LHBS Inventory

[AzOr]

+27 on the virtual grain sacks. I've been buying virtual grain for several years and I love it. Every time I pick up 10lbs of grain, guess what else I get? Yup, all my hops, yeast, specialty malts and other smaller items. It's a win win.

Not sure this has been mentioned, but-- CO2 refills would be great. I'm not a fan of the exchanges. Often I fill up when Im down to 25% or so. If I wait till I'm out, it's usually at a time that's not convenient. Kinda like waiting to fill up my truck when I'm empty. Not good.

Best of Luck to you. It's cool to see a lhbs run by someone with lots of passion.

Ps- Convenient store hours are a great thing as well. Because I have little ones around the house, often I'm cramming in a brew day early on the weekends or late weeknights. One of my lhbs opens at 8a on Saturdays which is fantastic.

 

[kh54s10]

Ps- Convenient store hours are a great thing as well. Because I have little ones around the house, often I'm cramming in a brew day early on the weekends or late weeknights. One of my lhbs opens at 8a on Saturdays which is fantastic.

Yes, hours.... When I started there were two LHBSs in my area, they were only open about 4 or 5 hours a day and only 4 days a week. And more than once I went and they were not open when they were supposed to be. One is long defunct. And 3 more were added to the area during the next 6 years.

 

[AzOr]

^^^Yes consistent store hours are a good thing. I live in Portland and we have a crap ton of food carts here (I actually think if you added the # of food carts + weed shops, it would be more than the amount of people living here).
If the food carts listed their actual hours, it would say; "Meh, when we feel like waking up and cooking for your unworthy ass."

As far as store hours go, it's not reasonable to be open 24/7 like Wally World. However, for those of us who have to work for a living, staying open until 7ish would be great.

 

[brewbama]

This is the corner of the health food store that is dedicated to ingredients. There is a shelf not pictured with dry yeast and hops. And there’s a small selection of minerals and additives.

If you can open a store with this + an order form for whatever a customer wants within a week’s delivery you can make it.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]If you can open a store with this + an order form for whatever a customer wants within a week’s delivery you can make it.

Based on what - a health food store with a corner dedicated to home brewing?
Your store's contribution to home brewing is clearly supported by their core business.

Take that shelving (and hopefully a fridge for their hops - and not just a shelf) and make a business out of that.
Much more challenging these days...

Cheers!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

It would be nicer if they’d get a small fridge for the yeast and hops.

 

[brewbama]

True they don’t have much. What can I say. That’s what they have. They will order what they don’t have. Good folks.

I just picked up a sack of 2-row for less than the list price of any major online retailers I’ve checked and I didn’t have to pay shipping cost the online retailers charge. And they gave me a 10% vet discount on top.

 

[Dave Sarber]

True they don’t have much. What can I say. That’s what they have. They will order what they don’t have. Good folks.

I just picked up a sack of 2-row for less than the list price of any major online retailers I’ve checked and I didn’t have to pay shipping cost the online retailers charge. And they gave me a 10% vet discount on top.

Gotta love that 10% vets discount. Pays the state and local sales tax, and gives you back some change besides!

 

[Tony_nc]

Love it, brewbama

Since this is my thread I should add we are making great progress and I will post soon.

 

[day_trippr]

True they don’t have much. What can I say. That’s what they have. They will order what they don’t have. Good folks.[...]

Don't get me wrong - my point was only that it would be a tougher lift to make a go of a dedicated home brew store than to set aside a corner of some other type of retail establishment for a modest supply of home brewing needs.

I've seen a few home brew stores vanish over the last five years, haven't seen a single new one open. What was the largest lhbs in New England is almost full-ghost these days. Very sad, I may end up in the clutches of the e-tailers...

Cheers!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

There’s a hardware store (not exactly local to me) I needed something on a Sunday and I was in the area, they had less than half of what is in the image. So nice selection for a “side” interest, and even the larger LHBS don’t carry everything.

 

[Tony_nc]

Quick Update,
We are aggresively looking for a site (a little more difficult than I thought)
Secured money through personal and investors
My wife is handling the social media side and has FB and all the other forms set up.
I have all my vendor accounts linked and just placed my first order. House will be full of great brewing ingredients and equipment before the end of the year.
We are officially "The Brew Store of the Carolinas"........website will be up soon


I hope everyone has the best Christmas ever!

 

[user 263363]

Quick Update,
We are aggresively looking for a site (a little more difficult than I thought)
Secured money through personal and investors
My wife is handling the social media side and has FB and all the other forms set up.
I have all my vendor accounts linked and just placed my first order. House will be full of great brewing ingredients and equipment before the end of the year.
We are officially "The Brew Store of the Carolinas"........website will be up soon


I hope everyone has the best Christmas ever!

