Anyone a Newsagent or shopo keapero?

[RandomJord]

Hello.

I'm pretty sure someone on here owned a newsagent or ran one or something an i need some advice.

I've had a thought of open a sort of newsagent/convenience store hybrid in the village i live in. There was until last year a dedicated shop/post office. my understanding is this closed down after the guy lost the post office part of the business and couldnt afford the rent an bills on the shop, its since been turned into offices.

I've found a way around that part of it but what im really struggling to find is any figures for suppliers for papers/usual little shop sh!t and the like. Does anyone have a membership to a wholesaler an could help me out with figures? or does anyone deal with smith/menzies an the like?

Cheers!

Jordan

[R32UK]

I know a man who does. Im pretty sure most wholesalers would speak to you if you went out to visit them or took time to make a call.

[RandomJord]

I know a man who does. Im pretty sure most wholesalers would speak to you if you went out to visit them or took time to make a call.

Already called the 3 ones local....."are you a member?" ...."no" ...."bye"

[R32UK]

I know a man who does. Im pretty sure most wholesalers would speak to you if you went out to visit them or took time to make a call.

Already called the 3 ones local....."are you a member?" ...."no" ...."bye"

Speak to the manager first. If you tell them you are looking to become a member they will probably bite your arm off.... 

If its just simple information you want then contact one of the larger groups, costcutter, londis etc etc im sure they will send you out an already made pack

[Guy]

when i was 10 I used to live in a village shop.. very handy for nicking sweets and getting all the panini football stickerzz.. 

mother used to get all the supplies from a wholesaler place.. and the papers i think were from menzies on a SoR basis.

long, long hours and very early starts.

[T_J_G]

Menzies and or NIDL (News international)

[The Mighty Elvi]

Firstly I would canvas the locals as to what they want.

Is there a Tesco nearby etc...Depends on how much work you wan't to throw at the shop.  You could go independent and buy everything from Costco ( I have head office contacts  ) and spend ages on Costs/profit calculations versus competitors.

This could be a benefit for the TESCNO brigade, local shop for local people business, maybe bring in some local suppliers/producers. Free range eggs, store baked speciality bread etc.. What would Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall do?

This is then contrasted with the Costcutter franchise model, for example.  A lot less hassle for you, but you pay them a fixed % of Turnover as a fee and have to buy all your stock from them. You could just employ staff and let them carry on without your day to day involvement.


Swings, and roundabouts Jord.

[Jack3559]

I was a shopkeeper until March.

This was it the day it closed down:



We moved out a month after that.

Our general stuff; bin bags, cleaning products and the like were all from Bookers and Costco.

Other hardware stuff came from specialist wholesalers that sent reps round.

[R32UK]

i love independent hardware stores... always have much better service that the big places. On the other hand they can be much more expensive that the big places for some stuff... and on others much cheaper!!! 

[Jack3559]

Yeah, that's exactly the way it was.

The branded stuff was harder to sell cheaper because you could only buy it in smaller orders.

The main thing though was that we could sell screws, bolts and nails individually, rather than buying a big bag, people could peruse the wares and come away with 24p worth just to put together a bird table or whatever.

Our biggest seller was bird seed. We were cheaper than the branded places and the retired community absolutely loved the shít.