My advice forending up witha million bucks in the sporting goods business??? Start with 2 million!!!

I discourage ANYONE from getting in the retail business if they are gungho serious about hunting/fishing. Why? Because your time in the field will be eliminatedby AT LEAST90% to do the business right. Your busiest times are the last 3 months of the year. You need to be there from open too close EVERY single day you are normally scheduled to open (and that really needs to be 7 days a week!). Gone are the days you can hang a "Gone Huntin" sign on the door. Todays world of retailing deals with impatient customers who have the mental time frame of a 5 year old. Product is available 360degrees. It's a "buyers market" and that by it's very definition means you (the retailer) are on the lesser end of that prospect.

If for whatever reasons (age, money, desire etc...) you no longer desire to be a weekend warrior and no longer want to make those week long, multi-state hunts then yeah you could make it in the business. But be prepared for unreasonable customer expectations. And my pet peeve, which has become a GROWING problem with the advent of the internet, isyour store becoming a "hands on, answer bed, test site" for merchandise that unscrupulous customers then rush home and buy online after they have tied you up for an hour and fondled your merchandise, gained from your knowledge and trainingonly to buy on line because they can save a buck or two and escape sales tax!!! I personally would like to put a bullet in those kinds of peoples heads...

The old "quaint gunshop" is justa myth anymore. The business is to expensive to partake of as just a hobby or something to waste time doing. Somewherea few years ago the American publicfor whatever reason, was brainwashed into believing that spending moneyon ANYTHING was supposed to be an unpleasant experience. So they aremad at you for the simple fact that you are providing them for something THEY want but have to pay for in the first place.

GONEare the days of talking around the coffee table about hunts of yore. The modern retail model is a meat grinder and will wear you out, test your metel and drain your sanity and finances. That is why I turned down my brothers offer to buy his stores and why I refused to even manage them in the first place. I DIDN'T need the headaches or hours. I would rather see my children grow up and spendMY time in the woods/on the water or anyother way I see fit. It is also why I now work part time for a store who could use some mgmt help (they are GREAT folks, but just new too the business) but I simply have done the "push push push" go for it deathmarch type retail life when I owned my own car dealership for nearly 5 years as well as growing up in my brothers stores for 20 years. If I am in the retail business now it is simply on MY TERMS. I come and go as I please and do only what I choose to do.I let someone else worry about dealing with paying the bills, keeping the tax man at bay, trying to make the bottom line work,returns, matching prices, dealing with employees,unhappy a-hole customerswho couldnt be pleased with honey dipped lesbians etc...

Sorry to be negative but I wanted you to fully understand BOTH sides of the equation we call "outdoors retailing in America". BPS and Cabelas are 4 letter words if you are in the business. As a little guy you're tied too wholesalers/buying groups who are about as helpful and money saving as beautiful twin teen-age daughters... In fact wholesaling is where the "easy money" is at with regards too retail, but even that is like anything else in the market now. Overtaken by a few BIG shots, the rest are rats scurrying for crumbs. It's the ONLY part of the business that is still 9-5 Mon-Fri.

Either way, GOOD LUCK!!!
RA