Thinking about opening a store in Kansas City

There are only 2 places in our great city that have good audio equipment. Its a shame. And most of what they carry is towers and everything new. I would like to open a vinyl store that also repairs and sells vintage turntables, amps, receivers, etc and some new speakers like Zu, Omega, Magnepan, Sonus. Mostly bookshelf sized. So instead of walking into a store and the first thing you see is 5,000 dollar tower speakers you will see an entire set up that may only cost 1,500. I love music. And I like sitting and just listening to music. I think the mission of by sort of store would be to:
1. Have high quality new and used vinyl in many, many different genres
2. Affordable turntables and other equipment. Vinyl is making a comeback in a younger crowd. Not everyone can afford a $400 dollar entry level Rega. But a 200 dollar Dual also sounds very nice and is great value for its cost.
3. To bring back that caring for the art that is the way we listen to music. To be professional but not condescending. To make it about the customer. I rather make less profit on smaller speakers and used turntables knowing that I am getting more systems out there. That vinyl will continue to strive.

The area where I would like to open a store (after probably a few years of just operating out of my home) is River Market. To those who do not live in Kansas City, this is an area very close to downtown that receives a lot of traffic from a farmers market and several hipstery shops. Most of the crowd that comes to the farmers market is middle class. I think a store like I would want could thrive in that sort of area. I would really like to hear some opinions. Especially from those that live in Kansas City.

You got the right idea and hopefully it will work out for you. In College Park Maryland, where University of Maryland is at, there's a CDdepot that sells records mainly and they are doing pretty good on records alone, so if you run it correctly you will do just fine.

I visit Kansas City about 5 times a year to go record shopping. Could always use another stop

I like the idea of an audio dealer that can cater a little to average music listeners, most of the ones I've ever visited only have the most expensive gear, and, being a young guy, I don't always feel I'm being taken seriously.

Best of luck!

I don’t live in KC, and have never run an audio/record store. I have had a couple of other businesses so I’ll share some general info…

Are you going to quit your current job to run the store? Are you married and have a working spouse? Can your spouse cover your current living expenses? Can your spouse cover living expenses and business expenses? These all matter when it comes to planning.

I’ve always kept my “day job” with past businesses. This helped A LOT, but in hindsight I think it also hindered me a great deal. It is hard to run a small business if you are not there full time. You’ll hardly ever come across an employee that cares as much for the business as you do and getting second hand info doesn’t always end up being what you thought it was.

You will have people tell you “location, location, location…” when it comes to where to put the store. I had a nice store in a not so great location, but the rent was cheap and it provided easy access for our customers. I have no doubt it hurt in the beginning, but after a couple years we were at full capacity during peak times. We could have moved to a much higher traffic location for around 4X the rent. In the end I feel we did the best thing by picking the cheaper area. Prime space costs big bucks. You have to ask if yourself is the customer walking/driving past your store are going to be buying customers. I am of the opinion a store you are thinking about will be more of the destination and not an impulse buy.

When looking for a location always ask who is responsible for maintenance and repair. I’ve seen some shady landlords… If it is not written in the lease, don’t expect the landlord to honor it.

Figure out your costs. Rent, utilities, payroll, taxes, licenses. Add 50% to what you think it’ll cost… Talk to the city about a business license and see if there are any hoops you have to jump though.

Where are you going to get your merchandise?

Figure out the margin you want to make on your items. Since you’ll be retail you may be able to make some deals with the local pawn shops and thrift stores. If you’re willing to give them 50% or 60% of retail they might jump at the idea of a quick flip. Keep it B2B and you should be able to keep most or all taxes out. (I need to put some more thought in to this… )

After you have your margin, figure out what you have to sell to cover your overhead. It’ll probably be much more than expected.

I like the idea, but think it’ll be a small market. If you can work up to being known as the place to go for this sort of thing, it might work. One thing you have to ask yourself is why isn’t anyone else doing it? There is probably a reason why you see high end gear being sold at the places you visited. I suspect the margins are very high and a single sale for them would require a significant amount of work and volume with the equipment you are talking about carrying. You’ll probably hear “work smarter not harder..” I don’t exactly agree with that in some contexts, but there is some wisdom in it.

It’s nice that you want to get people involved in this hobby. It’s also nice to get paid and not have to worry about how you’re going to cover rent on the 1st. I feel you’re going to have to walk a tight line with those two things as you plan your business.

There are some good perks that come with owning businesses. There are also lots and lots of headaches. If you can give it a try without hurting yourself financially, I say go for it. But… I’m not very bright and it’d be wise of you to ignore everything I said above.

I think the reason why the stores you can find in your area exclusively sell high end gear is because that market is profitable to sustain a livable salary.

Well I guess it's not super high end. Its just expensive. Not necessarily great speakers

I had a very good friend who opened a record store and ran it for about 7 years. He was very ambitious, was honest almost to a fault (let some customers take advantage of him) and he did very well. He started out selling used equipment for reasonable prices. He also did some repair work and had a tech help him on a part time basis. He decided to expand to records and used video games and his business took off. One note: He had trouble with his component sales. People would buy a TT or receiver and bring it back 2 months later and say it didn't work and demand he fix it for free. He explained there was no warranty and it had worked fine when it left the shop, but he would end up doing the work so as to not lose a customer.

One of the things that helped him was a large marquee out by the street in front of the store that he had access to for one week a month. I was driving to work and saw the sign for records and went there the next day. He started out with 2 crates of country albums and ended up with several thousand records in stock. Much of his stock was from people walking in wanting to sell their collections. He would offer them a flat rate for all of them and he had very little invested.

