apr 13, 2007)

♥samonthemoon♥ said:


> Hey girls,
> 
> Thanks so much for the advice  After speaking to a lot of friends the general opinion seems to be that we'd all LOVE a proper music store but that as your husband said Jen there is probably not enough profit to be made to stay afloat due to people downloading
> Hmmmm guess i'll have to put my thinking cap on and think of something else
> ...


I guess it depends on the type of music you wanted to have... if you were getting more specialist/limited editions/can order anything stuff than just chart music then you could find a market/profit in it.. The town I grew up in had Woolworths, Tescos and other supermarkets, plus TWO specialised music stores.. that are still going..

What about a craft shop or something like that? as well as selling craft stuff you could have craft days etc... if that makes sense..

Goood luck x

Jenny


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