Starting My Own Brick & Mortar Supplement Store—tell me why I’m an idiot (or not)

So let me get this straight - you want to open a supplement store but do not want the biggest consumer of supplements (weight lifting bros) as part of your customer base?

Good luck!

Yes, you're an idiot.

It's "hold the fort" not "hold DOWN the fort"

I used to know a LTC reservist in the service whose main job was in a bank. He said if you want to start a business, write out your business plan and take it to a few banks to see if they'll lend. In the process you'll get feedback from them even if you don't use them as investors. Also, if they won't lend it's a good sign to proceed with caution.

Business plan is a great idea. Take a look at www.liveplan.com .

make sure to get authentic offal burritos - they provide the best performance gains

could be a fun side hustle

How many bottles of that crap are you going to need to sell per month just to pay rent?

HARD pass.

What about for the experience side having a recovery lounge with a juice bar that you can add loads of things into plus renting theraguns and so on.

If you are selling smoothies that means you are opening a restaurant and you will fall under your city's codes for that.

I guess if you sell enough $20 smoothies your plan will work for a month or two.

First, I really appreciate how you've taken feedback from this thread so far. It's good seeing someone take everything constructively and with an open mind to better your business.

I don't think brick and mortar gives you a competitive advantage especially considering the time and investment in it early on. That said, I think if you put that money and energy into being the best online education/product resource for people you can carry this idea very far.

A great website and consistent social media in that space goes a long way to getting people to understand your product and order online. I think you would be making money faster and have a much higher ceiling with better margins by leaning into online and knowing that it's easer to engage and reach people using technology.

I live in a very populated, health conscious, and rich area and even here I think it would be hard to carry that niche as far as you'd probably like.

Best of luck on the business.

Thanks for all the feedback, everyone (even you negative nancies). The pessimism and caution seem warranted for all the reasons mentioned. I think I'll spend a few more days tinkering it over in my head, perhaps focusing more on what an online business might look like. Maybe supplements are not the way to go at all. We'll see...

PS: V, you've provided some really helpful training info over the years. Although I haven't commented on many threads, I've lurked and definitely appreciate the many nuggets of wisdom!

I just don't see how someone without significant industry experience and connections can enter this market successfully with established sources like The Feed.

I posted a negative Nancy comment but was just being honest. I watch pros train all the time and they generally don’t care what nutrients are going into their body. it’s a character trait. the ones that are conscientious are just as good but nutrition isn’t the be all and end all. but you question got me thinking further on how the business could work. b&m is definitely not the move but if you really are passionate about nutrition and know your crap then maybe you could have a successful online business via social media. you could sponsor athletes and market that way. Especially since apparently legacy brands are giving up on the guys who are sub elite. personally I’m looking for a marathon blend. if you could tailor a cocktail for sub elites like me and show proof of concept by pros actually using and having success with it I think you are on to something big. I could give a rats but about nutrition. I eat and drink by feel, I run so many miles, have a job and kids I don’t have time to be counting my macros and micros

You're opening a brick and mortar supplement store and want to know if you're an idiot.

Answer: Yes.

Why?

Because you're opening a brick and mortar supplement store!

But really, I think other posters have offered fine words of caution. It's a tough row to hoe. I wish you good luck, though.

Go for it. Mercola became a billionaire by selling supplements. There's not a bit of evidence that any of them do anything, but it doesn't matter. They're all completely unregulated and untested. You can put sawdust in a capsule and claim it cures cancer and make piles of money.

Don't have to mess with the overhead of development and testing and regulation like evil Big Pharma does. Other than the brick and mortar, it's all profit.

It's a no brainer. Give it a go.

I totally get that. Media and marketing are skills like anything. A lot of it comes down to, can this catch someone's attention AND solve a problem.

Putting content out there and engaging with others goes a very long way in getting seen and followed. Having some experience working with a small business trying to expand to a new location it has a steep barrier of entry and a lot of capital to roll the dice. If all of that time and capital were put into doing things digitally I think it can carry far. It's cheap enough to sell your product and build awareness through farmers markets or expos and constantly be reinforcing your online brand.

From my n=1 study of me, I know when I made a conscious effort to get better with social media it was a surprisingly smooth ascent and opened quite a few doors for me professionally.

I appreciate it. Occasionally I have a good idea about running.

I think it’s a bad idea unless the supplement store is just one aspect of your business. You could also sell on Amazon or utilize Shopify. Or, you could have YouTube channel or have some kind of subscription program like training program.

But to sell just as retail store would be tough. So to make $100K/year, you’d need sell like $400K/year to account for inventory, rent, labor, etc and that’s being generous. If you’re open 6 days a week, that’ll be 313 days of business per year. You’d need to sell on average of $1,278/day. That’s a lot of business you’d need to generate.
If you’re by a gym, you could maybe have like smoothie stand, but you’d need to sell a lot of smoothies too.

so, unless this is your passion/hobby and not spend too much money on your family, it may be difficult.

FYI... I'm not starting a brick and mortar supplement store.