What would you do with a shop?

[TheChosenTwo]

This is not viable for me as I have no talent/skill to take on a shop! But I’m curious as to what you would do if someone gave you a shop to make a business out of.
It has been a beauticians and a sandwich shop in recent years but there is very limited parking and limited passing footfall (mainly parents/carers on school drop off). Not much in the way of outside space, 2 small tables were outside the front (main road by traffic lights so not particularly attractive!).
I said to dh it would make a really good breakfast to go/coffee place but I guess there are too many things working against it.
We could do with a proper bakery so that would be nice!
If you had a shop, what would you sell in it or make? Or what skills would you choose to demonstrate?

Sweet shop for all the children to nag their parents to buy them some on the way home from school

As a small business owner knowing what costs are like at the moment I wouldn't open any type of shop if the aim was making profit. So I would rent it out to someone else!

cat cafe & rescue - you can adopt the cats & give them a new home

I'd like someone to open a cheese shop in my high street. Don't suppose you could squeeze one in there?

We have had three small craft stores shut down recently. With community come and join in learn to craft type events. I don't think they work well as small shops as they cannot compete with hobbycraft and online on price or variety of stock, and rates make it too expensive to do as a hobby job.

I don't think most of the above ideas would work because of the lack of parking. If the kitchen was decent, and if I could decorate cakes, I'd use it for a celebration cake business. The school run parents and children would see all my amazing creations in the window and order from me for all their birthday parties, but I wouldn't need to rely on people coming in specially or spending lots of time in the shop, as I could take online orders and deliver.

If it has a passing parent trade.

I'd do coffee and yes to bakery goods.

But I would have books. People can donate and borrow (so a swap shop) and I'd encourage local artists and authors to display their works to be sold there and I'd get a small commission. Maybe some local card makers, knitters, crocheters could see their ware? I'd have a computer that had free use for an hour that can be booked.

I would probably host coffee mornings, book clubs, parent and baby groups and allow it to be hired by other groups for meetings or club sessions.

I'd want to make it some kind of community hub that benefitted everyone but I would also want it to make a good enough profit to make it worth my while!

I’m genuinely curious how specific businesses can survive in small towns ? I imagine things like knitting shops, pottery cafes, zero waste groceries etc , don’t get much foot traffic? No one goes to these places to browse and pick up something?

on the other hand I’ve seen places that have increased revenues due to expanding their services / products , renting out floor space and so on.
the idea of general stores works so well in these towns because there’s something for everyone.

We have a takeaway coffee/waffle/crepe/ice cream /panini/bacon roll place just up the road from the primary school. It seems to be doing pretty well, it opened during covid and is still going strong. It opens in time for the school run in the morning, is close enough for secondary kids to grab lunch, ice cream for the primary kids after school and closes at 5pm during the week. At the weekend it opens at 12noon, closes at 9pm Fri/Sat. They're on Just Eat and it seems to be popular during the evening for waffles and a place for the teenagers to visit when they're roaming the streets.

Instead of actually turning it into a shop yourself, do you have the rights to let it out? It might make a great spot for an estate agents or something like that who don't rely on footfall. You'll get the rent money without having to do the work of personally occupying a shop every day.

I think most people don't realise the H&S/hygiene regs in relation to serving food.

There's a unique little shop in our village that sells dry foods: spices, rice, flour, pasta, natural shampoos, soaps and a plethora of other dry edibles. You can get two teaspoons of cinnamon, a cup of dried fruit, etc.

It's a brilliant idea vis waste and sustainability.

Do they make any money though? A similar shop in my village had to close recently. We did go there and get our eco laundry liquid refills and pick up a few bits and pieces fairly regularly, and it was popular in the village but the owner told me you had to sell an awful lot of chickpeas to make a living and he just couldn't do it in the end.

we had a place like that it closed down.

Sandwich/cake shop with indoor seating

People are crying out for reasonably priced decent food

I'd do a couple of daily specials i.e.

Quiche, salad baked potato

Sausage casserole, mash, carrots

Basic stuff, but done really well.

We have something similar near here (although the nail salon is still going strong). The cafe/sandwich place didn't work - they were unbearably slow, the coffee was very poor, and they didn't deliver to the industrial estate on their doorstep which I would have thought would be their (ahem) bread and butter.

So if I woke up and had accidentally signed the lease on the place overnight in my sleep, bearing in mind the local demographic (middle class parents, definitely leaning "earnest" IYSWIM), and the presumably very low rent, I think I would copy the ideas above and go with yarn shop, with evening events two or three times a week, and aim to make 50% of my turnover be online sales, pattern downloads etc.

Play cafe

We have a shop this in my village. 20 + years ago it was the village butcher, but he retired, and no one wanted to buy the business.

Pros - it's in the middle of a large village and opposite a primary school. There are a lot of potential customers.

Cons - only one street parking space outside. There is a small public car park opposite, but a main raid in between.

Since the butcher retired it's been:

• A dry cleaner (the village newsagent had taken in dry cleaning in for ages)
• A furniture shop
• A gingerbread shop - a business move bin a tried to create a "traditional thing" from scratch. The XYZ Gingerbread. Our area is known locally for a food, but not gingerbread.
• A kids clothes shop - that was actually pretty successful, but our area is not that affluent to dress our kids entirely in Toby Tiger, Frugi etc
• An IT repair shop - the most successful to date, but the guy running it moved the business to home during lockdown.
• I think it was going to be a tanning salon, but never opened.
• A women's clothes shop, but was only open 9.30-2.30 do she missed all the mums dropping off at school (her dc went to a different school.
• it's now a takeaway.