Congrats! What area are you looking at for a location? Closer to the Charlotte area or up around Denver? You'll definitely be close enough for me either way. Looking forward to stopping by!

 

[Tony_nc]

Thanks CaddyWampus
We are looking at Cornelius/Huntersville area. We have looked at a few places in Denver but we are a small town, I feel we need to be closer to the crowd.
Im excited to see everyone. If I can't find a good place soon we will be offering deliveries or my-house pickups. Our pricing beats anyone close to me. If I don't find a place before February I will be offering Brew classes at my house. DME and All Grain using my equipment. I'll have my wife bake cookies

Where are you in NC?

 

[user 263363]

Thanks CaddyWampus
We are looking at Cornelius/Huntersville area. We have looked at a few places in Denver but we are a small town, I feel we need to be closer to the crowd.
Im excited to see everyone. If I can't find a good place soon we will be offering deliveries or my-house pickups. Our pricing beats anyone close to me. If I don't find a place before February I will be offering Brew classes at my house. DME and All Grain using my equipment. I'll have my wife bake cookies

Where are you in NC?

I am in Kings Mountain, so Huntersville area would not be bad at all. Not much worse than driving all the way to Belmont as I do now for my brewing needs.

 

[CodeSection]

Quick Update,
We are aggresively looking for a site (a little more difficult than I thought)....We are officially "The Brew Store of the Carolinas"........website will be up soon


I hope everyone has the best Christmas ever!

I sense you may be feeling some anxiety when finding a location. Based upon experience as a tenant and building owner, I have been there. We recently renewed a lease on one of our offices and we started renegotiating a new lease six months prior to when our lease terminated. After slightly over three months of negotiation, we signed a new lease. With a market analysis in hand, plus our history with the owner, we were able to get a very favorable lease.

Don't be surprised if the landlord/owner you eventually deal with require personal guarantees with the lease. On our office building that we own, regardless of the entity type, we require personal guarantees. If individuals do not want to give the personal guarantees, we simply don't lease to them. In over 25 years, we have never had a problem with any of our buildings.

I know you probably already know this and a lot more. But a few items are worth repeating...

First, location, location and location. The better centrally located in your region to where the largest population is, the better. Needs to be in a safe location with adequate lighting....Cheap rent in a bad area of town won't cut it.

Secondly, access. You may have found the best location only to learn access is a nightmare. Maybe it involves only making a right turn....maybe only a left turn when exiting. Maybe it is hard just getting in and out of the business since traffic is heavy during rush hours which effectively closes the business for those hours.

Thirdly, security. Many businesses find places to rent like in a strip mall or large nesting of businesses. If you happen to have your space tucked away in the back away from the front of the road, not only may it be hard to find (mouse in a maze), but it probably would be a lot easier to break in. Yes, alarms help. But smash and grab happens in seconds to minutes well before police arrive. Try finding something that can be seen from the road. Being located in front provides visibility that can help deter robberies as well.

Remember the old days of Circle K and 7/11 stores plastering posters on the storefront windows. They have learned reducing those posters have lowered robberies....people can see in. Same thing applies to you since you are retail.

Fourth, lease term. Don't get into a long lease regardless of lowering costs with one. At this point, you want flexibility in moving in case you find you made a miscalculation in picking the location; you discover you need more space; or you find out your business endeavor is not profitable or requires way too much of your time with very little reward.

Good luck and don't rush in finding a location. Take your time.

Happy holidays to you too!

 

[Tony_nc]

Code I love ya, I don't know you but I love ya. Im sorry you had to type so much for me.

Ive thought about all those things and I see the issues. I would like to hire you as my negotiator or my attorney.

I see walls everywhere and intend to break them down

Hope you and your family the best holidays

 

[mongoose33]

Great advice by @CodeSection!

Let me add a couple things too, though you seem to be thinking this through pretty well so may have already considered them.

Being in a strip mall or similar has this advantage depending on the other stores: people love to do more than one thing when they make a trip to shop, so if they can not only visit your brew store but also pick up something else at the same location, it's a plus. Back in its heyday, strip malls loved to have a Blockbuster in the strip because they drove traffic to the strip mall, both when people selected tapes but when they returned them. So any place that has good traffic to other stores is a plus.

Can't recall, are you doing the wine thing? My LHBS has a section with wine kits, other ingredients, equipment, and so on. Driving additional traffic with something like that is a plus--though if you don't know about winemaking (I don't), advice for winemakers may be hard to offer. Some of this depends on space and so on. The more people who know about your place the better, and winemakers may be a good word-of-mouth resource.

Don't know if you're planning on doing CO2 tank swaps, but if not, you may want to consider that.

