If you wanted to improve your likelihood of opening a coffee shop, what kind of information do you think you might want? You are probably going to want to know why some were successful and others failed.
What I am suggesting is you learn from other people’s mistakes, right? Why do I talk about failure when I want you to be successful? We want to help you make money as soon as possible. Consider this:
You are driving along the highway at a comfortable speed and suddenly, in the rear view mirror, you see a pair of flashing lights on a car behind you. Your reaction? Do you put a smile on your face? Do you slam on the brakes? Or do you just go on without a worry in the world? Whatever your answer, you saw a warning sign and your brain reacted instinctively.
These failures are alerts that cause the brain to think. Well, that’s what I want you to do here. Something is going to go wrong and you need to be prepared for it. No different than as if you were in a flight simulator.
But, first, let’s learn a bit more about the industry.
Planning for Opening A Coffee Shop
When you decide to open your coffee shop, know there will be three groups of people you will be competing with or a part. They are well funded national and multinational corporations, small business people and people without a clue.
You are likely not one of the first group and you don’t want to be one of the last group. If you are not opening your coffee shop as a business, you will fail. No doubt about it.
Multinationals such as Starbucks (US) and Costa Coffee (UK) treat coffee as serious business. According to Wikipedia, Starbucks has over 17,000 locations in 55 countries.
In the USA alone, there are over 20,000 coffee shops representing a USD 10 billion market. The top 50 companies represent 70 percent of that business.
Take out the $14billion and there is still $3billion to go around. On average, each shop represents about a half million dollars of sales. Read $500,000!
Not too shabby. Bottom line: you make money owning a coffee shop!
What do you expect the distribution of sales across those 6,000 stores be? Flat line? Bell curve? Perhaps a skewed bell? Doesn’t matter. Poor planning will put you at the bottom and excellent planning will put you at the top.
So, what are you waiting for? Time to plan for opening a coffee shop!