Thinking of opening up a shop.

[Thumpersplbassx 10+ year member]

I've been thinking of opening up a stereo shop locally for about 3 months now. I've got a couple of places that are in great areas for this. I know it's a hard economic time to do something like this. Start up would be around $20k would be start up for the 1st month and around $2,500 a month and so on. I've got an installer lined up to work when the doors open. The product lines I have in mind are the following: Sundown Audio, Obsidian Audio, Audio Technix, Xs Power, Jvc, Kenwwod, Pioneer, Alpine, Sony, Cadence, Incriminator Audio, Digital Design, Crimestopper, and maybe a few more. The local stereo shops carry the main stream lines like: Memphis, JL, Orion, Rockford Fosgate, Focal, Boston Acustics, Polk Audio, Viper, Kenwood, Jvc, Pioneer, Sony, Alpine, Crunch, Autotek, MbQuart, Dynamat, Stinger, and American Bass. Lets hear suggestions, thoughts, and ideas on this.

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[Durango03 10+ year member]

Ive thought about that same thing over here. The only shop we have is a COMPLETE rip off and the owner is ignorant when it comes to car audio.. constantly pushing CompVR's and low end memphis subs (guessing thats where he gets his best markup). Could go on a long rant about how terrible the place is from a business aspect but everyone gets the point.. most shops suck!

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

Better get some good insurance...

 

[xShoWTeKx 10+ year member]

If you got the money and the know how to get it started, its all about getting customers in the doors. I have always wanted to have my own shop also, hell I think everyone of us has. If you do it I hope you're successful.

And I'm pretty sure Obsidian is online only, no dealer network //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

 

[neo_styles 10+ year member]

Not sure it's going to work if you don't have at least one brand most people in the area will recognize. Don't want to be labeled as an off-brand shop and have your reputation tarnished before it's even well-established. Word of mouth is going to have to be your friend. That and super-competitive pricing for walk-ins.

*edit* re-read the OP. Have the first aspect covered. The rest all applies

 

[Thumpersplbassx 10+ year member]

Obsidian is direct to customer but, I might be able to get it. Now on the insurance cost on it would be around $500 a month just on its own. I'm still working looking at my figures along with some buildings that I could rent from. Another thing I'd do to would be having car stereo competitions 2 or 3 times a yr.

 

[Thumpersplbassx 10+ year member]

Neo, you do have a point there as being the off brand stereo shop. That wouldn't go to well and word of mouth travels fast.

 

[neo_styles 10+ year member]

Neo, you do have a point there as being the off brand stereo shop. That wouldn't go to well and word of mouth travels fast.

As long as you can lock down the marketing and publicity, things should go well for you. There's quite a few people in TN who are members here and can probably help you out. Good luck if you do, though.

 

[Thumpersplbassx 10+ year member]

Oh! Another thing about the installs. Every box will be custom built none of these prefab boxes being used on even the basic setups.

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

Much easier market out East

 

[UnderFire 10+ year member]

Oh! Another thing about the installs. Every box will be custom built none of these prefab boxes being used on even the basic setups.

Sounds like you may lose customers there. People who just want to add bass to a system aren't going to want to pay 150$ for a box when they can go down to another shop and pick up a 60$ prebuilt sealed.

 

[neo_styles 10+ year member]

Sounds like you may lose customers there. People who just want to add bass to a system aren't going to want to pay 150$ for a box when they can go down to another shop and pick up a 60$ prebuilt sealed.

Means there is a really small margin for profit there, but it can be done.

 

[murph 10+ year member]

Drop Sony and go with Kicker. Maybe CDT, HAT and PHD for speaker purposes.

 

[myjaja 10+ year member]

Oh! Another thing about the installs. Every box will be custom built none of these prefab boxes being used on even the basic setups.

I wouldnt do that. Youre going to get both type of customers that want to pay, and that dont want to pay. Id do both, custom and prefab.

 

[MutantDreams 10+ year member]

The only problem i see is people come in all the time with big dreams and shallow pockets. You want to be able to satisfy everyone, that means the soldiers who can drop $3000 to the high schooler who has $400The place i work at has a cheap prefab setup for right at $400 installed. You are gonna make more money doing cheap deck installs than you will off larger systems. So you need to sell baseline stuff as well as higher end stuff. For example the jvc kd-r330 is a cheap radio with aux and it is one of the most profitable area. we make 17-19 off the harness, about $15 off the kit, $20-30 off most radios and between $50-75 off the labor. So about $130 profit. if we sell a small amp/sub setup we make about 155ish, but the market for radios is waaaay higher. We might do 10 decks for every amp we do, just because every car has a radio, its a big necessity, while a sub is for a very slim group of people. Im sure you know all of this, but if not im glad i could help. Just remember you need to base your product off of your region. You may have a big market for subs/amps, its just better to assume decks will sell waaaaay more often. Things like eq's and line drivers are also veeeeerrrry hard to sell unless someone comes in looking just for them. Sorry if this is all jumbled up, im just writing this out how i normally would say it.