Since the beginning of time, solo business persons have opened and maintained retail stores that sold products to walk-in customers.
Sometimes the stores featured only specialty items, like a bike shop or bakery. Others carried a range of goods (like a mercantile) but remained small enough that one person could man the shop by himself and perform all the daily functions necessary.
There would be goods to order from manufacturers or wholesalers, shelves to stock, customers to wait on, books to be balanced, and cleaning at the end of the day.
The shopkeeper was an independent merchant, sometimes hiring help when needed, but generally able to perform every function there was to keep the business profitable.
The shopkeeper was usually considered the local expert in his craft. He would be sought out for advice on anything related to his store's goods and services.
But there have always been inherent drawbacks to this business model.
It takes a substantial sum of money to begin such a shop. The store space has to be built, purchased or rented. The shelves have to be stocked with inventory; and unfortunately, there needs to be a range of sizes, colors, and choices for the shopper - so much of the inventory sits on the shelf for long periods of time.
There is advertising and sales and marketing that has to be done to draw customers to the shop.
At times, the prospect population is small if the shop is a specialty store in a targeted niche.
Long hours, good selling days and bad, occasionally unhappy customers, and the need for some type of shift help is usually the fare of the day.
But in the new digital business age, much of the downside of the old shopkeeper business model is a thing of the past.
The Lone Wolf can have a specialty shop online in a matter of hours. If the products are information based, like "how to" guides or directories of niche sites, for example, the owner can begin selling with a few products or listings and add to the range of offerings over time.
Shopkeeper type businesses are a natural for subscription membership sites because they will be of interest to consumers passionate in their love of the niche.
Once the business model is set up and the products created, the same "master" copies of information (digital files) can be used over and over to send customers their goods.
This is truly a business built for the Internet. The customers are easy to find, the products do not have to be stockpiled, and there will be a never-ending hunger for information by folks that share a common avocation. What more could you hope for as a business owner?
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Post#67 |
