Cost of starting up a small Convience Store/General Store

[Llama88]

Just out of curiosity, what would the opening cost and operating cost of a small Convience Store/General Store. Something like a smaller stop and shop that would be part of the town. Target customers would be local people.

[spex x]

I don't really know the answer to this question. Would you be selling gas? I know a guy that owned a little shop/gas station and he told me once that his profit margin was like .10 per gallon. OUt of the .10 he had to pay all the overhead on the gas pumps, including .03 for the credit card processing. But if you're selling 100k gallons per month, maybe not so bad.

[Llama88]

i was kinda planning on having a small stop and shop kinda store. It would include a small deli, refrigerated good, some dry goods and probably some liquor and a meat section. I know that a dunkin donuts goes for 80k-100k, but that is a a franchise thing so i would think it is different.

[spex x]

Sorry I can't really help, but it sounds to me like a lot of long long hours.

[mayday4379]

My sister owns a bunch o f white hens. taking the franchise thing out of it, figure $70K for inventory, $15K for hardware (deli slicer, etc) then your rent, insurance and employees.

Its a low margin business and you can make a decent living if you own 3-4 of them. Owning 1 probably won't be very lucrative, but it depends on how much you work (so you don't pay employees), hours of operation and how much foot traffic you generate.

[Llama88]

any idea how much revenue and profit each store makes?

[guids]

most gas stations make a pittance on the actual gas sales 99% of profit comes from the other items they sell/service shops etc, the problem is you need the gas to attract the bulk of the customers.

[BradleyT]

Yeah you need gas pumps to get people in the door. I think I read a while back that the average 7-11 gas station brings in 1100 people a day. That's a lot of soda, cigarettes, and lottery tickets being sold to all those people.

[Thremp]

guids is v v right. Some stations make several hundo a year, some make 20k. If you own it, work at it and can manage it well... You'd probably be able to squeeze 100k out of an average place. Then again you can dump 35k for a manager and rock it.

Theres such a difference between each store that its tough to make across the board recommendations.

[mayday4379]

for the white hen, i have no idea on revenue. I would guess (and i am guessing) that each store nets about $40K/year. Only her hustband works and they pay their employees generiously ($12/hr and $18 for OT).