Gyms are a tough business.

 

Your business model is to sign up X amount of people every year to be able to pay all the expenses and hopefully turn a profit, and hope that 90% of those people don't actually use their memberships.

 

Sooner or later, they run out of new members, run out of money, start selling lifetime memberships to make some last chance cash before you run, and have no option but to close.

 

The new gym models, like 24 Hour Fitness or Anytime Fitness, are monthly payment models, which is much better for the consumer, but also recurring monthly income for the members that stay on. Of course, the membership churn is the key factor, and they still have to market and sell to get new members as the old ones drop off.

 

Not a business I want to be involved with again.

There's some interesting scenery playing out outside the former True Fitness center at the Exchange Building at Sukhumvit and Asoke. Noticed it this afternoon as I was passing by. There are a ton of legal notices taped to various portions of the former storefront there, all in Thai, my wife says they're court notices.

 

But here were the ones in English that I found intriguing, the True one on top with the subsequent Exchange Tower notice posted just beneath it.

 

 

 

It kind of sounds like some folks/members may have had personal belongings stored in lockers there that they still haven't been able to retrieve after all this time...

 

Likewise, sounds like the folks behind the business really did a runner, if not even the Exchange Tower folks can get a hold of them.