Location,Location

[marcsitkin]

I am in the process of exploring a move to a new facility. I'll be looking to lease a small 1500-2000 square ft space, and am looking at both storefront and industrial park spaces. This will be my fourth location in 25 years (third in S. Florida in 10 years). I have sublet 1250 sqft from a friend for the past 10 years, which has worked out well, but for a variety of reasons may not last much longer.

Storefront offers more exposure to prospects, but in South Florida seems to cost twice as much or more than clean industrial. While I have had some walk-in business over the years, most of my new clients come from web, email and word of mouth/networking efforts.

My work breaks out to 1/3 portable display and related graphics and hardware, 1/3 POP for retail, and 1/3 fine art and photographers.

What are your thoughts on relocation? Is the benefit of a storefront worth the extra $$ in a down market? Or are the $$ better spent in other marketing efforts?

Thank you for your time, I look forward to your thoughts.

 

[binki]

In a down market you may be able to negotiate a favorable lease rate for a retail spot. In our area retail space is down from $2-$3/sqft to $0.80-$1.50sqft while commercial went from 68c to 80c. This is over the last 4 years.

With the right location it may be a value bet on your part.

 

[B Snyder]

I'm in an industrial building and work alone. I previously had a retail store. If I went to a walk-in type retail location now I'd need to hire an employee to deal with the walk-ins as they interrupt my work flow too much.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

DO not move far from present location... Let present customers know of move and where, when remind then after, later again, unless read below.

Your present customers are your backbone, and working for you, find a location for them, not customers you think you will have.

Now if you find a bargain for both great, yes jump on it, but the grass is not always greener

 

[Gino]

By the looks of things, you’ve been in business for a while, so even if you moved across town, it shouldn’t hurt you….. providing you give ample notice and give your customers plenty of time to adjust.

We’ve always kept a low profile and purposely avoided high traffic areas for the first 25 years in business. Back in 1997, we got our first high traffic location and our sales jumped immediately. We bought our present building back in 2001 and it’s really not a high traffic area, but has easy access from just about anywhere. We found a home that we like and have found that through advertisements, internet and reputation, we don’t really need the high traffic type store front. However, our strategy has always been… we only want customers that are really interested in buying big projects and the mall stores and downtown locations don’t really do that. Kinda like that movie… if you do something and you do it right… they’ll come to you. It’s always been our philosophy to have people search us out, rather than to just be noticed and taken for granted.

 

[marcsitkin]

Thank you for your input so for. I appreciate the time you've taken to respond.

Binki- Looks like the price ratio is similar for storefront/industrial

Here in S Florida, storefront is still around $20-25/sq ft for clean space
Industrial is around $11 including CAM. (Down from $17 3 years ago)
Tons of empty buildings around down here, bot retail and industrial.

B Snyder- I too appreciate the fact that I'm not interrupted by walk-ins all day. When I had the photolab in CT, even with a front desk person I constantly dealt with customers with small but time consuming problems.

What I've done since in Florida (a much smaller, but more efficient operation) is to reserve Tuesdays and Thursdays for myself to do design, marketing, sales calls and printing output. I bring my finishing guys in on M-W-Fri to take care of laminating, mounting, packing and shipping, and maintenance. It works well because I can concentrate when I need to, but work with the other team members without feeling interrupted on the days they are in. I remember the hell I was in when I had 14 employees and couldn't get my creative time without constant interruption.

Craig- I hear you. There are a certain amount of customers who really do like the fact that they can get face time AWAY from their office but within a short drive. I also have an important client who find me a little further away than is convenient. I'm looking for a location a little closer to him if possible.

I think in S. Florida the key features of a good location are:

Highway access, near main crossroads.
Safe neighborhoods to transit
Clean industrial park.

Not sure where you are posting from, but this area is suburban sprawl writ large. Mile after mile of closely packed housing, retail and businesses.
Highways go north/south, but east west is a pain, all surface rds.


Gino- Your right, most of my customers will still do business if I'm reasonably close. And a lot of them don't care where I am located.

A funny aside, in CT I had a MAJOR customer 3 miles from my shop. We did business for 13 years (and still do some today). Not once did he ever come to my shop! I'm talking six-figures a year! I have several customers I've dealt with for 20 years whom for one reason or another, I've not met in person.

Summation- I'm leaning towards industrial space, with an increase in marketing and PR to feature the move, and an open house to get my current customers familiar with the new facility. For those that can't make it, a personal invite to come by for a lunch or cup of coffee.

I'm just not convinced that I'll pick up large-project work by moving to a retail environment. And I may lose the privacy that I think helps me to do a good job for my customers. As I get older, my ability to multi-task diminishes, but by concentrating on the tasks at hand, I can compensate.