Comments on: Starting a Skateshop – Tip 02 – Have Enough Money

By: MG

MG — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:01:23 +0000

I just wanted to let you all know that have a dream can make it happen with very little money if you do it just right. A little over 1 year ago I was shopping in an old walmart store that was made into a Market Place for people wanting to open there own business but did not have a large sum of money to do so. These places are now popping up all over the place from what i hear. I rented a small space of 10×10 at $120/month and bought some peg board, found 3 glass cases on Craigs list (free) and wala i opened up on October 1st, 2010 with 3 blank boards hanging on my pegboard. Those blanks were ordered off of ebay. Oh, i forgot to tell you that i am a single mother of 4 sons with 3 still living at home and i support everyone and get paid salary at my day job as a nurse. With my next check on October 14th i had sold those three boards so i took that money and a little bit more from my check and bought some more blank items. I took pictures of the small shop and within a month i started buying from 2 different distributors. Slowly taking my profits and adding just a little bit of my pay checks from nursing i kept adding. In 6 months i rented a space twice the size and also got a shoe deal. For the shoes i had to have a 2,000 order to place my first order so i did have to put a little bit of money back every month. Now it has been one year and i sell shoes, everything you can think of for skateboarding, and now i am adding long board items slowly. I pay 280.00 month rent and buy new products with the money i make from the shop to make it bigger. My goal is to open my own store on the highway at my 2 year anniversary but this was a great way to start. Most of the time i have kids help that need decks or whatever and my sons will help for less that others. I was paying someone to work weekends that was not related for a while but he was ripping me off blind! So this is just to let you know. You can do it. Just find the right place and love kids! They will know it and will love shopping with you. Good luck.
MG
MGboards@gmail.com

By: Hello

Hello — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:40:19 +0000

I think all of these arguments depend on your location. You can battle back and forth on prices to start a shop all day. But the fact is, if you start a small shop in a small town in the middle of a cheap state, then the numbers are going to be pretty low…. But if you want to start a larger shop, on (for example) Sunset Strip in Hollywood, in CA, then your numbers are going to be pretty damn high !! So take this article with a grain of salt and just consider the size and location before you start getting upset at people. just my opinion.

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 21:45:42 +0000

This is abunch of bull you only need like 50k. 10 for inventory, 12k for a year of rent maximum, like 10k to start in like buying the place and painting and stuff and like 5k to hire ppl for like 2 months see you dont even need 50k and yes opening a sk8 shop would b fun and want to do it also

By: Joshua

Joshua — Thu, 26 May 2011 21:07:44 +0000

Maybe where you live real estate is a bit cheaper than here in Utah, although I can’t imagine Utah is anywhere close to being the most expensive market. Perhaps in some parts of the country you can get a hole-in-the-wall place for under $1,000/month. Here in Utah you can’t even get a hole-in-the-wall place for that cheap. Even now in the midst of the recession it would be hard to find a decent spot for less than $2,500. Before the recession, when this post was created, it would have been difficult to find a good spot for under $5K/month. A prime location would have cost $6-7K per month.

As for inventory, let’s do some math. If you think you can start a shop with 10 decks on the wall, fine, that’s only $450 worth of inventory at wholesale prices. But if you want to look like you’re a real shop, you’ll want to have 50-100 spots for decks, with each spot having 2-5 decks. That means 100 to 500 decks, or $4,500-22,500 worth of inventory in decks alone.

Shoes? You’d probably want 20-50 different models of shoes, each in 5-10 sizes, and probably 3-5 of each size of shoe. At a minimum that means 300 pairs of shoes, and if you’re going all-out you could be getting 2,500 pairs of shoes. Assuming a wholesale price of $30/pair, you’re easily in at least $9,000 for shoes, and possibly as high as $75,000 if you were starting a fully-stocked, larger shop.

We’re already up to $14K with just two types of products. Then you add in shirts, hats, pants, wheels, bearings, tools, stickers, dvds, trucks, grip, hoodies, and you can get up to $50K pretty quick, and still have an inventory that leaves half the kids coming in saying “You mean you don’t have the plain Zero t-shirt with the white letters and nothing else on it?”

