I'm only down a couple thou ;)
I'm sure it will all turn around in December though.
December 1st: 5 hr power outage December 2nd: Hmm, what's that dark colored sawdust next to the bench? Oh, it's wet. Hey, it's over at the other end of the wall too. Hmm, and all the way down the other wall too...
Or, maybe not.
-Leuf
Something in the same vein that I've seen working well for people is cornering a niche market- a very clearly defined one. It's amazing what people will pay to get one process done. A couple of examples-
Two retired guys used to run an outfit called "precision welding" that did capacitor discharge welding only for the shop I work for. They charged $2.65 per part to weld on six pieces of hardware. They've since quit doing that, and now I have to do it- turns out, I can do about 100 of those parts an hour- and I'm sure not making $265 an hour to do it! If you're not familiar with what that is, it's sticking a special screw in a thing that looks like a little pistol, pressing it to metal, and pushing a button- takes less than a second per piece of hardware.
We've also got an outside vendor that makes one part. Just one, on an old CNC mill. We give him pre-sheared blanks, he mills the outside edge to shape, drills 20 holes and countersinks them. For that, he gets better than $20 a part, and doesn't even deburr them. It's a bargin for my bosses, because they are constantly on order, and the guys I work with (myself included) hate large production runs. Farming that stuff out not only keeps production levels in the shop high, but it also helps to keep the employees from looking for greener pastures- we're job shop guys, not factory workers.
There are plenty of others. I guess my point is that if you can handle a little repetition or can lay out an investment for even one top-notch industrial machine that will run itself, there are a lot of bread-and-butter jobs that you could make a nice living from at home. I'd bet that you could buy a nice panel saw, a crapload of MDF, and cut shelving to standard widths all day long in your garage, and make a killing at it. Or get a screw-making lathe with a bar feeder, and let it run while you play around in your shop. Retail won't do that for you unless you're amazingly gifted at it, and really, genuinely like people.
Or, on a completely different track, I have observed (though never really understood why this is the case) that a lot of engineers and programmers take up plumbing when they change careers, and I've yet to meet one that didn't appear to be estatically happy about the trade. Myself, I hate plumbing- but there must be something about it that appeals to technology workers, and it pays pretty good once you get past the learning/apprenticeship stage.
Well, I was at both stores, and the Woodcraft store was 100 times better than WoodWorker's Warehouse. I spend a lot of time and money at Woodcraft, and every time I pass the empty store I get an empty feeling in my gut.
Although - I was getting annoyed at some of Woodcraft's practices:
They would give you a 10% off coupon (on your birthday) but you couldn't combine that with any other sale they offered. I tried to mazimize my purchase value, but the best I could do was get 10%.
They would have a sale each month, but often the retail price of the sale item was raised right before the sale, so the savings was imaginary. I shopped around a lot, and often the Woodcraft sale price was higher than the normal price at another store.
Some of the sale items were great, but they started importing new items for the sole purpose of offering an item at a low cost. Some of those items were equal to (or lower than) the quality that Harbor Freight.
In this Albany/Schenectady/Troy area there are a lot of places when the rental property owners think they have a goldmine. I've seen entire strip malls remain empty for years because they insist on high rental prices, and small stores that try to survive keep failing.
I didn't know about those requirements for keeping carving chisels etc. displayed. But that helps explain the problem. I always wondered about the huge displays, and all that wasted space.
It's a shame that Woodcraft was so restrictive in their policies.
You can read all you want to on line, but it's nothing like going to a store and seeing the tool in person.
I spent many many happy hours wandering in the Woodcraft store.
The bothersome thing in those big displays is that there's usually a gap or two where something was sold and not replaced. And that gap is usually where whatever I need today would lie. On the other hand they have a pallet full of their $20 clamp sets. But not a $69.99 Nova Precision Midi in sight.
I spent over 20 years in retail, owning a bicycle store. AFter my experience, I want to comment on two different points of view.
First, many people have pointed out the pitfalls of owning your own store. Those pitfalls are real, not imagined. There are long hours, no job security. The income stream is questionable and unknowable in advance. Getting good employees is difficult (I had 11). Dealing with bookkeeping issues,regulations, marketing decisions, banking options are all difficult and each contains its own learning curve, As the owner of a small business, it strongly behooves you to, if not master, then at least have decent skills in all of those areas. It's the ultimate "jack-of-all-trades" job -- owning a small business.
You need your eyes wide open regarding the downside of business ownership. The downside buries more business entrepreneurs than enables them.
On the upside however, business ownership is a complete rush. You are master of your small universe. If you prove to have the entrepreneurial skillsets necessary to succeed, then ownership is wonderful. If your product is right, your location is right, you know and understand your product, demonstrate good interpersonal customer skills, you can do very well. Most don't. Some do. It's not easy, but you only live once and I think people should follow their dreams if the opportunity presents itself. This could be yours.
I sold my store when I was 44 years old and am glad I did. I was tired of retail, and frankly wanted to spend all of my time with my son (then
7 yrs old) and in the shop making furniture.Good luck with your decision.
