Opening a service station with supermarket.

Santan

Hi, I have been looking at a premises that is already up and running for over 40 years, but is in need of a full renovation, has not been updated since it opened really. Its in a village with a good size population, but not within walking distance really, but has a very big car park. The competition locally is another small supermarket in the center of the village but the new people that have taken over since covid are not really doing the best of jobs, no locally sourced fresh baked goods, cheaper unknown branded products on the shelves but with expensive pricing, that kind of thing. I am looking to but the petrol station not taking a lease on it, and have been told by a friend in the business that to budget around 200k for a refit, which has caught me by surprise, was thinking around 100k for it. My background is in hospitality, and would be looking to put a manager in to run the business more so than running it myself, I do have a good idea of the normal day to day running costs of a service business, bars & restaurants, but not shops or forecourts, so was just looking for any advice that anyone would have, to unknown cost related to this industry, or am I just being an idiot jumping in to something like this, a business that I would honestly think, currently has a turnover of 15k perm month, it is not used locally really due to the relationship of the current owner and the locals. Thanks for any advice.

Gloomtastic!

A village will not have enough population to provide you with sufficient income. You need to bring people in - a destination.

The very big car park. Big enough for car boot sales, farmers market?

JVince

Talk to fuel brands such as EMO or Inver and talk to symbol groups.

In many cases the fuel brand will take charge of the fuel element and pay you a percentage of sales for managing it.

Then look at Spar / Centra / Daybreak and see what suits you best. In many case they will have a fitout system and finance it for you and you pay back over an amount of years.

They will also have statistics that will show if it will be successful.

Trying to go out on your own and creating your own identity will see you lose a lot of money.

15k t/o a month is extremely small in the convenience market. The profit comes from the deli/coffee. If there's no "breakfast roll" business, it will be a hard slog.

Santan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121711874#Comment_121711874

it would be big enough, but would not like to have to go into it thinking that without this it would be a failure, other places nearby bigger to have the same facility, and who knows if they opted to compete in the future.

Santan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121711912#Comment_121711912

Have spoken to the supermarket brands, they will stump up an amount to help with the refit, with conditions to stay for a certain number of years, that would be the way I think, the fuel brands, to go in to a contract with them really limits what you can charge for fuel, they will have to much say in the price and I would be to uncompetitive, best to remain free to move around when you want, higher initial cost but it gives autonomy, I agree 15k a month is very very tight for margins, fine at the start but if it cannot be grown it is lots of work for little reward, currently there is no deli/coffee in the village at all and thats where i am really trying to see the potential with it, the brand names, centra, spar, mace, have great knowledge in this area, which I would use to get up and running, and my background is in food and drinks so keeping a tight reign on that end is where I think I can be strong going forward, while providing a good quality product.

JVince

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121713041#Comment_121713041

The only reason I know about the fuel brands is I saw planning permissions on 3 garages - 2 were emo and one was inver.

All 3 would be highly competitive on price - the Inver one is in Johnstown Kilkenny and frequently one of the cheapest in the country. The emo one is nurney Kildare and always at the lower end - they have a spar. Might be worth a call to and ask for a chat.

cute geoge

Location ,Location,Location.

It is a quiet sleepy country village or is it a village that people have to pass trough to get to somewere .

Even if you manage to take most of the customer of the other village shop will it still be viable to make repayments but if you could attract passing trade then this could make all the difference

Santan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121713594#Comment_121713594

Thanks for this, I will definitely make it my business to check this one out in kilkenny, and see what kind of operation it is, and if it was possible to chat

Santan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121713705#Comment_121713705

No there will be no passing trade other than the locals that live there, it is located close to another village that does not have a petrol station so would be trying to attract them, but villages being villages there is a bit of local gaa rivalries, but is still a vein to tap into. There are 3 villages within 5k of each other, my one is the only one that has not had an updated shop or forecourt in over 30 years, the other 2 have, and are very busy, but very importantly both have passing traffic going to other towns, I don't. My biggest fear is that, there are people much smarter than me in this game and why are they not biting at this one, is for sale 3 years and is priced OK.

JVince

If there's no passing traffic you will not do well.

It's a great idea to do good food and freshly baked goods, but they are not cheap and people will tell you to stock stuff, but will then refuse to pay the prices.

Then you have a lot of waste.

The Johnstown station is on the old N8, so is very well known and has strong passing trade and been around for decades.

The nurney station has some passing trade, is about 7 years old and probably more suitable as a place to chat to. It's about 6 min off jct 13 of the M7

Santan

My village has approx 1000 people to give some extra context

tomhammer..

There's a local one here similar population 1000 or so but they have a lot of passing trade

If the only 2 exisiting outlets in the town are not busy there's probably your answer, it's probably not viable