Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions?
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Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions?
Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions?
Ok, so I'm very close to renting out a little glassed in shop at my local mall. Rent would only be about $400 for the 14 x14 space. Thats all I need to sell shirts anyways. But I'm looking to see what I need to get going.
I need some sort of register. I wish I could just hook up something to my laptop and run a program off that. Any suggestions? I will have internet access so credit card processing should be easy.
Fixtures. Anyone have a cool site that sells unusual fixtures? I want to try and separate myself from the norm to attract the kids in.
What else? Do I need hangtags and a scanner?
I'm only going to sign for a 6 month lease to see if its worth it. But any advice would be so helpful. thanks
Re: Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions?
If you will be running the register yourself then you could make do with a cashbox, but you could make an excel spreadsheet to help you keep track of inventory and income. If you do it all yourself this would be adequate, but as soon as you have help you will be wanting better records.
If you plan to hire some kid to do it for you, you really want something that will record transactions, which have to be reconciled at the end of the day with the amount in the drawer. Any kind of register will suffice, even the old fashioned kind. My suggestion would be to use the buddy system, so that there are always two people working together as a kind of counterbalance, checking each others' work. You have them reconcile the sales, and you just confirm it--save you a lot of trouble. They can't go home till it's reconciled! So it motivates them to keep accurate records.
And don't leave cash in the register overnight....
Re: Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions?
I agree with the sentiment of the others. Definitely, go ahead and make the investment for a cash register. Security, record keeping and avoiding the appearance of impropriety will make it money well spent.
Sam's Club has one for $100.00 with enough features to allow you to grow. Plus it's small enough to double as a cash box for shows and fairs. Something like this could serve the purpose nicely:
Royal 435DX Cash Register
800 PLU's
16 Departments
8 clerks
4 tax rates (including Canadian, add-on and VAT)
Front & rear LCD displays
Locking cash drawer with 4-bill/4-coin removable tray
Universal drawer fits USA and Canadian paper currency
Single-station 57mm impact printer
Memory protection with back-up batteries (included)
Re: Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions?
I ran a cart in my local Mall for about six months, so:
1. Definitely get a cash register. I picked up a Casio from Staples for $100.
2. I got a good credit card swiper from my merchant account for $300. They split up the cost over 3 months so it was a little easier.
3. I built up an Excel spreadsheet to track all of my sales, then reconciled that against the cash register and credit swiper at the end of the day.
4. Be careful with Mall leases. Sounds like you got a good deal, but be aware that over the holidays they usually increase rent drastically. My rent went up 5x but sales only went up about 2x.
Re: Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions?
I started with a register but soon found out that it was more work keeping track of inventory. I ended up using a program called EZ Power POS by Denver Research. I have a magnetic card reader for credit cards and it all runs through my computer. With this setup the program keeps track of my inventory so there is a little less work for me.
This program is relatively inexpensive for what you get.
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Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions? 
Re: Questions about setting up a brick and mortar store in a mall: supplies? suggestions? 
