Traditional Sweet Shop - thoughts

[AllTheFloralCurtains]

I'm thinking of opening a sweet shop in my village.
I love the idea of an old fashioned sweet shop, with all the goodies lined up in Bell jars along the shelves.

For those of you who have been somewhere similar, could you tell me how you found the set up? (even better if it was 50 years ago!)

If the sweets are in jars behind the counter (so the customer looks over the counter and chooses their sweets, which are then weighed by the server) - I worry the selection will be hard to see.

But if the jars are laid out in a shop space (so the customer picks their jar/s and brings it to the counter) this seems fiddly and open to breakages, plus the server would be constantly returning the jars.

I used to work in one of these shops. It was my first job at about 16 when I was at school. It was in a busy city in a high footfall area with tourists all day long. Even on the busiest of days around the Christmas Market time I think the biggest takings were still less than £1k per day. £200 on an average Sunday was pretty good. I know this as part of my job was to count the takings at the end of the day.

We had 300ish different sweets in 2lt kilner jars. Some behind a counter some in the window. Most stuff was 60p a quarter or 113g in new money. But we would always grab the jar and weigh it out for the customer to put into paper bags. I still flip and twist my paper bag's to this day.

I loved that job and would never get sick of eating the freebie or talking to people who walk in and say "ooh it smells just like an old fashioned sweet shop" but looking back now I've no idea how my boss ever managed to break even.

Gosh I forgot to check this after dinner last night and have just come on to see ll the replies, how lovely.
To answer a few questions:

1. it's a very popular seaside village which is the very definition of a tourist area
2. it won't just be a sweet shop, it will also be an ice cream parlour and will offer coffee and hot sandwiches to cover the winter months.
3. its highly likely I'll offer fudge and handmade chocolate too (there's a large kitchen area)
4. I run 2 successful online businesses, so I have plans to diversify with an online presence as well, to support the shop during quieter periods

Still reading the replies and thanks so much for sharing your experiences!

Birmingham back to backs National Trust property has s very good period one that you don't have to pay to go into the property to use. It's just on the street of the Chinese Quarter.

@Dontfuckingsaycheese

Ones I've had recently (well within the last 5 years) have been stale so they had been there a while! Don't do what the one in our town did. You couldn't take the jar to be weighed out. They were already pre-bagged. Why why why would you do that??! Totally eradicating the USP! May as well pop to Morrisons then!

I bought some from Mr Simms that were stale and soft and flavourless and they weren't very informative or happy when I nicely complained though.

I was about to say don't let the nostalgia of running an old fashioned sweet shop carry you away but I see you've run online businesses before so will have a fair idea of what's what.

It's a big jump though from an online business to a bricks and mortar business especially during a pandemic. Not least the additional start-up and ongoing costs associated with an actual shop rather than an online presence.

However I wish you luck, it sounds like you've thought it through, planning and research is a valuable part of starting any business. Hope you do well.

I would look longingly, kids too, but I tend to avoid too many sweets for the kids. I think we are more health conscious these days where kids are concerned

Location, location, location

Go for it
Life is too short
And sweets make life taste nicer

@morninglive

I would look longingly, kids too, but I tend to avoid too many sweets for the kids. I think we are more health conscious these days where kids are concerned

This has occurred to me - I don't think I'd angle it too heavily towards the children tbh. I don't think its a hugely lucrative market (pocket money once a week style purchases) and I was always bought up that sweets were for special occassions. However there is a very large retired and elderly population here who take a great deal of pleasure in visiting and supporting traditional style places. There's also a huge number of tourists. So this is going to be more my target market - tourist spending, gifts and events (Easter, Christmas, Valentines etc) and the other half of the shop is going to be a cafe; proper coffee, simple hot food.

Then of course I'll make sure the shop has an online presence for the sale of gifts, retro sweets, handmade chocolates etc etc.

