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There is a store similar to what you describe near me and they seem to be doing a lot of business. The funny thing is it is located 45 miles south of Nashville off of I-24 and the nearest populated area is 12 miles north of them with around 100,000 people. You would not think they would be as busy as they are....
I think you could get a good idea of what they are doing by visiting their wen site. I am not going to post the link but google "The outpost armory" in Tennessee.
I think the Key tho their traffic is that they carry a large assortment of assault rifles, Military rifles, combat shotguns and sniper rifles. These toys drive traffic without any doubt and once you get people in the store you can sell them on other products.
Now as a disclaimer there is some connection to Barrett firearms as the factory is right next door to the store. I do not know what level of involvement Barrett has with the store but the store does stock a lot of Barrett firearms.
If I were going to do a retail survival store I would make sure I had an FFL and that I stocked a large assortment of military style weapons, magazine, ammo, reloading gear, "tacticool" military gear, maybe even body armor . This stuff would draw people into the store.
I would also carry long term storage food, first aid gear (even some advanced first aid) and really think about alternative energy supplies.
Good luck with it.
The guns and ammo are the ONLY reason they are doing well.
I think this is a great idea. I live in a small town in the southwest and am a family doctor. I get a pretty good sampling of peoples' attitudes toward "doomsday," etc. People seem very interested in preparing. Also in our area we have a ton of mountain bike fanatics. I was thinking a good way to increase business other than selling guns (which is fraught with red tape) would be to tie gaming/ conditioning/ sports with a prepper shop. Add a paint ball or air soft course to practice for doomsday. There was a funny 5K race advertised on TV were the participants ran through an obstacle course with zombies chasing them while they ran. Human nature seems to thrive on chase and threat so it seems like making a game out of it while also truly prepping people would be smart.
"emergency kits" are a good idea- then folks will buy them for gifts for family members and friends
this would also appeal, not to just the apocalypse crowd, but to everyday crisis crowd, -such as extended loss of electrical power, etc.
id be selling not only the foods, that last a long time, but also the storage - the pantry's.... the wooden book shelves, and sell different storage with the foods together...have them all set up on display, ..also offer to deliver within a reasonable distance
sell the radios,,,,flashlights..and other electrical items that can be operated by winding them up,,,or solar power,,
sell generators, with videos on how to properly use them
if you decide against guns and ammo- go heavy on high powered bb guns, pepper sprays, etc.
"the survivalist" would be a good name-then you can also appeal to the green/sustainability, bark eating prius crowds,
-how to grow your own organic gardens, and sell seeds, and sell cd's of "how to"
water purification pills, you can have nature walks- what area plants you can eat/seasonal sustainability, also books on how to raise your own chickens/pigs/cattle and how to butcher them
"off the grid" is another good name for this type of business,,, that will appeal across the whole customer base.
again, you can sell generators, hook up with area contractors/companies, for solar power and wind-mills, sell, invertors, etc,,,
you can even have classes on this stuff to the public..- bring the companies in,,that sell residential solar power/wind turbines
Id stay away of the doomsday word, and broaden the customer base
There is a huge customer base, but it is widely scattered. Therefore an on-line business might do better.
One thing I see a demand for is classes to teach various types of food preparation (canning, dehydrating, slaughtering chickens). I know a guy who gives a 2 day seminar on butchering a hog and how to process the meat, and he gets students from 100's of miles away, because nobody is teaching that sort of thing.
Hand powered equipment can be difficult to find: hand powered water pumps, hand powered wheat grinders or sausage stuffers. Things like solar powdered dehydrators or bicycle powered washing machines aren't available in Walmart.
A buddy and I have been methodically preparing for launching a small business. We have built out our expectations, strengths, weaknesses, skill sets etc... to form the basis before starting to run concepts through the hopper. We are now at a point where we are evaluating different business ideas in a methodical manner beginning with whether we can be fully invested in the subject matter or idea.
We've come up with an idea that we both believe we would enjoy and that scores around a 71% in our "viability hopper"...mostly because of the fact that it is retail so the score on overhead and startup costs are a little lower than say a home web design business.
I wanted to see what you thought as other business owners and also as consumers.
It would start as a small retail store front. We would sell survival/preparation gear specifically for "doomsday" preparation (a departure from hiking or sporting goods). Things like bulk storable food, MREs, water purification systems, multi-tools, knives, archivable plant seeds, tactical gear, ammunition, ammo reloading, etc... We also have some ideas for some products that we could have manufactured or simply re-badged and re-purposed plus partnership ideas for added services (bomb shelters, gunsmithing, etc...) but I'd like to keep those relatively on the downlow. The eventual evolution would be online sales and then FFL for firearms sales, but since that requires a storefront these days, we would get it going with the prep stuff and then use the firearms to draw in more customers and make money on selling trade-ins.
My questions: as a consumer, would you consider buying such products given the state of the country's debt and the growing popularity of emergency prep?
As a business owner, do you think this is a viable concept? In terms of competition, there aren't really any one stop shops like these around here with the exception of one maybe 30miles from the area we are considering.
There are several in this area and they seem to do quite well.
Things to consider.
You will do better in a red state than in a blue state.
You will do better in an area where there is a substantial rural population as opposed to a huge metropolitan center.
With prepping, education is *everything*. You have to teach people how to do it (and not from watching some stupid television show), and you have to justify the value of the products that you sell.
You have to be extremely knowledgeable about the products you sell.
You have to have a secondary tier of income i.e. once a family buys 1 years supply of food with a 30 year shelf-life, they aren't going to buy it again, in most cases. Therefore, you have to constantly work on bringing in new and better products as well as concentrating on training, education, etc.
There are already an awful lot of on-line businesses that provide these products to customers. If you provide excellent customer service and a wide variety of training opportunities you will do fine.
i love guns and ammo and im interested in prepper stuff. im not sure if its something im going to spend a lot of money on since im already a major bargain shopper but it would be an interesting place for me to look around.
I'm thinking the only way you could pull it off is online. There isn't much of a market in most metro areas to sustain a brick/mortar store. Maybe you could have a store but the majority of sales would have to be e-commerce.
You would have some very stiff competition.
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