Another friend of mine also runs a record store but he does trade ins differently. He looks through a person's records and give them $1.00 store credit for every one he keeps. I like this system better because you don't end up with a bunch of common albums no one will buy. The store credit has to be spent in the business. A person given money for their collection may not spend a cent at the record store.

The 7 years my friend's store was open were very successful, but at the end of his run, he was done in by his landlord. Every year the landlord would increase his rent and he would not negotiate a long term agreement. The last couple of years the rent increase was significant and basically forced my friend out of business. He could not find another space he liked and he ended up opening up an online store.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Thank you this was very helpful. How many record/vintage audio shops do you have in your area?

RTBfalcon said:

Thank you this was very helpful. How many record/vintage audio shops do you have in your area?

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There were about 6 in a 30 mile radius when I moved to NH 19 years ago. Now there are 3 and one is a recent opening. The one problem I see with all the stores is that they don't advertise. I never see anything in the newspaper or special offers through mailings or online. That's the way to get new business.

The post office now offers a advertising promotion where you can hand pick the areas you want delivery, say to just the mail routes close to your shop. The mailing can be a single sheet of paper and does not need an address, the carrier just delivers one to a house. I'm not sure if this is offered everywhere, so you'll have to check with your local PO.

I would also have any customers put down their mailing/email info on a signup sheet by the register so you can contact them with any promotions. You can also develop a site on Facebook and advertise that. The more you do to get traffic in the door, the more chance you have to succeed. Opening a store has been a dream of mine, but I doubt I'll do it now at 62. It's too much time and work.

bobsvinyl said:

The 7 years my friend's store was open were very successful, but at the end of his run, he was done in by his landlord. Every year the landlord would increase his rent and he would not negotiate a long term agreement. The last couple of years the rent increase was significant and basically forced my friend out of business. He could not find another space he liked and he ended up opening up an online store.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

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Landlords in NYC keep raising the rent and will make one work first 8 hours for them if they can get away with it. They will let a store front sit empty because $10K a month rent for 600sq feet was not enough and raised it to $14K. I have seen this quite a few times. I say with some store fronts (unlike a bar, for example), locate it off the high traffic areas and with the savings- advertise to the hilt.

So, view the landlord almost as a business partner because that is how they see it.

Hello Falcon. I've thought about the same plan in my area, but gross revenue wouldn't support my lifestyle. I will tell you that having a head-shop counter, with locally blown glass, is most of the time a great additional revenue to a small vinyl shop. The only private owned record store in our town accepts vinyl for cash (usually marks it up 300% depending on rarity), but store credit will always give the customer a better deal. The aspect of offering technical support/repair sounds like a pain in the butt; only because I wonder what additional insurance or bond you'll need in case you accidently screw up someone's rare McIntosh (or you don't but they claim you did).

My dream is to own a record/coffee shop.

We're at the end of our 2nd year running a store that buys, sells and repairs vintage gear plus we offer used Lp's. The number one thing you need to be ready for is the number of hours you'll be working to make it work. The next thing you have to be is a very very good hunter, the last of the big three is repair/service. We're up 42% from our first year and you can make money, if you give it 110 %. Good Luck

There was a record store down around Westport, was it Peachtree? And maybe another used store not far away, as I recall. Are those still up and running? If so there's a possibility of some synergy if you locate in that area. But River Market sounds cool, there are hip places around there and maybe the rent is not so high as Westport.

Hajidub said:

Hello Falcon. I've thought about the same plan in my area, but gross revenue wouldn't support my lifestyle. I will tell you that having a head-shop counter, with locally blown glass, is most of the time a great additional revenue to a small vinyl shop. The only private owned record store in our town accepts vinyl for cash (usually marks it up 300% depending on rarity), but store credit will always give the customer a better deal. The aspect of offering technical support/repair sounds like a pain in the butt; only because I wonder what additional insurance or bond you'll need in case you accidently screw up someone's rare McIntosh (or you don't but they claim you did).

My dream is to own a record/coffee shop.

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I like that combo! The synergy of those two lines might get a certain type of individual in the door, especially in the right part of town. In KC, the headshop/record shop formula worked for years for 7th Heaven...

I have thought about making a record store with a lounge area with wifi and coffee. Though I dont know if it would be smarter to make the coffee shop my own or try to find a local expanding coffee shop and have a mutual thing going. Though there is no head shop in the area as far as I am aware which might get me a lot more traffic.

Hajidub said:

Hello Falcon. I've thought about the same plan in my area, but gross revenue wouldn't support my lifestyle. I will tell you that having a head-shop counter, with locally blown glass, is most of the time a great additional revenue to a small vinyl shop. The only private owned record store in our town accepts vinyl for cash (usually marks it up 300% depending on rarity), but store credit will always give the customer a better deal. The aspect of offering technical support/repair sounds like a pain in the butt; only because I wonder what additional insurance or bond you'll need in case you accidently screw up someone's rare McIntosh (or you don't but they claim you did).

My dream is to own a record/coffee shop.

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I'm with the head shop bit. Trade for a buck a title is another good idea. Build up to paying cash, and offer great trades for rare, sought-after titles. Keep backstock to a minimum, and keep the jukebox flowing at all times. :yes:

river market area used to be called river quay? right?

68custom said:

river market area used to be called river quay? right?

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Yes river market was formerly called river quay

Lines per ticket is key, i.e. each customer purchases more than one thing.
What other services/products could you offer?
Perhaps high end packages for droid/iphone headphone listeners?
Music DVD/Blue Ray rental?
Batteries/chargers?

RTBfalcon said:

Though there is no head shop in the area as far as I am aware which might get me a lot more traffic.

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You could cut thru the smoke here, open up a nice head shop with a few LP's, a little gear in the corner and a warm pot of coffee with cups. Now your margins look promising.