Good idea above about the lease term. If you find a place you like with a really attractive long-term lease rate, see if you can negotiate a buyout of the lease, say after 24 months you can buy out the lease for something like $1000 or $2000, something that would let you end operations there if the business isn't working or you find a much better or larger location. Not sure if that would be possible, but it may give you the safety of avoiding a long-term commitment like @CodeSection says, but with the lower costs that may be the difference between success and failure.

Good luck!

 

[Carolina_Matt]

One thing about Huntersville/Cornelius is that there's already a shop in Cornelius (Alternative Beverage, part of ebrew.com). I think they're going out of business though. It's good in the sense that you'd be losing competition, but bad in the sense that the location might not be able to sustain a full-time shop. It's also possible that they just don't run the shop well enough. If you haven't been there before, I'd recommend stopping in just to get a sense for how they're running the shop and how you can do better.

 

[CodeSection]

Both @mongoose33 and @CarolinaMatt make good points. Strip malls have their advantages.

When I researched Alternative Beverage, the Cornelius location appears to be located in a warehouse away from retail shops. If they are indeed closing that location, the lack of retail business may be a part of that decision. Cheap warehouse rentals are not the solution for retail. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Alternative+Beverage+huntersville+nc show pictures at that location.

Here is Alternative Beverage's Charlotte strip mall location. https://www.google.com/search?clien...&ved=0ahUKEwjv69mShrjmAhUZFjQIHS1rBTIQ4dUDCAo Great signage with other businesses in the strip mall. Though, the name on the signage "Alternative Beverage" doesn't necessarily tell the reader what type of business it is. To me, I would have thought it was something like Wine & More. Imagine the foot traffic just having a Pizza Hut next door. That location appears to be on a regular street....not one with 50 MPH post. So traffic is not speeding by....

Alternative Beverage's Belmont's location is located in a warehouse. It has a lot of space and is not designed for retail. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=alternative+beverage+1500+river+dr+belmont+nc. I suspect it handles all of their online ordering. They have been in business since 1977 and appears to have a decent business model that has worked for them. Without question, their buying power is enormous and with that volume, I'm sure they are receiving excellent pricing on their inventory.

@Tony_nc, you are definitely located in a rural area. While Hwy 16 may be a good artery to your house, I'm not sure how far your customers would be required to drive. Working out of your home has advantages and disadvantages. If you are focusing on retail and trying to bring in new brewers through education, I believe the disadvantages far out way the advantages.

Just a few immediate disadvantages come to mind. You have no marketing/advertising benefits that a strip mall could provide. No one is going to drive by your house and say "let's stop by and see what they have to offer". You have effectively stopped all retail traffic. Personally, I would not go to your house. My perception (whether if it is true or not) is my reality. Working out of the house in a residential neighborhood sends the wrong message for retail. Sounds like a hobby trying to make it a business around your schedule. Lastly, security. I would never invite or allow strangers in my house or portion thereof. While strangers may not actually steal or break in at a later date, they may tell their friends about your house's layout. Crime travels and bad guys talk to other bad guys....

It sounds like your business model may be changing which could have a major impact on your success. You may want to contact a commercial real estate agent about what is available to lease in your area. They have lists of available properties. They are paid a commission by the owner of the property when a lease is signed. Many people believe they will be paying more by using an agent. This is not true. Market conditions control the lease pricing, not commissions. An owner will not be able to increase rents above market conditions to cover any commissions paid out. The benefit of a commercial real estate agent is they can run market analysis reports for you, they can find and show you properties and they can negotiate the lease deal. No deal is too small...check it out.

Again, take your time. Changing your business model may be a bad or good thing. I'm a believer when there are a lot of obstacles or walls that keep getting in the way, that is a major signal to reassess the situation. Many times new business owners are so focused on the tree that they fail to see the forest....they fail to see when the business venture really isn't as viable as they thought. I'm not trying to discourage you, but I would hate for you to lose your investment and that of others.

IMHO, your house location is only good for online orders....not for retail business.

Again, I wish you the best.

 

[Tony_nc]

One thing about Huntersville/Cornelius is that there's already a shop in Cornelius (Alternative Beverage, part of ebrew.com). I think they're going out of business though. It's good in the sense that you'd be losing competition, but bad in the sense that the location might not be able to sustain a full-time shop. It's also possible that they just don't run the shop well enough. If you haven't been there before, I'd recommend stopping in just to get a sense for how they're running the shop and how you can do better.

Ive been shopping with them for 20+ years. Know the owner personally, he's had a monopoly for way too long. He's very wishy washy at 71, they are closing but we will see. Either way, bring it on.

I haven't thought of everything (like everyone things) but Im rolling with the punches.

 

[Tony_nc]

UPDATE:
Website is looking great and will be up in the next week out or so.

Wife has FB up and working.

