A friend of mine just put out a notice that they will be closing down their family owned shop this year, unless something drastically changes. Ive watched so many fold in the last year, it makes my stomach turn. You know I try to be transparent, you also know that my customers are my advisory board. So I decided to peek at some numbers: As of First Quarter: March 31, 2014 we were almost $30,000 short in gross revenue for where we need to be to stay open (with no payroll or purchasing anything.) The net income from that revenue amount would have purely paid the overhead. Second quarter, so far, isnt close to where wed need to be normally, much less hit that needed figure and make up for the lost $30,000.00 from no sales during first quarter. Youd think that a shop our size and variety of offerings would have no problem selling just under $577.00 per day that we are open. We could have taken our money and gone to Chicago and to High Point and bought imported doo-dads for cheap and marked them up 400% but we already have chains that do that. We could have used the money to buy garage sale stuff and marked it up a little and sold used goods for cheap - but the market for thrift stores and flea markets and resellers is saturated. We thought that surely hand made goods from LOCAL artists and craftsmen that were of high quality and a fair price would be meaningful and important to the community so we went with that. Our problem is we are a museum - people walk in, walk around, and are going to come back when they have more time and some money. It doesnt seem to matter that we have things from $2.00 and will quickly help you find whatever you need. Im at a loss as to how to get more folks in, without advertising (as we have no money), without putting artwork on sale - which we cant do, and how to get you to buy at our place versus a big box store for gifts and your home and your accessories. Bumming today. Obviously.
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 13:07:45 +0000
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