Opening a Butcher Shop

jessief

Hi All,

Just wondering if ye would have any advice on the following. My husband is a qualified butcher and very good at his job. He has spotted an opportunity to open a butcher shop in a small village that would have a big catchment area (very large farming area also). Now he earns a descent wage as a butcher already so I'm a bit hesitant but he feels there's huge opportunity and mark up. He would have to kit out the shop himself, reckon it would cost 20K but the rent is about 180e per week so not too bad. What do ye think? Any advice would be great.

J

drunkmonkey

What population has the village, the rent seems off the wall for a village, 180pw I presume + vat and rates is a lot, he'd be better off looking at a bigger town with a sizable population. The rent might be more but so will his customer base.

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

Hi Jessie,

There's not enough information here to offer any advice. Does he have the finance to afford the start up costs? Where do people currently buy their meat?

I'd suggest working out foot fall over an average 8 hour period then spending another 8 hours outside the nearest butchers and working out their conversion rate (percentage of people that enter the shop and presumably buy). The hubby will know average order values etc. Then estimate how much of the local market they can take from that butchers as well as from the supermarket chains.

jessief

Thanks for replying guys, Drunk Monkey - do you think the rent is too high?

Not sure about the population but the catchment area is very large and no butchers within a 8-10 mile radius. The local shop is very small and does not sell meet.

The consumer shop, he would need to get a loan so not sure if that will even be a possibility! As there are no butchers any where near by it would be hard to determine where people go. There used be a butcher in the village but he closed a few months ago, he was in his 70's and retired, apparently did a great trade.

mikemac

Sell fish!

People are buying lots of fish but a lot of butchers don't stock it and so we have to go the supermarkets.

It seems obvious but too many butchers just won't stock it

And it's in the papers and Pat Kenny show how supermarkets are selling fish that is mislabeled.
You can offer more information then the teenager in the supermarket to inform your customers

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

I'd suggest offering to bring the retired butcher out for lunch / dinner to somewhere nice and humbly ask for his advice and experience. I'd imagine he would be happy to offer his advice.

If he did a roaring trade then it seems there is an obvious untapped demand.

drunkmonkey

Great idea to take the retired butcher and probably his wife out for a good meal. He might also have a lot of equipment you need to start up, he may even have a premises a bit cheaper.

You could have a little goldmine on your hands. Just watch the overheads.

jor el

OP, don't cross post to other forums. That is considered spamming and will get you banned if you do it again.