Pop up shop idea please.

[PassingStranger]

Been gifted a pop up shop for a while.
No rent.
What would you do either selling, service or community wise, but obviously making money. Thanks.

Clothing consignment and vintage goods?

Yes people walk and drive buy.

It seems a very vague idea .... do you have any retail experience or knowledge?

But what about one of those 'clothes agency' shops ... I actually haven't seen many around recently but they used to be popular ... you sell people's clothes, toys, household items etc on their behalf and keep a certain %. They might not be as popular as they used to be as so many people are confident using Vinted etc but if like me you can't be bothered with the photographing, listing, packing and posting some people might prefer to use an Agency?

I would offer the space to other small businesses who actually need it so they can keep going rather than trying to do something with it yourself with clearly no prior experience of having a business or selling.

Yes I thought that.
I have given as much background as I can . Yes I have retail experience.

What was this pop-up shop used for before, and what is the reason for it now being vacant? Did the person running it sell all their stock, make a large profit and decide to quit while they were ahead... or the reverse and it was a disaster?

No it's for me only.

I have experience of retail etc.

Just seen your earlier comment at 16.17 ... yes, it could work (in the right environment) and you wouldn't have to buy too much stock up front ... you could initially stock it with your own items you wanted to sell or buy a few decent pieces from charity shops etc.

Hold indoor car boot sales. Charge per table kinda thing.

An advice and guidance service like the old CAB. But tailored to local needs.
You could employ one professional advice and guidance person and use volunteers. They could be taught how to go on to do it professionally.

Benefits advice, housing, legal, health, crime etc. you could be mainly signposting to other places

But there could also be a cafe. With one trained kitchen manager.
Training disabled unemployed people or those from the care system or criminal justice system
How to work in a commercial kitchen. Then that could be used to generate profit if you did office catering or a kiosk to sell to the general public.
It could be like a CIC?

Good thinking, no big parking space for people to park though.

This! Especially in winter/spring when people are decluttering

So what will the running costs be:
Business rates (a tenant becomes liable, not the landlord)?
Staff costs are shooting up in April (both in terms of minimum wage and having to pay employers' NI at 15% for somebody being paid £5k/£96 per week)
Do you have an accountant/payroll co if you aren't up to speed with this sort of thing?
If you want to sell "stuff", will it be coming from China/somewhere else by boat? What is the lead time?

Do set up a limited liability company, whatever you do.

Depends on too many unknowns:

• Local market and demographics
• Location
• Footfall
• Time of year
• Opening times
• Your experience and knowledge
• What the location is known for

You have retail experience and that's good, but do you have experience in owning and managing any kind of business?

Do you, for instance, know about the difference between mark-up & margin / gross & net profit, taxation, overheads, public liability insurance, stock valuation and so on?

Add a few tables and chairs, plug in the wifi and a little kitchenette and open up as a co-working space.

Do you actually need to make money from this?
What's your passion?
I'd do a secondhand book/toy shop (if I wanted to make money) or a book/toy exchange if I didn't need the money.
But I'd need to source stock which would cost me and take a while.
This is a very upside down way of doing this.

Why on earth did you even want a popup shop given that you currently have no goods and no idea what to use it for?

Insurance! You need good public liability insurance if you are dealing with the public (retail or hospitality).

What everyone else said. Plus what time do you have to devote to this project and what would you otherwise be doing with it? Will you be opening at times when people will be wanting to use the shop? Do you need to pay business rates? What about utilities?

Is the shop ready to be used or does it need fitting out, decorating etc? Do you have access to a card machine with charges appropriate to the size of transactions - generally you pay a percentage that may or may not have a minimum. You don't want to be paying, say 20 p per transaction, if people will be spending £1/2 a time as it will take a huge cut of any profit.

I fear this is something you could put a lot of time into and even if you don't lose a lot of money by having unsold stock, you'll make a tiny amount of money if you're lucky.

I live in a "naice" city. The proliferation of charity shops might have killed them, along with Vinted, but there used to be a fair few clothing for kids or adults resale places about a decade ago.

Babies-toddlers or pre-loved wedding stuff might the way to go if you are close to train stations/a destination location.

Jesus, why be a doom mongering buzzkill?

She has reiterated that she has retail experience.

Retail experience is very different to running a business. I have retail experience but I've never set pricing, researched competitors/good sellers/products etc bought stock, got the correct insurance and certification, hired retail staff, dealt with business rates, had soul responsibility for customers being arsey, dealt with first aid, health and safety and a million other things I don't know enough about to even know I don't know about them.