Looking for a place, have some promising contacts. I think everyone is focused on Santa right now.

 

[Sioux Brew]

So I was thinking this as well as I live in Des Moines and we had our two stores close within the last year. We no longer have any home brew stores in our market, but we have 2 thriving clubs of brewers that are pretty well attended. I thought about doing this out of my basement and having strictly online order and self pickup type service for the local brewers.

As a CPA I figured I’d run some numbers on it trying to figure out volume of sales. What I thought would be my strategic advantage, not having rent, really boiled down to a volume issue. Let’s say I did $10k volume of sales/year with a 25% markup. I’d only be taking home $2,500 before other misc expenses. That’s probably not worth my time, even if it was $5,000. The hours putting together recipes and the cost of fridges and misc items would eat into that profit pretty quick. There’s a reason the large retailers are successful. They have LOTS of money to spend on advertising and can deal out of warehouses in HIGH volume. Volume is the key to any retail store. Even if you do $100k sales/year at 25% you still only take home $25k of profit which simply isn’t enough in my opinion to justify a store!

 

[CodeSection]

So I was thinking this as well as I live in Des Moines and we had our two stores close within the last year. We no longer have any home brew stores in our market, but we have 2 thriving clubs of brewers that are pretty well attended. I thought about doing this out of my basement and having strictly online order and self pickup type service for the local brewers.

As a CPA I figured I’d run some numbers on it trying to figure out volume of sales. What I thought would be my strategic advantage, not having rent, really boiled down to a volume issue. Let’s say I did $10k volume of sales/year with a 25% markup. I’d only be taking home $2,500 before other misc expenses. That’s probably not worth my time, even if it was $5,000. The hours putting together recipes and the cost of fridges and misc items would eat into that profit pretty quick. There’s a reason the large retailers are successful. They have LOTS of money to spend on advertising and can deal out of warehouses in HIGH volume. Volume is the key to any retail store. Even if you do $100k sales/year at 25% you still only take home $25k of profit which simply isn’t enough in my opinion to justify a store!

I remember you....https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/homebrew-store-in-my-house.669387/#post-8661301

 

[Sioux Brew]

I remember you....https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/homebrew-store-in-my-house.669387/#post-8661301

I loved the idea man! I really wish we had another one in our town! However the economics are tough. If I’m ever in your area I’ll come check you out!

 

[Nate R]

So I was thinking this as well as I live in Des Moines and we had our two stores close within the last year. We no longer have any home brew stores in our market, but we have 2 thriving clubs of brewers that are pretty well attended. I thought about doing this out of my basement and having strictly online order and self pickup type service for the local brewers.

As a CPA I figured I’d run some numbers on it trying to figure out volume of sales. What I thought would be my strategic advantage, not having rent, really boiled down to a volume issue. Let’s say I did $10k volume of sales/year with a 25% markup. I’d only be taking home $2,500 before other misc expenses. That’s probably not worth my time, even if it was $5,000. The hours putting together recipes and the cost of fridges and misc items would eat into that profit pretty quick. There’s a reason the large retailers are successful. They have LOTS of money to spend on advertising and can deal out of warehouses in HIGH volume. Volume is the key to any retail store. Even if you do $100k sales/year at 25% you still only take home $25k of profit which simply isn’t enough in my opinion to justify a store!

+1 to this.
Also... as the number of sales goes up, so does overhead. Bulk prices can go down, but all the increased operating costs can be overwhelming.
How many orders a day can one person fill? Two people? Hire a part time person to help, now you become HR (no matter what). Say the help gets hurt- do you have insurance? Etc., etc.

 

[Carolina_Matt]

UPDATE:
Website is looking great and will be up in the next week out or so.

Wife has FB up and working.

Looking for a place, have some promising contacts. I think everyone is focused on Santa right now.

Looks like the Cornelius location for Alternative Brewing is officially closed. How's your website and FB page coming along?

 

[Tony_nc]

Looks like the Cornelius location for Alternative Brewing is officially closed. How's your website and FB page coming along?

Website is a little weak right since I don't have much in stock but we are up and running and growing as fast as we can. I received my first shipment 12/30. If its on the website I received it. I didn't order much ingredients just basic equipment for now. Still aggressively looking for a location.

FB is up and running. Again not much to see yet but getting the word out.

The Brew Store of the Carolinas-----Trying to get higher up on googles SEO

 

[Tony_nc]

We are/were set to open early April and then Covid-19 kicks in. We have our location and growing daily till the news came in. We've been taking orders online and just recently started offering a local pick up option on the website.

 

[CodeSection]

We are/were set to open early April and then Covid-19 kicks in. We have our location and growing daily till the news came in. We've been taking orders online and just recently started offering a local pick up option on the website.

I've been wondering how you have been faring. Thanks for the update!