How to start a sweetshop

by Startacus Admin

Planning and Development

If your market research is bringing back more positives than negatives then it’s time to start thinking about how you will put your plan into action. You should begin to think about some of these points:

• Have you written a business plan yet?  This will be very important, particularly if you are going to be seeking investment.  If you havent written one yet and aren't sure how, is there anyone who could help you with it?

• Have you found a location for the sweet shop yet?  Is it well suited to the requirements that you will have i.e. appropriate size, convenient location etc?

• Is the footfall around your shop high enough to provide customers?

• Will you be able to have on street signage in order to encourage the trade of passers-by?

• Is there plenty of room to accommodate deliveries?

• Who will your immediate neighbours be?  Have you taken the time to introduce yourself to them yet?

• Have you thought about your online presence? Will you make use of a website or social media? If so, who will take care of these for you?

• If you are planning to sell your sweets online will this take place from the shop or somewhere else?  Who will run this side of the business for you?  How will you take payments and how will you distribute products to your customers?

• You need to start considering what equipment/furnishings you will need for the store.  This will include things like cash registers, display units, refrigeration equipment and so on.  Do you have a fair idea of where you will be able to source these items and how much they will cost?

• Are you planning to work full time in the shop from the get go or will you work part time until the business gets off the ground?

• Will you need to employ anyone else to help you to run the shop?  If so, will they be employed on a part time or full time basis?  Do you have a good idea of how much this will cost?

• Have you thought of a name for your sweet shop yet?  Can you think of an original and catchy name which will make your shop stand out from the competition? (For example if we could stop stuffing our faces long enough to give our shop a name it would be called Sweetacus.)

• How do you plan to market the sweet shop?  Can you think of any unusual ways in which you could get people talking about it? Remember you are in a great position to be creative because your product is very transportable and always goes down a treat!  
  
  

Marketing

It’s really important to get this right, but if you do you will soon be smelling the sweet scent of success!  Have a think about things like;

• Have you created a marketing strategy for your sweet shop yet? If not, do you have any contacts that could be able to help you with this? Why not take a look at how other similar businesses are marketing themselves, is there anything you can learn from them and how are you going to make sure that you stand out from the crowd?

• Are their any local events where you could potentially set up a popup shop e.g. markets or fairs?  It can be a really good idea for sweet shops to expand their reach by operating in this way, so you might want to take a look at our recent series of posts called ‘how to start a popup shop’ which has lots of information on all aspects of setting up a temporary retail space!
  

• Are you going to have a dedicated launch day?  What kinds of special offers and deals will you have?  These can be a great way of letting local people know that your sweetshop is open for business. 

• Do you plan to have a customer loyalty card e.g. ‘buy 5 milkshakes and get one free’ in order to encourage repeat business

• Have you considered writing about your experiences of setting up your sweetshop in a local journal/newspaper?   Are there any websites which are looking for contributions from entrepreneurs?-  Check out the Startacus self interview section.
  
  
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  • #market research
  • #planning
  • #development
  • #
  • #finance
  • #how to start a sweetshop
  • #how to start a business
  Published on: 15th January 2014

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