Idears, your not fram cornwall are ye.

good luck with it,dont let people or the manufacturers rip u off,do mail order and set up a discount club to get repeat orders,free postage,make sure your bait is top notch and good customer service.the list could go on

Have plenty of money
Have a 2nd source of Income
Don’t expect to get rich anytime soon

unless of course you have lots of the 1st two.

do have a business plan written down?

what is your financial backing for the venture?

what is your exit strategy?

three rules of business;
1. know your client(s) what they want and how they want it
2. know your competition (more important than rule no.1 sometimes)
3. know a good solicitor

Don’t do it would be my advice. I live in Leicester & local anglers travel to Chiltern Baits at Desborough in the majority because of the price, service & stock. Unless you can compete with them you would be wasting your time and money I am afraid. Many have tried, and not many are left (Match Catch in Syston & All Seasons in South Wigston are the only two I can think of off top of my head still trading) & they are not doing as well as they would like to (Match Catch have been around for years as well).

i wish you all the best my friend, but surely if u had it planned you wouldnt be asking for advice or tips and ideas on here,unless you can compete with fosters or nathans forget it my friend,for 1 we are in a recession,secondly people by online nowadays and can have goods deliverd the next day,i live in northampton and we are crying out for a good tackle shop who can cater for the match angler,many people i no trael to chiltern baits or lanes of coventry,andy pell at chiltern understands what the match angler requires as does big wig at lanes these 2 both have there own bait farms aswell,also consider the winter months when people arnt fishing i would love to hae my own tackle shop but to be the best you have to compete with the best unless u can beat the big boys forget it,its a bit like the corner butchers or bakers competing with tescos and asda have a good think before u commit yourself but all the best my friend you could be a sucsess and you will neer no until u try it

Offer TF members a 50% discount and free postage. 🙂

Its our fault if our local shop fails. I try and buy everything local instead of mail order, even poles. When i bought my Z9 my local shop charged me £30 more than the best quote I had mail order. I thought it was worth the extra as if I had a problem with it I would get better service. Im buying a Z12 or the new Z8 in a few months and i will do the same. Happy to pay up to £50 more to give him the trade and hope ive still got somewhere to buy maggot .

Cooperman,

Without knowing details for your venture all I can say is that its tough times out there at the moment and its only going to get tougher.
Everyone one wants discount and goods at the lowest price possible and making a decent profit is so hard if not impossible.
Overhead costs go up and margins are small.
£20,000 of stock looks nothing when its put out in the shop.

Anyway good luck to you and if you need top quality bait supplying, give us a call at Chiltern baits.

Oh by the way, I would forget mail order etc. fraud is a nightmare and everyone wants to buy at near trade prices with free postage. Couriers dont collect for free, so unless you can manage to despatch around 20-50 items every few days which will result in you needing to employ staff just for that, despite what others say on here, forget it.

you can shift a bit on ebay but you won’t compete with the market leaders doing mail order so dont bother. IMO