Who told her opening a coffee shop was a good idea?

[JJGreen]

What’s the deal with coffee shops here…

Most of them are empty at all hours of the day and night…Sure, some do okay…mostly those in the malls and some decent locations but even some of those seem devoid of customers. Getting outside to surrounding area most small ones are empty. Some very large coffee shops outside malls seem to do well, but not the small ones.

I can’t remember the amount of times I have heard a Thai girl tell me she wants to open a coffee shop. It’s her dream.

Surely the economics of running a coffee cart, which always do a brisk trade, would be better than having a bricks and mortar coffee shop?

[MissAndry]

Somewhere to live and park your gf where she can't cause trouble, with not too many losses, that's how I see most of the places. Less expensive than a hairdressers where she gives all her mates free hair dos at your expense. Way cheaper than a bar, where she is surrounded by loads of horny foreign guys with more money than you.

 

That theory works for shopfronts anyway.

Edited September 4, 2016 by MissAndry

[lostinisaan]

20 minutes ago, MissAndry said:

Somewhere to live and park your gf where she can't cause trouble, with not too many losses, that's how I see most of the places. Less expensive than a hairdressers where she gives all her mates free hair dos at your expense. Way cheaper than a bar, where she is surrounded by loads of horny foreign guys with more money than you.

 

That theory works for shopfronts anyway.

 

 Did you accidentally answer to another post on the wrong page? Live and park your gf? Guess you meant leave and park, but even then it makes no sense. Sorry, I might haven't read that it's about bar girls here.

  

   You're paying for your gf's friends' hair jobs? And what about the horny foreigners with more money?  A joke? 

 

Coffee shops pop up almost everywhere in our city and not to many people sit inside.

 

   I've tried a coffee once, served in a plastic cup inside the shop. 

 

Edited to add:

 

    It's the same with so many other shops here. One starts a business and it runs well. Then you can see a similar shop not far away and within a few months they're all over the city.

 

   They don't seem to recognize that they destroy each other's business by doing so. 

 

   

Edited September 4, 2016 by lostinisaan

[metisdead]

A troll post has been removed. 

[petermik]

I think its a great idea....not many coffee shops in Thailand 

[HooHaa]

1 hour ago, lostinisaan said:

 

 Did you accidentally answer to another post on the wrong page? Live and park your gf? Guess you meant leave and park, but even then it makes no sense. Sorry, I might haven't read that it's about bar girls here.

  

   You're paying for your gf's friends' hair jobs? And what about the horny foreigners with more money?  A joke? 

 

Coffee shops pop up almost everywhere in our city and not to many people sit inside.

 

   I've tried a coffee once, served in a plastic cup inside the shop. 

 

Edited to add:

 

    It's the same with so many other shops here. One starts a business and it runs well. Then you can see a similar shop not far away and within a few months they're all over the city.

 

   They don't seem to recognize that they destroy each other's business by doing so. 

 

   

 

You do seem to have trouble understanding what you read.

[impulse]

If I had a choice between busting sod for 12 hours a day for 300 baht, and opening a coffee shop to sell 20 cups at 40 baht each day, I know which one I'd go for.  20 cups in an 8 hour day would look real slow to a casual observer.

 

With one, there's no way out of the basement.  At least with the coffee shop, it can turn into 2 shops, then 3, then an empire.  

 

Tougher to turn a coffee cart into an empire.  Too easy to copy and park 10 meters away to get anyone to work the first one so you can grow the 2nd.  Coffee shop has at least a little barrier to entry, and opportunities to differentiate yourself against the competition.

Edited September 4, 2016 by impulse

[Jip99]

15 minutes ago, HooHaa said:

 

You do seem to have trouble understanding what you read.

 

Crystal clear to me.

 

 

I sold a restaurant to someone that bought it to give his GF somewhere to live and he knew where she would be.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2016 by Jip99

[NickJ]

The coffee shops I don't understand are the ones that don't open until near lunchtime.

In the early nineties you could find legitimate massage shops everywhere. The the Spa concept hit town and for awhile there seemed to be a million of them. Now the fad is coffee shops......

[DavisH]

3 hours ago, MissAndry said:

Somewhere to live and park your gf where she can't cause trouble, with not too many losses, that's how I see most of the places. Less expensive than a hairdressers where she gives all her mates free hair dos at your expense. Way cheaper than a bar, where she is surrounded by loads of horny foreign guys with more money than you.

