Operating a Retail Store With No Staff
posted on
April 15, 2021
We're talking about how to build a thriving self-service store-front.
This episode is primarily geared toward our farmer/rancher friends, but if you operate another type of perishable business in a mid-rural area, I think you'll find it insightful as well!
Before we ever purchased the domain sevensons.net, our first sales outlet was a small garden-shack that we renovated as our on-farm retail store.
It was built to be practical and certainly wasn't anything that would make a fancy photo in a travel-guide magazine.
However, the one thing that took every customer by surprise was the small change-box sitting next to a calculator with a sign that read 'Payment Goes Here'.
That's right, the store was 100% self-service and operated on the honor system.
This concept wasn't completely foreign to us, but what we didn't expect was that this simple setup would grow to generate over $300K in a single year!
$300K and all we had to do was restock it a few times a week, and keep the power on!
In this episode of GrazeCast, we're going to unpack what made this model such a success and help you identify if it's a good fit for you!
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The farm-store was honestly the easiest revenue our business has ever made.
The upfront cost was low and the overheads were almost completely scale neutral. It cost us the same to be open 1-day/week, as it did 7-days/week!
But in the end, the greatest value this store has brought our business is another layer of trust and authenticity with our customer-base.
Even though we now have customers from coast-to-coast, we want everyone to know that we are an actual farm that you can visit!
Be sure to watch this episode to see if you can unlock the opportunity hidden in a small farm-store.