I'm quite confident in the financials of it. I've made a full business plan and a full financial sweep of all costs etc :)

There used to be one near where I live. It was a tiny shop. There were traditional sweets in jars behind the counter but also some in plastic tubs that you could pick out yourself and then normal chocolate bars as well.I used to wonder how they made a living when even pre covid you could only fit about 3 people in the shop and most of customers were 12 year olds spending less than £5 on sweets.

When I was little our local newsagents had a rectangular glass display, with children's pick and mix type sweets on three shelves. It was child height so you could see everything close up and point to what you wanted. Then there were jars of other sweets on shelves behind the counter. Maybe something like that?
And thank you for posting this thread, although it makes me feel sad thinking of yet another thing that may not be around any more after covid it's sent me on a little daydream down memory lane for a good twenty minutes

Here's a few images from a moodboard I'm creating to try and figure out the aesthetic I want to go for.

It might work in a tourist place, especially with the ice cream counter, coffees etc. Don't forget you will need help in the summer months and maybe on nice weekends all year round.

Have a work out how much you will need to take to cover rent, rates, stock, utilities, insurance, shop fittings, banking and card fees, you need the right card service that's suitable for lots of small transactions, or else these will take a lot of your profit, maintenance - if you are selling loose goods by weight, you might be required to get your scales calibrated annually, for example, plus staff costs and a wage for you and how many customers spending a few quid a time this will translate into.

There's one of these shops in a rural tourist town nearish where I am. No idea how successful it is:

oldestsweetshop.co.uk/

Agree with PP- you need the American import sweets too. Sherbet lemons will only get you so far.

You would need to purchase from the right supplier at the right prices to make sure its a quality product that you can get what you need when you need and your purchasing at the right prices.

, you need the right card service that's suitable for lots of small transactions, or else these will take a lot of your profit,

This is an excellent point, thank you. I hadn't considered this

There used to be a gorgeous shop in Covent Garden called Hope&Greenwood. They sold traditional sweets displayed in glass jars behind the counter.

They also sold sweets and chocolates in beautiful jars and boxes. It was such a great place for presents.

One of my favourite local shops sells sweets by weight in big jars behind the counter. It's not cute or vintage though - they just haven't changed anything in the last hundred years. They also sell baking ingredients by weight along with wine, cleaning products and rat poison.

@AllTheFloralCurtains

Our local ice cream man had a square or sum up card reader.

Someone opened a sweet shop in my village a few years ago. Lasted less than 12 months.

They needed to charge a pretty penny to make it work but no one wanted to pay over the odds. No wonder when I can get a good sized bag of decent tasting midget gems in Aldi for 29p and I can get a 4 pack of wispas in Asda for a quid etc, etc.
There's also a standalone sweet shop in my city and to be honest, even that doesn't look like it does a roaring trade.

It sound a nice idea. But the hard fact of trying to make it pay is a completely different ball game. Unless you are in a spot that gets a lot of visitors I'd say it's a non starter unless it's just a pleasant little hobby.

Go and visit the cotswolds, there are loads of traditional sweet shops! All have jars around the shop, you bring the jar to the counter - and they have lots of signs saying don't pick them up by the lid my favourite is a toss up between lemon Bon bons or pineapple rock. Yum 😋

I like the idea but need to lose weight so would probably avoid in reality.

You may need to factor in a possible sugar tax. Could affect in two ways -full sugar sweets more expensive and manufacturers deciding to change recipe so it becomes sweetener. I think that happened with fizzy drinks. I’m sure there will be customers who don’t want the low sugar version but object to the taxed real version.

It’s one of the taxes that government can say - tackle obesity/bring in money for the health service (whether or not they actually invest it there). Otoh I’m sure people including MPs just out of lockdown may object as taking away another small pleasure.

Should say customers will object to the higher price of the real version.

Like the one Violet grey has posted but instead of a wall behind the shelving, it's the shop window. Then people can see the sweets clearly though the window and have a browse while they're outside. You could even have a window hatch to serve through to the street.