Thinking about starting a business.

[gym]

If you never owned a retail business, now may be a bad time to do it. The learning curve will kill you. My Gym "thank god I sold it" has turned over 4 times since the guy I sold it to went bust the 2nd year. Phones, cleaning crew "every night" and a hundred things you won't think of till you start writing them down. I imagine a range works on EFT, like a gym, you sign up members, we had over 4000, and collect that money to pay your nut, then whatever profit you make from your cash sales goes towards your salary or profit, "depending how you run your business, if you have a range in back. Otherwise it's going to be a tough nut to crack even scaling it down by 90% to 2000 sq feet inside, you are still looking at $5000 per month without utilities. I would think you need $200,000 to get going, in a 1,500-2000 sq ft store in order to get discounted prices on minimum orders from many dealers. 10 Kimbers, is still going to run you 7-8 grand, and that's only 1 of most minimum orders "for show", figure that times 20, plus fixtures and you would be some ware in the 200,00 range including racks paint floors and walls unless you can get 6 months free, "at least, and 6 at half rent. Plus a build out from the landlord. We did that, I had a partner who prided himself on negotiation. We got the first year free, and then it went from 14 to 20 thou in 5 years, but we were paying on 20,000 sq ft inside and were given 20,000 outside to use for free. "taxes" of various kinds including real estate taxes, that can be a killer, we would get hit with a bill at the end of the year that we never were ready for. Just scale back the numbers, But these were 1996 figures. I got out right before the 911 tragedy, and made a few dollars even though the guy stopped paying and went belly up. Since the economy had dumped in the past 6 years, unless you open a small store like out of a Bay or in a strip mall, like office space, with a few hundred a month rent, you are looking at a 80-90% failure rate. If you can sustain it by selling 10 guns per month, and only ordering what you know sells, like Glocks, M&P's, LCP's, and that's it to start, you can make a living if you know how to market. Either it has to be big enough to derive that monthly eft, "member fee, from a range or small enough to keep the nut under a grand, good luck. There are always 2 ways to look at things, if you think the economy is coming back now, it's a good time, if not, it's not so good. If people don't have jobs, they aren't buying anything they don't have to have, like another gun, unless they don't have one, or a hobbyists, and lifelong gun people, like most of us are. I don't profess to know more than anyone else, but having owned 6 retail businesses, some employed up to 200 people, I would be very careful, and go small to start, develop a clientele and grow into a larger business after a few years of steady sales and internet notoriety, add a gunsmith and eventually a salesperson. By the way you are always going to think you allowed enough for every possible thing that came up, and you will be wrong most times. Check and see if it is necessary to post a "seurity bond" with the state. In the Gym business you have to post 50 thousand cash bond the first 5 years, just because people were skipping out with members money before the gym ever went up, I think if you take money for memberships this applys, if not you probablly don't but there may be some insurance things involved that I have no knowledge of. I also had experiences with owning smaller stores earlier in my life, that were 1,200-4000 sq ft, but were rediculous in rent because of where they were in NY. So it's the old saying if you go for prime location you will pay for it, but reap the rewards of the traffic. I don't know how important that is, "if at all" with the gun business. Good luck in whatever you do, and if you ever want to bounce something off me, feel free to PM me. Also just because you have a hobby that you love, don't think it is a great business to be in. I saw how you went to pizzas, after a few posts. My partner is in that also, and it is a killer, he ended up turning it over to someone else to run. It's a very sucessful one on "LaSolice", the south Beach of Ft Lauderdale, he got in while they were still building it up, after we sold the club, but it's a 24/7 job, he closes at 5AM after "bar rush", so make sure you can live with what you are choosing, because it's going to take "all" your time to make it work.