Rick
My goodness, Barry.. that hit a little too close to home here.... at least I that started out that way back in Sept 2003. But business has not let up...and I am at a cross-roads whether to grow again or not...
(Of course it helps to have a mafia-like mentality with the market sewn-up with the suppliers and rigid enforcers milking all the poor old ladies in the area. Bwhahahahahaha)
r
His business is retail hobby store that is open from 1p-4p and 6p-8p weekdays, and is closed Saturday mornings and Sunday.
Note that the shop is closed during lunch, PM drive time, and weekend times, where a hobbyist might actually drop by to buy something.
------
Your story sounds strangely familiar.
Kind of interesting. It looks like (based on this and the comments regarding having 3 years worth of living expenses and then plan on a "nominal salary") someone has figured out how to have employees that furnish their own money for company expenses. Not a bad deal (for the franchising party, not the franchisee). Unless something has been omitted in all of the information, this sounds like a very one-sided deal with lots of downside risk and very little, if any, upside advantages.
The OP may be better off putting together his own "mom & pop" style woodworking shop. If he picks the right location and product mix, he has a good chance of doing well.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
No, I don't think so, but there was an article about me in CWB.
Rick
I'm down in Ulster county (work in Schenectady) and the Kingston Woodworker's Warehouse was one of the best stores in the whole chain... they actually made money in that store and the manager, Phil, was good about getting things for me and making sure I got the best deal on things. I regularly ran into the owners of local cabinet shops and contracting outfits in the store because the store had the tools and supplies to keep those businesses moving. The hobbyists benefited from the commercial business as the store was well stocked with items that sold...
The Albany Woodcraft's business, on the other hand, struck me as doing almost pure hobbyist business. While there is nothing wrong with hobbyists how many sanders are they going to wear out in a lifetime? One small commercial shop I know well of goes through a couple sanders per year, looses and replaces dozens of screw drivers per year on job sites, and the list of constant purchase items goes on...
Also, from what I'd heard the Albany WW was not of the same caliber as the Kingston store which could explain our varying experiences with them. I think that was due to the options available to contractors and cabinet shops as well as management differences.
I'm familiar with that mind-set... don't understand it but I suppose corporate owners might have a portfolio of properties and not really know what a particular location is realistically capable of generating. I recall looking at an appraisal of a water driven grist mill property that was on the market for $1 million. I thought they were nuts as this place was on a dead end road in rural upstate NY and they were using the properties in Merchant's Square in Colonial Williamsburg, VA as comps! CW was doing about a million visitors per year, plus the College of William & Mary being across the street, and other historic sites in the area to draw people to the stores... If the Grist Mill was capable of pulling in 5,000 people per year I'd be shocked. BTW, that property didn't sell for the million. The son took it over and sold it some years later for, as I recall, $350,000. ;~)
Woodcraft is kind of like Subway sandwich shops... the company makes money on everything but the owners of the franchises are often making trivial wages for themselves. Some year ago there was a Wall St Journal article on Subway that laid out how most of the franchises did poorly for the owners but if they owned a bunch of them it was possible to make decent money. About the same time the local paper interviewed the owner of the local Subway and he figured he was making about minimum wage after all was said and done.
John
Since you work in Schenectady, does that mean you also have the monogram tattooed on each cheek?
Lew
B A R R Y wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
If the store wasn't open in the evening, I'd think it was located in Fort Wayne, IN. Most of the places I want to go aren't open during the time of day when I'm able to go anywhere, that is the evening.
Puckdropper
Excellent responses folks. Thank you very much. On a related note, I was in Plano, Texas on a business trip last week (in fact I'll be in Plano till Dec 22), so I went up to Curly Woods in McKinney
BTW, this place really has much better wood and more species than the places I shop in Colorado: Diverse Hardwoods in Longmont, Paxton's in Denver, and Sears Trostel in Fort Collins. I think Curly Woods really specializes in extremely high end quality woods - of course the prices reflect that.
Never Enough M> I'm in my early 50's and have been a programmer, designer, and manger
Nope... work in the big new (2-3 years old) building across the street from the county building...
John
Very interesting! I've been making notes about desireable features of a "Financial Package" for 15 years or so. My wife and I have different ways of looking at finances and a program that satisfied us both would be useable by practically anyone. ;-) Maybe I should actually write some code...
-- Mark
I too have been to Curley Woods once, on a Saturday morning. Again 2 customers and I was one of them in 45 minutes. I don't see how he keeps the doors open either. He does have a web site so I suspect internet sales help.
If ever in Houston, look at Clarks/Hardwood Lumber. Probably 5 times more variety and 50 times more quantity than Curley Woods. Really a cool place that you could spend most of a day looking through the 3 large buildings.
I've found gnucash to be a useful (albeit less friendly) alternative to Quicken. It is double-entry tho, which may seem odd to Joe Random Quicken user.
Quicken may also work under Crossover and/or wine.
scott
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