Now if you can start a shop paying $400/month for rent and with $20K of inventory then more power to you. Based on my experience and those of other shop owners I know, I think you’d be setting yourself up for failure. But hey, my experience is limited, and I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

By: thrash it

thrash it — Thu, 26 May 2011 06:40:56 +0000

who ever wrote this article is an IDIOT!!!!!!!!! $50,000- $100,000 just for inventory??? are you nuts??? i couldnt even fit fifty grand worth of merchandise in a regular shop, thats a load of shit, dont let this article discourage you. A retail space for $3000-6000 a month??? i can rent a 10,000 sq ft space for that but why in the hell would any one need a space that big for a skates shop??? $400-1000 a month for a space is perfect. this article is a crock of shit.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:20:54 +0000

Where’s your shop located, Stephen? Location can make a lot of difference in the cost, but if you got started with $35K more power to you. My friend who has a successful shop (and therefore knows what he’s doing) spent $300K opening a second one and went out of business during the downturn. His rent was over $5K per month. It wasn’t a huge location, but it was new, and in a good spot, and therefore a bit pricy. So apparently sometimes $35K is enough, and sometimes $300K isn’t enough.

Come to think of it, I actually know 1, 2, 3, 4…maybe more shops that have gone out of business in my area in the past few years. And they all had a lot more than $35K to get started, and they all did well for a while, but the downturn put a lot of people under. But if you’ve got enough money, then you can ride bad times out and come out on top once it passes. So again, having “enough” money, whatever that means for your situation, is a good idea.

By: Stephen Hall

Stephen Hall — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:04:25 +0000

This article is so absurd. It really depends on the size of the skate shop. Commercial space is cheap as heck if your looking to open a small skateshop that has a stock of 50 decks, accesories like trucks, a few clothing racks, some hats, and about 30 shoes, some skate dvds, sunglasses etc. the store does NOT have to be huge. If you fill a small space with a lot of stuff, its better then having a large store that look empty.

My point is: you can obtain a nice commercial space for 1000/month ..I’ve seen some for 700!

And when the article said you have to pay for advertising- like posters, signs etc. thats BS. your venders WILL love to hook u up with posters, signs to help u advertise because it also advertises there company.

I’m 24 years, graduated last year in Finance, and obtained a 35k loan, and I have been in business (I own a skate shop) for almost a year now, and I have had NO issues when it comes to selling products/making my quota. If you love skateboarding then you know what’s popular and whats in demand… If you dont know anything about skateboarding then maybe you should open a business that interests you/you know something about.

KIDS, dont let this article fool you. Obviously the person who wrote this had either a bad experience, has felonys and cant open a business(LOL), or is in need of an education

You CAN open a skateshop and be successful with…35k…bottom line..Im proof.

Good Luck

By: nww

nww — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:23:12 +0000

So here is the deal, I am looking into starting a skate/longboarding shop near Cal Poly Pomona. There are no other skate shops near by but neither are there any skate parks. The biggest customer base is the college which is less then a half mile away. However, I frequently ride in at the college and on a weekly basis I figure that there are about 400 people who skateboard and longboard per week. I have already spoken with the land owners of the retail space that I was looking into and there price per month is roughly 1,500 dollars. I figure to add 500 per month (at most) for electricity and another 2000 for an employee (part time) and another 500 for insurance. Now I realize that I have padded these costs against my favor but thats ok I am just trying to do a sanity check. That comes out to be 4,500 a month. So, before I get too serious I was looking to find statistics for price markups on skateboards and clothing sales to figure out who much inventory I would need to move to break even. Does anyone know of such a sight I have been having so much trouble finding these numbers and they are the next step for me in this venture. any help would be much appreciated

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:15:33 +0000

No offense, Sir Real, but you don’t seem to carry much stock of any note. No ‘brand name’ decks, 2 types (not brands) of wheels & 3 truck brands. You seem like the furthest thing from a core shop and much more like a mall one.

Where is that ‘celebrity backing’ also? Just because you call yourself “Mr. International”…doesn’t mean you are.

By: Sir*Real Skate Shop

Sir*Real Skate Shop — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 01:56:26 +0000

I correctly marketed my shop BEFORE ever opening. To the point that kids at skate parks were talking about my shop and brand before i even got the website up. Then i got the site up and store open, and all for under $5k and i have more customers and celebrities wanting to back our brand its overwheming.

Its not about 500K its about brains, and using them.