 

That theory works for shopfronts anyway.

My hairdresser owns a little house-shop and has had regular customers for a number of years. She grosses 60K a month, and supplements it with making kanom and selling sim cards. This is out in the sticks near Ratchaburi too. Not a bad deal and beats the hell out of slogging away to get a degree and not have a job at the end. 

Edited September 4, 2016 by DavisH

[georgemandm]

4 hours ago, lostinisaan said:

 

 Did you accidentally answer to another post on the wrong page? Live and park your gf? Guess you meant leave and park, but even then it makes no sense. Sorry, I might haven't read that it's about bar girls here.

  

   You're paying for your gf's friends' hair jobs? And what about the horny foreigners with more money?  A joke? 

 

Coffee shops pop up almost everywhere in our city and not to many people sit inside.

 

   I've tried a coffee once, served in a plastic cup inside the shop. 

 

Edited to add:

 

    It's the same with so many other shops here. One starts a business and it runs well. Then you can see a similar shop not far away and within a few months they're all over the city.

 

   They don't seem to recognize that they destroy each other's business by doing so. 

 

   

It has been happening here for years one thai opens something good then you see 10 more of the same , it is just thailand 

[lostinisaan]

3 minutes ago, georgemandm said:

It has been happening here for years one thai opens something good then you see 10 more of the same , it is just thailand 

 

 An ex colleague made a boutique for his wife and they sold pretty well. Only a few weeks later there's another shop selling almost identical stuff. Not long and there's a third one. And nobody could make enough money to pay for the townhouse the shop was in. 

[georgemandm]

7 minutes ago, lostinisaan said:

 

 An ex colleague made a boutique for his wife and they sold pretty well. Only a few weeks later there's another shop selling almost identical stuff. Not long and there's a third one. And nobody could make enough money to pay for the townhouse the shop was in. 

Very true ,I seen on one village road 2 shops and in  the next 5 years there was 

10 more shop and most made no money because the first 2 would just drop there prices and then most would close down .

[OMGImInPattaya]

3 hours ago, impulse said:

If I had a choice between busting sod for 12 hours a day for 300 baht, and opening a coffee shop to sell 20 cups at 40 baht each day, I know which one I'd go for.  20 cups in an 8 hour day would look real slow to a casual observer.

 

With one, there's no way out of the basement.  At least with the coffee shop, it can turn into 2 shops, then 3, then an empire.  

 

 

It worked for Howard Schultz  

[lostinisaan]

1 hour ago, DavisH said:

My hairdresser owns a little house-shop and has had regular customers for a number of years. She grosses 60K a month, and supplements it with making kanom and selling sim cards. This is out in the sticks near Ratchaburi too. Not a bad deal and beats the hell out of slogging away to get a degree and not have a job at the end. 

 

     My hairdresser seems to have a similar income. It's 60 baht now, place is  his own and always full and making the math, he seems to be making good money. 50 cuts a day is 3 K times 6 or 7 and he's having enough money to live a good life.

 

      I feel sorry for all the people who've got kids and a little noodle soup shop that they have to move on daily basis. They're hardly making enough money to pay the school fees.

 

        You can watch the pawn shops at the beginning of each school year, always very busy. A degree here isn't worth anything in the Western world. Like toilet paper, maybe not that soft. 

 

A friend who wanted to get his wife, a high school teacher a job in Germany had to stop searching, because All he could find was a Autobahn restaurant looking for a maid and a hotel seeking people to clean rooms.

 

    

 

           

 

      

 

      

 

     

[tifino]

 

to see what action or not, if any...

from a cyclists point of view:

 

from what I encounter, the early hours 6am were brisk, and later evening when it's a little cooler to be outside

 

 

and now , even here in OZ - me missus is pestering me, for her to start one with another expat Isaan girl

 

... the thought never leaves their minds - I agree

 

 

Edited September 4, 2016 by tifino

[Deepinthailand]

