Grants/Help for Retail Start Up

Granty2007

Hello All,

I am in the process of starting a retail store and am finding it very difficult to get any help from the Government - They seem to think "retail" is a bad word. All websites guide you to contact your local county enterprise board, which i did. They said they do not help retail. Enterprise ireland is the same. Revenue Ireland also does not provide any tax incentives.

Does anyone know of a grant or help service for Retail stores? Just going round in circles at the moment



Thanks
Granty

DublinDilbert

Granty2007 wrote: »

Hello All,

I am in the process of starting a retail store and am finding it very difficult to get any help from the Government - They seem to think "retail" is a bad word. All websites guide you to contact your local county enterprise board, which i did. They said they do not help retail. Enterprise ireland is the same. Revenue Ireland also does not provide any tax incentives.

Does anyone know of a grant or help service for Retail stores? Just going round in circles at the moment



Thanks
Granty

EI and the government are mainly interested in generating exports, and bringing money into ireland from abroad... a retail store, although it will provide employment, it will not bring any new money into the country, it will just facilitate an internal transaction within Ireland...

EcologiKids

There are no grants for retail tbh. However if you are looking for capital at a low interest rate, you can apply for up to 25K with firststeps.ie . Give them a call or check out the website. Word to the wise, you need a really GREAT business plan .
Hope this helps!:D And best of luck! It's a tough slog.

Granty2007

Thanks so much for the reply. I tried to access that site and it does not seem to be working... working the business plan now and yes am looking forward to the challange.. in a safe 9-5 job now and about to risk it all.

stepbar

Just two questions for you:

What part of retail are we talking about here?

What's your background?

Granty2007

Hello - I wish to enter a niche area of Speciality Grocery Boutique type shop.

I hold a Bachlor of Managment. Have spent 8 years as a project manager for a mojor multinational. Prior to that i have spent 7 years in Bar Tending and Bar Managment.

Any Advise?

stepbar

Like Donnybrook Fair or Fallon & Byrne?

You could be on to a winner if this is what you are planning. In the right socioeconomic location, you could win big. I imagine there would be a more than healthy profit margin attached to such a speciality shop. However, because you are charging a premium price for your product / service (I assume so because your market is a niche one), you will have to invest heavily in the "shopping experience" (i.e marketing / customer service / shop layout, style and branding / other premium services and so on). I wouldn't underestimate what you would need to spend on this. You also need to be fairly sure of the market segment you are chasing after and their abiliy to support your business.

Before you go making any plans I would go round and visit a number of similar shops. Get a feel for what they do. You should be able get an idea of what you can do to improve on what they do. You may come up with some of your own ideas based on other observations you may have. Its akin to buying a house, you wouldn't be advised to buy the first one you saw. However when you do, you might decide to make improvements to it and so on.

Also, get yourself a good accountant who will go through the figures. Projections are great but that's all they are. Projections. It's important to be realistic and a good accountant should be able to help you with that.

Granty2007

Yes very like those shops but with an added twist.

Thank you so much for the excellent advise. Really appricate your help

antoinolachtnai

I would say you will need to get someone in to back you on this. It takes quite a bit of money, particularly if you are doing any food prep. A lot of it is about location - no matter how good the concept is, it won't work if you aren't able to pay to get the right location and get a big enough space to support the concept.

Fresh, which is in the same sort of business is basically part of a property play. They are planning a large number of stores and are in the process of raising a lot of money to do it. (Although I think there are problems with their model myself). This was covered in the national business press in the last month or two.

SPM

I used to source locations for a large multinational chain and I can give some vital info on how to pick the location, how to qualify it and do the business plan based on projected customers and how to determine projected customers. also you will need to do thorough research into the demographics of the area. its 90% about the demographics and 10% about what you have on offer. PM me if you need any more info...sensitive info and all....

antoinolachtnai

Hi SPM, good insight! Just as a general question, how do you find out about the demographics of the people working in a place (as opposed to the people who live in the place)? And is there any source you rely on for info like foot-traffic on a particular source.

Sonnenblumen

EcologiKids wrote: »

There are no grants for retail tbh. However if you are looking for capital at a low interest rate, you can apply for up to 25K with firststeps.ie . Give them a call or check out the website. Word to the wise, you need a really GREAT business plan .
Hope this helps!:D And best of luck! It's a tough slog.

Unbelieveable really, I mean € 25k would pay for a less than average car and you need a great business plan just for the comfort of a low interest loan? Really captures how poor our Enterprise culture is. Over 50% of the State's investment goes on admin /salaries of the so-called enterprise advisers in our various state agencies. They should all be given a compulsory 5 year stint to work in the real world and real world conditions. Most would be miserable failures yet preach 'best practices' to genuine tryers, OP try the banks and best of luck.