Need help scaling a business

ifeelabreeze

I have a business idea that would require me to go to stores, and to set up a small counter top display at checkouts.

So on top of all the usual stuff. I would need to go around to my local shops and convince them to let me sell my products.

I'm actually already doing this with two local petrol stations, but the displays are unbranded and I just get a phone call to fill the display every few weeks.

They pay me up front, so there's no proper order docket, no account basically nothing official!

Question is, is it worth scaling? Profit margins per item are good but order quantities are tiny. I could scale it by simply getting into more stores but it'd probably just be a day here or there travelling around restocking the displays, then you've to factor in the amount of driving, cost of diesel and wear on the car compared to the small order quantities..

Should I instead look at eventually moving away from checkouts based displays and instead to stand alone units or shelf space and offering more products, or should I aim for that from the get go?

Profit margins are good but that's without unbranded/proper displays or packaging, so that'd obviously eat into it, economies of scale would help though as I'm not ordering in huge quantities as it stands.

Anyway, any idea where to go from here?

I don't think there's enough info here to give an opinion re display placement/size. I think that's dependent on the product and the effect placement has on purchases. Same thing for more products - can't really say without knowing what they are and what the market is like. You'll have to have a think about what kind of decision-making goes into a typical purchase and where you'll get the attention of your target demo.

I'm wondering about the travel. Surely if you invest in proper packaging, the store staff can refill the displays themselves? That investment would also sort out your branding and save you money/time in not travelling to each store.

As for whether you should scale it, if you're making a profit, why not? Providing the existing business is stable, you have the required working capital, and there aren't any additional obstacles than what you've outlined above.

enricoh

Sounds like it's a cash nixer kinda thing at the minute. Hard to know if you can scale it up to being an actual business or would you just be better off supplying a few places and doing a few farmers markets, supplying cafes etc.

It doesn't be long adding up buying a van, insurance, hiring a fella, etc