Hello everyone in fishing land.  I have been reasearching for 2 years now on everything on getting a store started.  I have been wanting to start a fishing takle store in my town for a long time because the nearest place to buy a good assortment of takle and get what you need is bass pro a hour and a half away.  I wanna start this for the people of my town to be able to stay near home and be able to get what they need with ease.  Also have a place for local fisherman to come and talk with others,  throw parties and other events that involve fishing to get the younger generation to learn and get the respect for fish.  We have a small lake and we have a big river about 15 min away from our town.  Our town is not a big place and buisness's don't last long usually but they might not last long because of other reasons i don't know.  I am very good with people i worked in a grocery store for 3 years and i did everything and its alot of work owning your own business wich i have never done and im only 22.  I wants some opinions and advice before i go all the way with this big decision.  Thanks (yes i have misspelled alot of things in this forum but thats because im doing this on a phone and its hard to go back and correct)

 

As soon as you can sit down at a desk-top or lap-top computer, pull up the attached link.

 

http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business/starting-business/how-write-business-plan

 

With the help of a good lawyer and an accountant you should have an answer within six months or so.

Great you want to start your own business.

 

There is a lot of research needed before you invest your funds or get a bank loan. Here are some of the expenses you need to consider and estimate:

1.  Insurance, including Workers' Compensation and Special Causes of Loss personal property insurance.

2.  Taxes. Payroll taxes are a pain and you need a CPA to handle both your personal taxes and the business taxes to make sure you follow all IRS regulations.

3.  People. Finding good, honest workers is a problem, especially if you want them to open the store at 5AM or cover for you when you go to ICAST, other conferences, get married, have kids, go on vacation, etc.

4.  Inventory. You will need a good inventory system to take an automatic inventory and so you can see how much product walks out of the door. You need to find the vendors and company reps to contact to purchase your inventory.

5.  People in the business now.  If you will PM me I will ask the guy who owns Tackle Express in Richmond if he would speak with you about his experience with his tackle store. Craig is a great guy and so far he is still in business for over 20-years.

6.  It is who you know; not what you know.  Experience. I would like see you work at a tackle shop and learn the ins and outs and who the vendors are, etc. However, with no local tackle shop for you to work you are going to have to go it alone.

 

PM me if you want me to ask Craig if he will speak with you so we can set up the phone call.

 

Good luck.

Wow thanks for all the inputs.  Don't sound to good and thank yall so much for the advice maybe i will just save up until i retire and start a business then.  Ive already taken some buisness classes and they helped alot with my idea of opening a business. I will never give up wanting to do this but the way it sounds i need to wait.  I kinda had the idea that it wasnt a good idea, that is in the aspect of making a liveing it would be just really fun and a good adventure. Thanks everyone awesome advice

 

I think you should go into business for yourself, or seriously consider it now or in the near future if its something that interests you, just not in retail fishing in a small town. Good luck with whatever you decide.

On 7/4/2014 at 9:15 PM, GADawgs said:

I agree with what bad bass said. You need to worry about a stores availability and pricing. I will support my local tackle shop when possible but many times they don't have what I want and I get frustrated driving 10 minutes only to find it was a waste of my time. This inevitably leads me to go to the internet after that happens a couple of times. I think you will run into that a lot with internet availability, pricing and free shipping. Second, what is the demand in your area? Just because you want to offer it doesn't mean there is a good enough demand to successfully support a store. There is a reason that lots of small stores close, and it's not for lack of effort from an owner always. There is lots more to consider and other things I could say but this is ultimately your decision. Obviously asking advice about this on a fishing website probably isn't the best place because many may think its a great idea because they would like it for their town.

Have you done any research/polls of people in your town to see what the overall opinion/demand is. That is going to give you a better idea of the viability of this venture than our input.

Either way, good luck with whatever decision you make.

One idea might be to do a poll in town... Can create one online with Google forms for free or if your town has a city fb that you can post on, can create a poll there... Could tell you not only how many people would be all for it for perhaps a general idea of what customers you might have and you could also include a "what type of tackle would you want to be sold there" and might get some ideas of what you would specifically sell there for the locals... Just an idea though... We're considering opening a store here as well cuz there's not one for like 45 minutes away and Walmart only carries just so much and our lake manager asked us to... The polling is an idea I had... Where I live and because of us wanting to put it at the lake, I have to talk to the mayor first so I want a full idea of what kind of profit because I'm going to offer a percentage of profit to the city to compensate us putting it out there... Rarely do you find a bait shop that's right next to the lake 

On 7/4/2014 at 10:12 PM, Code54 said:

The hard part is capitol - you are going to need a lot of it.  Between the bldg, insurance - fire - liability -workers comp, products, shelves, utilities, building signs, State and local business licenses, Accountant (get your deductions right as it will save you some cash), advertising,  employees, (?) etc  Also don't plan on taking any money from the business for at least the first year.  Would say at a minimum you will need 75K.  not trying to burst your bubble but there is a lot of up front costs as well as a lot of of research that needs down.  Getting suppliers is a start but also will need an attorney to make sure the agreements with the suppliers are fair to you. Also keep an eye open for any agreements that would not allow you to use several suppliers.

