Gift Basket Review -
November 1997 - More - |
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Sheree Zielke's shop Her warehouse set-up also inspired the move. "The design area was a mess, and all the products had wholesale prices instead of the real (retail) price, so I'd either not let customers in or I was on the road, showing baskets and hauling products up three flights of stairs." Choosing A Site Consultants such as Francis Scorza, president of Retail Venture Consulting in San Diego, CA, recommend researching an area's demographics: the number of households in a 5-mile radius of a potential site, household income, traffic patterns. City planning departments or chambers of commerce may have such data. Real estate brokers like Henderson make it their business to have it. However, Delap, Zielke and other basketeers relied on their own judgment and knowledge of their communities. Delap personally studied the strip mall she liked, "I'd sit in the parking lot and watch the traffic at different times of day. If you're checking out any strip mall, look for stores that are certain draws, like a bakery." Her strip center is anchored by Bob's of Canton, an independent grocery "where everybody in town buys their meat. They do wonderful advertising every week. There's also a Coney Island with a business lunch crowd from 11 to 1 and a pro golf shop -- which women are getting into -- that does TV commercials. In Edmonton, Zielke's initial target was Callingwood Mall, but cost and terms worried her. "They wanted $27.50 a square foot -- I would have had to sell $1,000 a day!" One quote for shelving alone came in at $14,000, "and the fixtures would have stayed with the landlord." |
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Instead of signing, Zielke called Scorza. "He kept
me out of trouble. He looked at the lease and the numbers and said, "Keep looking.'
He said the lease was too big, with too much stuff and legalese. I worked with him over
the phone for four or five months, and his fees were worth it."
In North Carolina, Judy Cannady opted for only part of a store to house her gift basket business. A Tisket A Tasket rents a 12-by-12 foot booth within the Fayetteville location of Crafts for Less, a chain store. Cannady has the same size space on the second floor for storage. "I started looking for a stand-alone building but I didn't want to sign a three- to five-year lease" because a chronic health problem makes the future uncertain, Cannady says. She admits it was "scary getting out on your own with $1,200 a month rent and up. I found places for $600 including utilities, but in less desirable neighborhoods." Cannady won't specify her current rent except to say "it's about half what I would have paid on my own, and it includes utilities." She had met the craft store owner by chance when she was shopping for supplies and contacted his when she began scouting retail sites. She has a month-to-month lease and help with sales, since craft store customers can buy pre-made baskets at the central register when she's out. She swapped her 500-customer mailing list for the craft store's 7,000 names. |
