Thinking about a storefront. Any thoughts, suggestions?

[bayshorecreations]

So I found a storefront in a nice downtown area for rent. The price is fantastic, almost to good to pass up.
It is just off of the main street of the downtown and only a few buildings in so it has great visibility.
My dilemma is this, it is small (500 square feet) but will work for me, the street is a somewhat narrow one way road but there is plenty of street parking for customers, there is a narrow driveway that my pickup truck fits down with about a foot on each side to spare that leads to a small parking area in the back of the building which I will also have use of on weekdays. Now, if I were to get a lettering job in on say a boat or a sprinter or box truck I would be screwed because there is no way I could pull it back there. This is my dilemma with this property, do I want to have a good visibility storefront but be limited on what I can work on or keep looking for something else?
Before you ask where I do lettering now, I work out of my home currently. I have converted my 2 car detached garage into a workspace and I do lettering in my driveway but this storefront is not in my town. It is actually about 30 min away which is the area that I want to be in.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

 

[TheSnowman]

If the area you are planning on going to needs a shop, I say go for it. I did the "storefront" thing, and I wish I hadn't. My own town where I live is already crazy over-saturated with shops for how small the town is, and it's also over saturated with customers that want me to do stuff for free, because the lowballer in town de-valued everything anyone trys to do with signs.

I think that a storefront is a good idea, but just make sure you are going to an area that needs your services as opposed to one you may already be in, that has a stale market.

 

[bayshorecreations]

Well, there is one other sign shop in this town. It is a sign o rama and from what I can find that is all there is. A little competition is good! They are not located in the downtown area, they are in the industrial section of the town.

 

[daveb]

So I found a storefront in a nice downtown area for rent. The price is fantastic, almost to good to pass up.
It is just off of the main street of the downtown and only a few buildings in so it has great visibility.
My dilemma is this, it is small (500 square feet) but will work for me, the street is a somewhat narrow one way road but there is plenty of street parking for customers, there is a narrow driveway that my pickup truck fits down with about a foot on each side to spare that leads to a small parking area in the back of the building which I will also have use of on weekdays. Now, if I were to get a lettering job in on say a boat or a sprinter or box truck I would be screwed because there is no way I could pull it back there. This is my dilemma with this property, do I want to have a good visibility storefront but be limited on what I can work on or keep looking for something else?
Before you ask where I do lettering now, I work out of my home currently. I have converted my 2 car detached garage into a workspace and I do lettering in my driveway but this storefront is not in my town. It is actually about 30 min away which is the area that I want to be in.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Personally I would keep looking, unless you want to limit yourself. Nothing worse than moving in and six months later you really wish you'd found that store front with the side parking lot so you could do that big box van you just had to turn down.
Just sayin' :Oops:can be a pain, been there.

 

[RiXaX]

Perhaps there is not a long term lease and you could start being recognized in that neighborhood and then relocate and be recognized as successful. Can you letter a truck on the street parked in front of your shop?

 

[imagep]

I assume that you want to move out of your house inorder to attract more customers. If your plan works, then 500 sf probably won't be nearly enough space - so it is kind of self defeating.

 

[bayshorecreations]

My thought process on this space is to use it as a stepping stone if I can get in on a short term lease.

 

[Gino]

It might be a stepping stone, but no sense in taking baby steps.

500 sf is nothing. That's the size of a store front if you had a nice production area or warehouse connected to the back of it. If you set it up right.... 1/3 of that will be dedicated to a front counter and customer reception area... leaving you with about 300 or so sf for production. If you get a good flow of customers.... there's hardly any room for another person in there without tripping over each other and if you can't bring a vehicle indoors.... why get it just because it's a good price ??

There are many good deals on things throughout life, but if they aren't what you really want or need..... who's getting the good deal ??

I would keep looking until you find a shop more tailored to your needs than just a store front. As you said yourself... you want to grow and if business takes off, you'll be out of room instantly.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

I'd pass, the space sounds like the negatives outweigh the positives. If you're limited on what you can produce there and limited by a one way street, and physically limited by a very small space, I'd guess you're regret it in short order.

If the space works out well and your business grows, but you're stuck in a lease, you'll find 500 s.f. downright crippling pretty quickly. You should always take future growth and expansion into consideration when you're looking at space.

Now with that said, it may be okay if you were able to set it up as a non-production facility. Make it a killer sales location only, nice showroom, maybe do your design work out of there and perhaps just some very small minor production, but keep your main production at your house before and after you're open hours at the storefront, that may work, but I suspect that would get old and cumbersome rather quickly.

 

[imagep]

My thought process on this space is to use it as a stepping stone if I can get in on a short term lease.

That is great logic, there is nothing wrong with it, but still, I would not advise it. We did something similar:

21 years ago we started in our house, we did move into a 500 sf storefront, but had outgrown it in less than a year. We moved to a 1250 sf space, out grew it in another year and were able to rent another 1250 which was adjacent. The 2500 sf lasted us many years, but eventually we built a 6200 sf building - and I which we had gone bigger.

Every move cost us money, and each time we quickly became limited in production and customer draw by our undersized space. From time to time I actually had customers tell me that they had seen our building and ask me if we could handle all of their work (as in they didn't percieve us as being large enough or industrial enough to do work for them).

Currently, just our front lobby is 1,200 sf, and we don't even use that area for production. I would think that realistically you may want 2,500 sf or more.

Also, a free standing building would be much better than a space in a traditional downtown row building or in a strip mall. Customers will take you more seriously if you have your own private building.

 

[ProWraps]

we started with 1100 sq/ft. we outgrew it by the time we built it out. before we even moved in. thank god we were only on a one year lease. it sucked.

 

[bayshorecreations]

Thank you all for your input. It is really helpful.

 

[gbarker]

I'd pass on it and look for a larger shop. Even if it means waiting for a little while. I do wholesale only in a 560sf space. I keep VERY LITTLE substrates and honestly have nowhere to put them if I needed to. With a decent size table, printer plotter and such there is very little room to grow. It works for me but there isn't anyway it would work as a retail space. My smallest retail space was 1500sf and I needed more space.

 

[CheapVehicleWrap]

What town are you from?

 

[ova]

If it were me, I'd wait for something better to come along. We started in an old four room house that was converted into the shop we bought. After a year of moving chairs and desks just to to a 4x8 sign on the floor, we rented a 2500 sq.ft. building. I thought it was great having all the space, but it didn't have a garage. I was still doing vehicles in my garage at home or in the parking lot in front of the shop. We looked for seven years trying to find the right location, price range and something to fit all our needs.

We've finnally found what we hope will work for us. A 4000 sq ft building on a double lot with a paved parking lot that is located on the main street of town. It has a 12 ft garage door for access to the garage. Believe it or not, total price after renovations will only be $170,000.

We close this Wednesday.

I guess I say all this to tell you to hang in there and find what will really work for you. There are buildings out there. Take your time and something will come along.