Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Adventures in Retail: Getting Organized

The work on the new business continues!

Turns out opening a business is a daunting task and because of my impatient nature, I always try to do everything at once. So, I'm constantly making short movements toward designing the interiors, buying products, setting up a POS system, networking, getting all of the licensing taken care of... and trying to get some sleep!

I'm sure my stress level will decrease once the space build out is complete, but until then I feel like I'm on pause. It can be difficult to imagine how all of the products will fit in the store without being able to work with the items in the space.

What have I done to get organized? I started an excel spreadsheet and listed EVERY item I'm looking at buying and included the minimum order number and associated prices. Seeing this all layed out where I can easily manipulate numbers has been incredibly helpful.

I also grabbed a Word doc and started dropping in pictures of the things I'm looking to buy. I'm a very visual person and this helps me to visualize the store and how much space each of these items might take up or if they all make sense together.

We are also trying to figure out a way to purchase enough but not too much. We don't want to overdue it and spend all of our money right at the gate.

We are still on track for a March opening! I will keep you up to date as things move along.

No comments:

Post a Comment