We have a coffee shop and a hairdressers shop and sell food and ice. It runs well and provides us with a good income. It is run soley by my wife. In our village there are numerous shops selling what we sell, no other coffee shops but I expect someone will open one. The trick is diversity. Being a hairdressers the shop gets a good cliental.  Whilst there there they can buy whatever they might need from the shop bit. And if waiting for hair to be done what's better than a nice strong coffee. Especially as we keep the ambient temp of the shop just cool enough for a hot coffee to be appreciated. But the real trick is giving people what they want which is not the expensive cappuccino or latte. Thais like strong short cup coffee. My wife is now In negotiations  with bankok bank to have an ATM placed inside the shop. As this is the bank  most used in the village with the added bonus of free withdraws for agricultural bank. The nearest ATM is 10km away. Again this is Purley to draw in custom plus it's a nice earner from bank. So it's not about keeping anyone quite or why bother it's called being enterprising. Not willing to just plod along. Oh and before you all jump in with ah but who built the shop who's money. Sorry to disappoint it's all the mrs doing and paying. (But we class money as and land and property as ours as most solid couples the world over do)

[Ulysses G.]

3 hours ago, NickJ said:

 

In the early nineties you could find legitimate massage shops everywhere. 

 

Don't remember that. Lots of happy ending places though.

[DavisH]

1 hour ago, georgemandm said:

Very true ,I seen on one village road 2 shops and in  the next 5 years there was 

10 more shop and most made no money because the first 2 would just drop there prices and then most would close down .

Anything that looks like a novel idea and appears to be making money will be rapidly copied by the locals. So no one ends up making a money. Happened to a friend of mine who opened a small bar (with a decent tv to watch football). He ended up dropping the idea and stuck to his regular job - teaching. 

[bendejo]

6 hours ago, georgemandm said:

It has been happening here for years one thai opens something good then you see 10 more of the same , it is just thailand 

 

No, it is an Asian thing.  Happens a lot in India, also Malaysia. probably other countries as well. 

There's an Indian guy in Vientiane runs an Indian restaurant that became pretty popular with tourists and expats, even locals at times.  Had about a dozen tables, seemed to fill up at least one seating per night, sometimes more.  On one trip to VTE is saw that another Indian place had opened next door, I mean RIGHT NEXT DOOR so that I thought it was the same place and it was expanding.  But it wasn't.  Didn't check it out.  On a later trip to VTE the 'new' place was gone.  Gotta wonder what transpired there...

(BTW, this is the place behind National Hall.  The food is usually ok, but after a second case of food poisoning from eating there I gave up on it.)

 

[BKKdreaming]

But its the same thing on Ebay or any other market ,  people copy success !

 

if you see someone selling well , and you can sell the same thing , why not ?????

 

But what gets me is that the new competition cuts the price so much that even if they got more than half of the total sales they would still not make a profit , 

 

cut the price 10-20% , maybe do a buy 2 get 1 free , because you get full price for the first 2 and on the 3rd one its OK to break even , 

 

Poor people do not understand gross and net profits , they were never taught that , they just count the money in their pocket.

 

its amazing that anything sells on the streets in Thailand when there seems to be a 7-11  just around the corner !

 

 

 

 

[pigeonjake]

my wife has a butchers shop in our village sited on her mums road frontage, i made the shop all sectional steel bolted together, i was a welder by trade,

no one has copied us,

weve had the pig farm for about 10 years now and sold to buyers, but they started to mess us about so i said f££k them we will open a shop, have the pigs slaughterd and sell the meat, wish we had done it years ago,

my wife opens 6,30 am till 9 ish then 3,30pm till 6 ish that was the busy times so thats what she opens,

we could sell pig feed as we buy that direct from the mill at a fraction of the cost of the feed shops, we do sell a few bags here and there but to be honest i dont like other pig farmers coming round, if someone comes for feed they wait at our gate till we bring it to them, they dont come onto our farm,

it would be very hard to copy us as we buy piglets in, raise them up and sell,

 

[pigeonjake]

if you look on the farm photo thread in the farming section you will see pics of our shop and farm ect

or look on you tube,  ron jackson pig farmer,,lol

and before anyone says work permit, look at the films, i just film my wife works,,lol

[georgemandm]

2 hours ago, bendejo said:

 

No, it is an Asian thing.  Happens a lot in India, also Malaysia. probably other countries as well. 

