Souvenir Shop

[girlx]

A friend of mine is asking me to go in with her on a small boutique souvenir/art shop. We would find unique things that not every other shop has (for instance I am going to Bali soon and could pick up nice fabrics and paintings), and also sell painting reproductions. In the village I stay in there is no competition at all. It sounds like a fun project to me (I have another job) but to make a decent profit we would need to make about 10000b/week. Not entirely sure this is possible. Comments from anyone who might have experience in this area?

[Moonfruit]

Completely depends on where you are thinking of doing it, and what the location is in that town.

[girlx]

yeah i know, it is right on the main street of the village (high traffic area). there is no other shop like it anywhere here. i would need to figure out the legal aspects first, but am wondering if shops like this are pretty successful in general or if it is just a pipe dream!

[pumpuiman]

Location Location, Location.

But if you did offer a "different" product that would be cool. I can't believe there is the exact same crap at every stall in Thailand.

No one seems to offer genuine handcrafts not made on a huge scale.

How many wooden frogs can there be in one country? The same tuk-tuk t-shirts that are in Chiang Rai are in Krabi.

I think a truly Thai product, not Balinese, would do better though.

Good Luck

[Chang_paarp]

Girlx

As it is supposed to by high season, why not do some market research? Ask some people who you hope to be your target market what they want. You will get the idiots a bit like here, but, you will also get an idea of what might sell. You can also find out what they are prepared to pay.

Do they want post cards? fridge magnets? local handicraft? Stubbie holders? OTOP products? Takky cr@p from China?

Who is your target market? ie Who buys what? Is it families, couples, single men, single women?

Look around at who is making the buying decisions, with a family is it the screaming brats (er children), the man (or is he just carrying the cash), or the lady of the group? Same with couples.

Who makes the decision depends on the products you are selling.

I had a business in a tourist area right near a car park, lots of people going past the door, but they did not put their buying eyes on until they were 150m further into town. I debated the merits of crash tackling them as they walked past, put signs in the middle of the foot path (some bumped into them most walked around them), and still heard the classic sentence "I have walked past this place for years and didn't know you were here." too often. So if there is a lot of people passing the shop are they shopping or on the way to some other place?

Done well there is good margin in souvenirs, but you have to plan it a little, and stock what the customers want not what you think is cool. It can be a bonus if they are the same thing.

Good luck.

[ballzafire]

Follow your heart, girl (but do the math, too).

[girlx]

hmm got really excited about this untl i learned who would be renting the shop out to us, and she is the least trustworthy and most greedy businesswoman in the village, so there goes that idea. i will leave it up to my friend, who is married to a thai man and plans to make it her primary business, to take the risk.

[LaoPo]

hmm got really excited about this untl i learned who would be renting the shop out to us, and she is the least trustworthy and most greedy businesswoman in the village, so there goes that idea. i will leave it up to my friend, who is married to a thai man and plans to make it her primary business, to take the risk.

You're right....if the landlady is that greedy...take care!

If however you want to start some small business on/near a beach, think of one thing:

Ladies buy -always- .....men don't.

So focus on beachwear, bikinis, sarongs (Bali!), jewelry, necklaces, rings etc. instead of 'souvenirs'; people nowadays travel all over the world and are sick an tired of all that cheap junk-kind-of-souvenirs.

But: ladies always stroll around to look for nice things for themselves....

If you have a chance to go to Samui, go to Chaweng beach road. There is a very big 2-story shop -stairs in the middle of the shop- (sorry, forgot the name, but it's close to Starbucks, same side); they have a very large collection ladies' shoes for instance (from Vietnam) and they're very cheap but also a fantastic collection of 'jeans'-bags..they are WOW !

Also dresses, sarongs and lots of other stuff.

It's PACKED with women every single day/evening !

Maybe you can talk to them and do a cooperation and carry a part of their collection.....

LaoPo