How many times have you heard this phrase: location, location, location? Well, when it comes to the success of a business or its failure, location is everything. You want to situate your business in the best location possible – and that’s a location that sees plenty of foot action. Of course, you can choose to offer a home office to reduce your overheads and provide you with profits.
Here’s what you need to understand: it’s all about what you are offering the public, what public you want to get the attention of, and the budget you have on hand to spend for your location.
6 Tips To Help You Choose The Ideal Location For Your Business
1.Home Office or External Location
The first thing you must decide on is whether or not your business needs to be inside or outside your home. If you’re working on web design, writing, graphic content or something similar in nature that takes just one or two of you to complete, then a home office will suffice. However, if you plan on offering goods – clothing, electronics or anything similar to this and have more than two employees – then you’re going to need a business location.
2.Narrow Down Location Options
Now, you might be wondering how to narrow down the choices of locations when there are so many prime ones out there. Well, use your business type. For example, manufacturing firms will need a suitable amount of space to do their business. Conventional officers can work in a commercial building. If you have to store goods in a warehouse, you might need an industrial area that offers lots of room and quick access to transportation routes.
3.Look For Anchor Stores
What are anchor stores? These are businesses that have already been set up and have regular amounts of traffic coming in and out of their business every day. Setting up next to one of these can ensure that customers are likely to also check out your business from their customer base.
4.Check Out Your Competition
Be sure to look at your competition for location. You could always open a business near your competition to provide customers with another shopping alternative. Alternatively, you can place your location in an area that’s not served well – an area that has a need for your service.
5.Compare Location Costs
Be sure to do some price comparisons. Prime retail locations are going to be more expensive than out of the way places. However, if you develop a large customer following, prime locations can pay for themselves. If you purchase a store, you’ll save yourself time and money in the long run.
6.Customers Should Easily Find You
When setting up a place of operation, you want to make sure that your customers can easily find you. You don’t want your customers to hunt for you because that’ll just make them go to your competitor, who they can probably find quicker.
10 Important Questions To Ask Yourself To Help You Choose The Best Location For Your Business
- Will the location meet your layout and business needs?
- Is there any work that must be put into the building/location?
- Does it have reasonable rent and lease terms?
- Is the location near where you live?
- Is crime a problem for the location? Will you be able to offer customers safety?
- Will you be able to build a customer base?
- Are neighboring stores attracting clientele that can also benefit your business?
- Can your suppliers deliver the goods you order easily?
- Can you compete with your nearby competitors?
- Can the area handle any growth expansion should you succeed in the location?
As you see, choosing a location should be made after careful consideration of all of the above. Never make the decision on a whim because it will decide if you succeed or fail in the market.