No car park

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Abacus
Posts: 673
Joined: Mon 29 Nov, 2010 12:20 pm
Location: Halifax, West Yorkshire
Organisation: Abacus Picture Framing and Gallery
Interests: Picture Framing, Furniture making.

No car park

Post by Abacus »

I’m considering moving premises, my current shop has around 12 parking spaces, 3 have staff cars in leaving 9 for customers. At the most we probably have 5 customer cars at any one time.

The new premises doesn’t have dedicated parking, just street and pay and display.

How do members with this set up find it?

Ta
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: No car park

Post by Not your average framer »

Yellow lines are slowly killing the business life of our town and My wife and I have to pay over £200 for a permit to car in the car park and we are residents in the town. We have lost so many viable businesses in the town, because the parking charges make it sensible to pay the extra to go to a bigger town, where there are lots more shops to go to.

We lost the last bank in the town last year, so people no longer come into the town, to do their banking. People still need to come to me, because if you need a picture framer then you have to go where there is one and there are not as many picture framers to choose from as there once were near me. I don't get a massive volume of sales, but I survive by not being too cheap, I keep careful control of my costs and I do plenty of niche market stuff, including hand finished and stacked moulding frames.

I'm the guy, who will make you a copy of an old frame, where the moulding that I am copying has not been made for the last hundred years, or more. It's not always an absolutely exact copy, but I usually get pretty jolly close. I slice up different mouldings to get the parts of the profile that I want and fix the various bits together. Not many framers can be bothered to do this, so I got a largely captive market. In difficult times, being able to do something which the competition don't want to do, can be very helpful.

No car parking? There's no easy fix, but doing stuff that's special and that people have difficulty finding elsewhere can help a bit maybe. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees and what works in one location, may not necessarily work somewhere else. I've moved from a fairly small shop, to an even smaller one and I down sized a bit at the same time. Moving was not my decision, but a smaller business means lower running costs and I no longer take on jobs that I don't want to do.

Car parking is still a problem and I think we are probably going to need to live with that one. Sorry not a lot of help, but you never know, something I've mentioned may perhaps have some value.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Steve N
Posts: 2992
Joined: Sat 21 Jul, 2007 2:32 pm
Location: Somewhere Staple Hill Bristol
Organisation: Frontier Picture Frames ltd
Interests: Walking our retired Greyhound,art, falling asleep on sofa in front of the telly
Location: Now in Bristol
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Re: No car park

Post by Steve N »

My customers park right outside the shop , or in a little alley by the side or even in the next door pub car park , where I park :giggle:
But I don't have hoards of customers at one time nor do I have staff
Steve CEO GCF (020)
Believed in Time Travel since 2035

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prospero
Posts: 11492
Joined: Tue 05 Jun, 2007 4:16 pm
Location: Lincolnshire

Re: No car park

Post by prospero »

I'm lucky. I have a driveway at the side and a biggish yard. Also, when they remodelled the market place
nearby I was left with a nice little pull-in just big enough for a car (or two). Handy for loading/unloading.
I wouldn't want a shop that didn't have convenient parking. It's an asset not to be underestimated. :D
Watch Out. There's A Humphrey About
Not your average framer
Posts: 11014
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: No car park

Post by Not your average framer »

Trying to encourage others, I've always had no car parking facilities close to my shop and the street which runs past my shop has double yellow line. That is how it has been all the time I've been here and the double yellow lines have not closed me down prepiously, so I'm not expecting it to close me down any time soon. Car parking does not appear to be, the be all and end all for me and I'm guessing that I won't be the be all and end all for you either. First of all, have something extra special in you shop windows and make sure that you've got really stunning shop windows all the time as well. Nothing is finished and all over just jet. We have everything to go for right now!

I've just finished five 16" x 12" oak frames for a regular customer on Wednesday and he sold three of them the following day and has ordered five more yesterday and needs them within 10 days. And this is before my shop is yet re-opened. Currently it seems to me, that there is plenty of business about at the moment. I've also got customers, who want to bring framing jobs to me and are waiting for me to open up for business. It's a long way from being all over. Now is the time to really sharpen up your act and really go for it. I've got a painter re-painting my shop front in the next few weeks and I'm sorting out my new shop fitting and Covid precautions.

Worrying about things that you can't change leads to getting depressed and negativity, which is all too easily stopping us from going for it. Now is the time to really go for and if you really go for it, you won't have time to be getting depressed and negative, because all the positive things that you will be doing will be encouraging as you see each stage completed and see how good your shop looks. I'm expecting to be very busy for the run up to Christmas. I am expecting January and February to be a bit quiet, as this is always normal for these two months, but if I get a reasonable run up to Christmas, then January and February won't be a problem.

It's time to go for it guys!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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