Quote:
Originally Posted by 8cd03gro
There are many ways I have seen such shops become successful, but you need to pick a specific aspect to focus on. Do you want to be an online retailer with maybe a small store-front? Do you want to be a shop that builds cars for customers? Do you want to focus on one type of vehicle or be an, "everything" shop? You can't just start out huge, you need to exploit a niche, then grow from there. Make a name for yourself. If you are going to be a retailer or focus on one market, you will want be heavily involved in that community, especially online. If you want to be a local place for various types of vehicles you want to be present at local meets, track days, etc. You need people to trust you with their cars, you want them to know YOU. A good way, if you are trying to attack a specific market as a shop, is to hire and/or work with a well known, trusted tuner.
Make friends with the trusted people in the market you're going after. You want people to refer their friends to you. Take special care of customers you know are involved in the community because they WILL be talking to other that they will refer to you or steer away. What I have found is that the retailers and shops I've dealt with that bend over backwards to please me, even if their products are slightly more expensive, are the ones that keep me as a customer.
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Thanks for the post. I appreciate it.
I would like to have a shop and sell products online, but like you said, I have to start somewhere first before I can be huge. As they say, one must crawl before one walks and one must be able to walk before they can run. I guess, I could be a vendor before I became a shop owner. That way, if something were to happen, I would have less to lose. Another positive to that, would be that I could affiliate myself with someone and sell their products and get my name out there at the same time.
As for the area I want to reach out to, I want to deal with sports cars. Specifically anything that has to deal with Ford, Chevy and Dodge. I would love to work on their cars and create new products or improve already existing products.