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jaykhunter wrote: »

Do u know anyone else who owns a 2nd hand store/something like what you want to do? I imagine it's not a cheap venture.

Its still something I'm researching, and I'm not going to even think of actually going through with anything until I do all the proper market research needed. But something that was drawing me to the second hand nature of the store is that it seems to be a lot cheaper than opening a shop with brand new stock. A quick flick over to Adverts.ie, for example, shows people trying to offload boxes of good quality books for a euro per book. Books which would cost me a tenner each if I stocked them new.

Originally I was thinking of opening a plain old book store, but turns out Easons have a crazy domination over things in Ireland; you pretty much have to stock from them, which allows them to control market prices, forcing indy stores to charge prices higher than their own. There was a story in the papers a few days ago that they were trying to pretty much have a monopoly on the industry, only a judge blocked them from buying the only real competition they have.

Still, it strikes me that rents in certain places are quite good, given the lack of new start-up enterprises. Doing some research into the place I'd like to start up, I think I could negotiate something very favorable in terms of rent. I'd imagine it's the rates for insurance and the basic bills that will crease me. But if I'm right, I'll have enough to do it right.

As for the original question....honestly, no, but it strikes me there's not many such shops around. There's one place in Drogheda which buys clothes en bulk and pays per kilo, but they don't sell stuff (imagine they transfer it off somewhere to sell it at a huge mark up). There's charity stores. But there's no proper, "high end" second hand store.

As I said, not something I'll do if my research shows no market or a high probability of losses. But it's getting to the stage I'm sick and tired of being unemployed and this country doesn't seem to be doing much to help rectify that situation (they continue to screw new teachers like myself every day). So it's getting time I just take matters into my own hands and try and improve my situation myself

I'd say your safe enough without playing the others.
It'd been that long since I played them that I couldn't remember any of the details of the earlier games. There's one level where the collectible clues reference characters from the previous games, but I'd say you're grand going in without having played them.