Art Supply Shop Idea
I've been continuously selling off the bulk of my Magic cards. Last month I set all my prices to like five cents under market and let the things fly. Hobbit cards have people buying again. Not going to invest in anymore for the shop outside of what extras we might need to offload when we buy personal packs in the future.
I really wanted Hardcopy Collectibles to take off so I could make enough money to open a physical store and sell vintage games, comics, manga and stuff like that. But the reality is the economy is just too bad. Food, rent, and gas take up 99% of folks budgets. I get it, it's a bad time. Nothing I can do about it.
Pivoting to a bookshop would be worse, books are averaging $20 these days and many publishers are discontinuing paperbacks. When I get this RPG story published it will probably do best as an ebook or audiobook. Making a bookshop into a cafe and having coffee and snacks is an even bigger risk because with such a small shop the prices will be too high because my costs can't compete with larger chains. Plus insurance and food safety inspections and extra employees will drive costs far beyond sales.
So then I thought what kind of shop could I run that didn't rely on a constant influx of the latest product the way comics and books and all that require. Then my kids asked for more watercolor paper the other day. I usually buy them the cheap stuff at Walmart in the craft isle because they will blow through the paper and paint in a weekend and it's not that big of a deal. But if I wanted to paint, with like, the good supplies I'd have to drive an hour to the closest Michaels. In Austin I'd go to Jerry's Artarama for my birthday and buy the good stuff. We don't have anything like that around here.
The closest thing around is in the next town over and it's for traditional crafts like quilting, needlework, and fiber art kinda stuff. If you are a fan of Apple Barrel paints and Mod Podge they are the place to go. I'm more of a Liquitex/Golden type of gal. I want a shop that I can go into, buy a 4ft roll of canvas and gallon of gesso and make an absolute mess of my garage. That's what I went to school for, that's what I know how to do. I can set up and tear down an entire 4 color screen print setup in no time.
So I thought, I can't be the only one around here who would benefit from an art supply shop. I could offer premium paints and brushes. I could have a section for printmaking supplies, a section for comic supplies and a whole wall of COPIC markers and dip pens. I could have a photocopier in the back where you could print a zine for a few bucks. I could have some tables in the back for classes. There already is a creative non profit in town that mostly does the arts and crafts stuff but also does drawing/painting classes. And hey, those people shouldn't have to drive an hour to get supplies. I could have a section at the front for people to donate unused or half used supplies and let customers take them for free to practice with.
I think it would work well here at least. The demographics are mostly retired people and families with kids. Now I just need a loan for 375k for a building and inventory. LOL