Anyway just wanted to give you some ideas of what problems you may face.

Good luck

You can cut some employee stuff if you have family willing to work there... Just saying... We live 5 minutes from where we want ours... When we open ours, it'll be me, my husband, and my two daughters... Between us we'll be able to cover all the ours and said off and since it'll be all family owned and operated, I've been told as long as we all have private insurance, we don't need all the workers comp stuff... Don't need an accountant so long as you know how to work something like QuickBooks... Square has pretty good options for card reading services and if you're going to hire outside help, even has online work hours tracking as they login for work on the square terminal... Think it'll pay them and all if I remember right... I would also suggest you do your employees as contract workers... Send a 1099 instead of dealing with taking taxes, providing insurance and so on if you don't want the extra cost... I'm an OCD nut with organization and why I know all that... Yeah it's being kinda an a*****e about insurance and workers comp but at the same time saves you from lawsuits by employees... And I only say this as I know a business owner who had an employee that supposedly hurt herself 13 times in 3 months and sued him, winning a small fortune, even though he had camera evidence that showed she "hurt" herself on purpose... He ended up selling his business to pay it off... Is why I say look into using contracted employees

11 hours ago, Diane.White0529 said:

... I would also suggest you do your employees as contract workers... Send a 1099 instead of dealing with taking taxes, providing insurance and so …

This is complete GARBAGE advice.

 

You are clearly a dishonest and clueless business owner. Not to mention you have ZERO respect for your employees.

 

You tell this man he doesn’t need to hire an accountant when it sounds like YOU need an accountant.

You think you “know all about that” but you clearly know nothing about running a business, accounting, as well as the legality of it.

 

Signed,

 

Long time CPA that works with businesses every day

I’d be interested in finding out if the OP ever did open a business. He was only 22 when he started this thread and hasn’t been on here in 6 years. My guess is he gave up on his idea of opening a “talkel” store.

I help out a small business from time to time. Not fishing; different hobby.

 

Don't do it.

You have a lot of good feedback here - best to connect with someone who has done it - ask them to be honest about the pros/cons of owning/running a shop - I agree with others, get an education - perhaps go work at a tackle shop for a few years to really get to know how it works and you can make connections during that time as well - as they say "Follow your heart/passion - but don't leave your head behind" - Good luck !

Thread is 10 years old. Definitely qualified for Zombie status 

I am glad I didn’t receive this old thread, but my first thought would be to name the tackle store something that you knew how to spell..

3 minutes ago, Smirak said:

I am glad I didn’t receive this old thread, but my first thought would be to name the tackle store something that you knew how to spell..

Ouch 😂 

We carry an asortment of tackel like Zoom supper flukes, jurk baits, wooper plopers, you name it 😁

1 hour ago, Scott F said:

I’d be interested in finding out if the OP ever did open a business. He was only 22 when he started this thread and hasn’t been on here in 6 years. My guess is he gave up on his idea of opening a “talkel” store.

 

I'd say there's a 0.00% chance he did.

 

Not trying to knock the kid but he said he researched it for weeks and come to find out he might have did a couple google searches on stuff that probably didn't even matter.

 

Then received a few negative responses and quickly pivoted to "sounds like I'll do it in retirement".

 

If a couple  of internet strangers change your dream in a day, it really wasn't much of a dream.

34 minutes ago, Smirak said:

I am glad I didn’t receive this old thread, but my first thought would be to name the tackle store something that you knew how to spell..

And just like that, my grammar police badge is revoked. I meant to post I am glad I didn’t “revive” this old thread…

 

My issue with “local tackle shops” is they all have the same stuff. Stuff geared for live bait bank fishing and catfishing. Oh, and 4 packages of zoom speed worms in a color that zoom made only once, by mistake, but called it a “special release” color. 

5 hours ago, HawkeyeSmallie said:

This is complete GARBAGE advice.

 

You are clearly a dishonest and clueless business owner. Not to mention you have ZERO respect for your employees.

 

You tell this man he doesn’t need to hire an accountant when it sounds like YOU need an accountant.

You think you “know all about that” but you clearly know nothing about running a business, accounting, as well as the legality of it.

 

Signed,

 

Long time CPA that works with businesses every day

Calm down….

2 minutes ago, Jimmy1981 said:

Calm down….

 

I'm good, thanks though.