There's an Indian guy in Vientiane runs an Indian restaurant that became pretty popular with tourists and expats, even locals at times.  Had about a dozen tables, seemed to fill up at least one seating per night, sometimes more.  On one trip to VTE is saw that another Indian place had opened next door, I mean RIGHT NEXT DOOR so that I thought it was the same place and it was expanding.  But it wasn't.  Didn't check it out.  On a later trip to VTE the 'new' place was gone.  Gotta wonder what transpired there...

(BTW, this is the place behind National Hall.  The food is usually ok, but after a second case of food poisoning from eating there I gave up on it.)

 

We not talking about all of Asia are we this forum is about thailand.

 

[jacko45k]

A massage shop that also sells good coffee, now you are talking.

[OMGImInPattaya]

8 hours ago, DavisH said:

Anything that looks like a novel idea and appears to be making money will be rapidly copied by the locals. So no one ends up making a money. Happened to a friend of mine who opened a small bar (with a decent tv to watch football). He ended up dropping the idea and stuck to his regular job - teaching. 

I think this is an established business strategy worldwide...not unique to Thailand. 

[The Deerhunter]

4 hours ago, bendejo said:

 

No, it is an Asian thing.  Happens a lot in India, also Malaysia. probably other countries as well. 

There's an Indian guy in Vientiane runs an Indian restaurant that became pretty popular with tourists and expats, even locals at times.  Had about a dozen tables, seemed to fill up at least one seating per night, sometimes more.  On one trip to VTE is saw that another Indian place had opened next door, I mean RIGHT NEXT DOOR so that I thought it was the same place and it was expanding.  But it wasn't.  Didn't check it out.  On a later trip to VTE the 'new' place was gone.  Gotta wonder what transpired there...

(BTW, this is the place behind National Hall.  The food is usually ok, but after a second case of food poisoning from eating there I gave up on it.)

 

All over the world.  Start a new crop or animal, Avocados, Macadamia, Kiwifruit, Limes, rubber, Ostrich, Emus, Alpaca, deer, etc ad-nauseum  and it becomes the new get-rich fad til all the get rich kid dreamers with no business sense and no stickability have gone bust.  The few who did their numbers right remain.

[slipperylobster]

 

Yes.  The smart businessman will park one next to a 7 Eleven...as there are so few of those.

 

Seriously....I just gave my wife a choice,  a small business (three have failed, in the past), or her monthly allowance for the number of months to equal the cost of opening a business.  She cannot have both, but does not have to pay me back for either.

 

No sweat.

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2016 by slipperylobster

[williamgeorgeallen]

15 hours ago, lostinisaan said:

 

 Did you accidentally answer to another post on the wrong page? Live and park your gf? Guess you meant leave and park, but even then it makes no sense. Sorry, I might haven't read that it's about bar girls here.

  

   You're paying for your gf's friends' hair jobs? And what about the horny foreigners with more money?  A joke? 

 

Coffee shops pop up almost everywhere in our city and not to many people sit inside.

 

   I've tried a coffee once, served in a plastic cup inside the shop. 

 

Edited to add:

 

    It's the same with so many other shops here. One starts a business and it runs well. Then you can see a similar shop not far away and within a few months they're all over the city.

 

   They don't seem to recognize that they destroy each other's business by doing so. 

 

   

think missandry nailed it. there are so many coffee shops because there are so many western men wanting to give their girl a job that does not involve them selling them selves. cheaper and less grief just paying them a salary.

[georgemandm]

21 minutes ago, slipperylobster said:

 

Yes.  The smart businessman will park one next to a 7 Eleven...as there are so few of those.

 

Seriously....I just gave my wife a choice,  a small business (three have failed, in the past), or her monthly allowance for the number of months to equal the cost of opening a business.  She cannot have both, but does not have to pay me back for either.

 

No sweat.

 

 

 

Can I just ask you this why would you give your wife a monthly allowance, I for one can't understand why western man give wife , partner, girlfriend a monthly allowance.

i have never ever give my other half money to be with me , not understand it , is it just a thing here in thailand?.

Ok back home if you have a wife or partner 

you give them money to do the weekly shopping I understand that , but here I have heard of this monthly allowance Bulls??? , my thai partner put it to me when I first meet her and my reply was I don't pay someone to be with me , if your not happy see you later.

i take good care of her yes , but I will not pay someone a monthly allowance.