Need advice for opening Sports Nutrition/Weightloss Independent Shop

[Ozzy619]

First thing is to map out a business plan. It does not need to be to technical. Basically just for you. To give you an idea of where you are going and what you need to invest. Do not get a loan from the bank! You can do it on your own. The biggest thing you need to find out is profit margins. How much it cost can you get better pricing if you buy supplies in bulk. So you need to look at your cost vs profit margin. And is there any thing you can do to tweak it. Then you need to figure out are you going to sell it online? Hustle to get it in stores nutrition stores grocery stores. Gyms which these I would suggest highly. Store fronts are nice if you can afford it but it will eat up your profits. Which you dont need.
Do you need to hire a rep or can you do it your self? Also go to the court house get a dba. And a tax Id. You will need that.
Also make sure you have all the legal warnings on the back. Also at some point go to uspto to get trade marked and registered if things get booming
Invest or download quick books to keep up with purchase orders and tracking and sales. Also remember the tax money you get is not yours. Put it in a separate account pay uncle Sam every 6months also tax time write off as much as you can contract labor supplies ectra. Ive been very interested in doing this as well so if you get up and going I would be happy to be a reseller if you give me a good price[emoji6] also a sample or two would be nice. Hope this helps pm me any time.

Good advice

Honestly brother I've got a lot of number crunching to do, i don't want to waste your time...

My advice, you shoud look into niche marketing as well to get a good buzz going. Try and make yourself look bigger than you really are. Alot of products nowadays indirectly market their product through viral videos and social media.

 

[pumpingiron22]

Fight milk im sold!

 

[Jayman]

Dude great thread.. I wanna start an online sup shop. Best business model there is, you can theoretically run It out of your house

 

[Jayman]

I used to alot.. theres alot of ppl that do. There's really cheap prices out there and if you byy all ur supps at once you can still save a good 10-20 dollars even after shipping... personally I dint like creatine, it tears my stomach up. Ill fart for hours after taking it..products that augment your performance that I.do like are:
All natural,
D-aspartic acid
Universal animal stak NOT M-stak
Universal sterol complex
And pretty much any decently dosed preworkout with caffeine

 

[Goose]

Keep HOT chicks around wearing your T-shirts. Try mixing your business up with local gyms, get on the radio, get involved with your community. Sponsor local athletic teams, set up booths at sporting events (hot chicks here). Most of all sell quality and value.

 

[Leancuisine]

Hey I didn't read through all the replies, so I apologize if I repeat anything, but one thing I learned is "people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care"
Too many supplement stores try to rush and sell the product with the highest margin by telling people all the benefits, instead of identifying the customers needs, and educating them as to how the product will help them achieve their goals.
You aren't selling your product, you are selling the idea of your product. The idea that taking this protein is gonna help people get bigger or maintain their mass, or so on.
Educate them. Break down the price of gram from your protein to the price of chicken. Etc etc.

 

[see-zar]

I would recommend being a sole proprietorship.....The only ship that won't sail is a partnership.

 

[see-zar]

Also do whatever possible to start you business debt free and if you absolutely must borrow some money do NOT get a home equity loan. Start small make some money and save it for a little nicer place and so on. Treat you customers with respect, take the time to get them the product they truly need even if it's not the highest margin product, those sales will come. If you give a customer a great experience they may tell 2 friends but if you give him a poor experience they will tell everyone. Also once you get your tax # you will be getting 4-5 calls calls a day trying to sell credit card machines. Don't do it, it's typically a lease with a bunch of extra charges. I would recommend the card reader that plugs into a smartphone. And get a high quality business card it dosent have to be flashy just a nice heavy well designed card says alot.

 

[see-zar]

Sorry if part of my post sounded like leancuisine but it is very good advice. Also consider joining BNI it is a group a business owners that meet usually once a week and they only allow 1 of each type of business so if a group you were looking at already had someone that sells a similar product you will can't join but there are usually multiple groups in the same area. The purpose of the group is to send referrals to other members in the group. So say someone you know said that needed a contractor and if there is a contractor in your group you will give the contractor the persons # man info and that's a referral. I get A HUGE amount of business thru bmi. Also BMI also won't just let anyone join that do checks to make sure they are a solid company and if they're quality starts to go down they can be removed from the group.