60 Minutes blasted after replacing harris word salad…

[kazura]

I have had a garden centre in australia for 22 yrs. My thai wife and I are thinking of a garden centre

in Bangkok.

what do you think?

[Soutpeel]

Why not.....havent seem too many in BKK, but around Chonburi were I live there are a few about...

[Khun Jean]

I saw a sign somewhere in the center of Bangkok for a piece of land for sale. It might be just what you are looking for.

Bidding starts at 700.000 baht per TW (Talang Wah or 4 square meters) and the plot is about 2242 TW. A real bargain.

Kidding aside, i think location is probably too expensive unless you are somewhere on the outer skirts of Bangkok, but then it would probably not be convenient for customers to visit.

Because of that reason i think it will not work.

And if you do find something, be aware that renting has a lot of pitfalls, like crazy increases in keymoney and monthly/yearly rents. For a business that needs time to develop and grow the need for a good rental contract is essential. Those 3 year terms are business killers of the first order so when you find something consider nothing less than a 10 year contract and if i was in your shoes i would not even go for shorter than 30 years.

[supaprik]

there are numerous garden center's that surround Bangkok, the land within the CBD would be prohibitive cost wise one would think, having said that with the right products and good location I would think that it could work...I noticed when buying certain products from these places some of the prices seemed very expensive by comparison to what i had paid whilst doing similar landscaping in Australia.....anyway best of luck.......

[CharlieH]

I think the concept is good, especially if you incorporate a coffee shop, maybe fish like carp etc and water features a sort of one stop shop for all thing garden. I know there is a cluster of garden shops near Mochit, about 30 or so shops selling a range of garden items, main problem was no where to stop the car near them so you could browse, Ok to stop and load up but thats it.

If you could find the land, and incorporate a range of facilities and stock to make it worth a visit and spend a few hours browsing around it would be great !

Used to enjoy visiting the Garden centers for a Sunday afternoon back home.

In theory a winner, in practice I think very expensive to set-up to its potential.

The other option which I saw recently on the outskirts of Phitsanoluk, a guy had rented a huge area, then sub-let plots to different garden shops and he opened the Coffee & snack shop, so the end result was the same but used other people rather than solo.

Edited May 24, 2011 by CharlieH

[RedFxTrade]

I think you should go for it...this is a potential business idea where you could come out smelling of roses

[bbradsby]

Plant yards are very common, all over BKK - just drive around. And many plant sales stalls at mall/tesco/carrefour entrances sell potted plants as well. So be warned that unless youre in a maybe 5km radius area with no good vendors and big suburban growth happening, your volume & margins may be severely squeezed. That is, unless you/spouse buy exurban land on a major artery, figure the plant biz as a-cover-the-expenses endeavor, and hold the land for five to ten years for the speculative increase in value based on the urban growth. This is tried & true. Buy edge of rural land, cover your costs, and sell when the city grows to your property.

Another variation would be a brownfield site in the urbanized districts with infill condos springing up - well out of the pricey CBD - where an industrial property could be re-purposed for your business and apossible future sale to a condo developer would be lucrative. Basically, your real potential to make appreciable baht is likely in the land play and not the plants unless you have entre into the commercial or a specialized market.