The Hours
Greetings,
I’ve always enjoyed blogging but after deleting my old one several years ago I never got back around to it. Here I go again providing you with random musing that are too much for social media. It may or may not be business related but it’s my site and I do what I want. This morning is business related though and it is an explanation about unconventional retail hours.
I suggested that a person check out my friends business and the reply was “I never know when they are open”. I explained that their hours were 11-5 Tuesday through Friday and 1:00-5:00 on Saturdays. I didn’t mention the “ish” they added into their lettering on the window because life happens and when you are a one man/woman show sometimes timelines don’t go according to plan (or that person just knows they are chronically late). I told the customer that my hours were going to be similar and I briefly tried to explain the nature of our small businesses and realized as I had failed at getting my reasoning across I felt that this would make a great first blog post.
I’ll be honest with y’all, I am a little nervous about taking on a retail space again on top of my busy market seasons and wholesale production. It was a lot at The Creative Wedge and there was two of us with employees, yet here I go jumping into this basically a lone wolf. I have Tracy who works once a week 9 months out of the year sometimes more if I am in a pinch. My husband Chris helps on super busy weeks and Tari who works East Beach and occasionally helps in the kitchen as well. My overhead is tripling with this move so I am hesitant to hire anyone right away until I am sure I can afford to pay them. I am hell bent to NOT make the same poor financial decisions I’ve made in the past. If I can’t pay for it, whether it be merchandise or helpers, then it’s not going to happen.
So we’ve established that I won’t open up being able to afford a full time helper right away, that it is essentially just me. Even having all 3 helpers with me in a week it takes a minimum of 16 hours (up to 24) to prepare for a busy market week in the peak of the season. I work with cheese and cheese likes to remain cold so we need uninterrupted time in the kitchen to produce. On those days I’ll start early so I can get through the bulk of it before opening our doors at 11. On the days we are not producing I will need to go shopping to replace the supplies we used and deliver to wholesale accounts who open at 10:00. During the peak of the season I am a little worried about that and it might be that we open at 12:00 on delivery days, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I will not be adding any more wholesale accounts that I have to deliver until I can afford the help and even then I need to consider the time to pay said employee to watch the store, my time and gas on the veeeerrrrryyy slim margin wholesale provides. I need to talk with other vendors about their minimums and/or delivery fees.
Why am I even opening this retail space? Well, the opportunity presented itself. I had outgrown my current situation and need to have all my things in one location and more refrigeration. Markets are very good to me so I just can’t give them up because I love the atmosphere, my fellow vendors , the customers and being outside in the fresh air. The wholesale makes it a little more convenient for folks to get the cheese and the added income on the slow weeks definitely helps. BUT there are factors like rain, excessive heat, the multitude of trendy pop up events as competition that keep me from earning money. Also several of my wholesale accounts are seasonal so I lose them in the fall. I need a place of my own that even if it has limited hours is open 5 days a week all year long to sell the cheese. All Good Craft Granola has 300 square feet of retail space so why not fill it up with some awesome gifts. With the overhead being almost triple of what I am accustomed to and my average sale at the farmers markets being $13 I need a little something to boost the revenue.
What’s going to happen during market season next year? Your guess is as good as mine. In a perfect world I will have the perfect part time helper that I can afford to pay. In a not so perfect world when it’s time to go to Kings Grant or Ghent Farmers Markets we’ll only be open an hour or two before I have to leave.
As unconventional as this all sound the truth is in this day and age of 24 hours online shopping a small business will NEVER make everyone happy. If you open at 10 folks think it’s be better for you to be there at 9:00 because that’s when they leave them gym. Whatever time you close it will not be late enough for everyone who has to come after work.
Does all that make sense?
I’ll mostly be working alone.
We need uninterrupted production time for food safety.
Existing wholesale customer delivery.
Farmers Markets
My sanity
When I quietly open in November I am planning on:
Sunday and Monday CLOSED
Tuesday - Friday 11:00 - 5:00
Saturday 1:00 - 4:00 (opening after markets)
I will probably extend the hours a bit in December and I’ll put that info in email, on front of website and social media when it’s time.
If you read all that, YOU ROCK! Thanks for being apart of my adventure. ~Sloane