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Suggestions/Help Needed
Dewayne and I are opening a Fire/Police/EMS store much like Galls. We have found our location/building. We will have a 2300 Square foot showroom,office, and bathroom totalling 4100 Square foot. Our projected open date is approx. April. We need help finding products/manufacturers/distributors to begin. We have secured some great resources but want this to be something our community can be proud of. We plan to carry lights/sirens, EMS pants, class A uniforms, safety vests, novelty shirts, collectibles, boots, and many other items. Any suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated. This is something we have thought about for some time and did a lot of research on and feel this would be an asset in Hopkins County as many of our people have to travel over an hour to obtain these items. Again, as always TCSS
Dewayne and Diana Bean
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Station10Capt106 on
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Dewayne & Diana,
Best of luck to the both of you. I've owned a retail store since 1988 and know the challenges and frustrations that it entails along with the rewards and accomplishments.
Off hand I don't have any recommendations but will try to think of some.
John
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mackie on
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Best of luck to you both. Perhaps consider anything and everything involved with safety, not just for the emergency services but something for the general public to make their homes safer. I am sure there are lots of products out there. I don't know your market area, but it might not be a bad idea to look beyond just the emergency services. To give you an idea where to start.. try checking out www.thesafetystore.com and here in canada we have one called KS SIRENS. Looking at what they are into might give you some ideas as well.
Hope this lil tid bit helps. All the best of luck.
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Permalink Reply by John Rulli Jr. on
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Goodluck!!! Keep us posted!
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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As I am sure you are well aware, that you are about to venture into a huge commitment. I have a very small line of fire-rescue products with my side business. Without direct connections to the manufacturers line, you will be overpriced per your competition. Volume drives the price. To be honest, your competition IS the catalog. People who walk into a showroom in this economy will have the catalog price in their head. My problem and hopefully not yours, is many manufacturers have territorial contracts with other vendors in the region and another deal breaker... was the minimum order to become a vendor (in one case for example) was a 500 units to be able to sell their latest -hottest fire glove at the time. That is alot of capitol tied up in gloves alone while sitting on the shelf. To make it a personalized niche, you will need to have a service vehicle that can cold call, (stop into fire stations) demo stuff and deliver if need be. That makes it personal compared to a catalog. 4100 sq ft. wow not sure if your space needs to be that big for a start up but you will definately not need to move for future expansion.
Best of luck to both of you.
FETC
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Permalink Reply by Rusty Mancini on
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A very competitive business adventure! Take FETC's advice, and good luck to the both of you!
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