I'm in my early 50's and have been a programmer, designer, and mangerof same for almost 30 years. I feel it's time for a change but stillhave to pay a mortgage and 3 kids in college.I'd love to open a Woodcrat store. Does anyone have any idea how much Icould take home? I know it depends on location, location, location, andother things like the qulaity of help, etc. But are we talking $40K andthat's a struggle or $400K? What should be my expectations?

I know someone who runs another woodworking store. He's beenestablished for quite some time. I don't know exactly what he makes,but it's definitely not 400k.. He says he's "surviving". Oneinteresting thing he told me was that since most of the big machines(tablesaws, etc) have gone to China, the margins have evaporated. Everyyear, the cost of fuel and steel goes up, and they have less margin.His store has the 10% of Jet/Delta/etc days once a year. He told methat many customers are not impressed, making comments like "thatdoesn't even cover tax".. but he told me that the only way they areable to do those sales is by having Delta absorb 5% of the discount..in other words, they don't even make a 10% margin on the machines.He said they make a decent margin on accessories.So basically, you definitely aren't going to get rich off it. If I wasyou, I'd look around the other woodworking stores locally and see whatkind of volume they do (look to see how busy they are). Since so manypeople buy...

Is it worth a career change?

Dec 01, 2006 61 Replies

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Scott Lurndal 19 years ago

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Bill in Detroit 19 years ago

Art, thanks for the heads up. I had previously used an older version but not been impressed ... it wasn't a drop-in and it didn't import very well. I'll give this a try.

There's a new laptop in my not-too-distant future. Might as well get one that's Penguin-friendly.

BTW ... bad link ... try this:

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