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Hi All
Im thinking opening a studio in manchester. Ideally with another photographer but i can also do it myself. I have read quiet alot of topic about the subject on this website and have seen very good feedback ( positive or negative ). Yes its sound mad opening a new studio at moment( current economic climate) however i still think that there are so many opportunities. One example is football posters for kids.( i ve got example on my website ) when i was a kid i had 3 posters on the wall in my bedroom. Ryan Giggs, Hakan Sukur, Tugay Kerimoglu( as im turkish) i used to think one day i will play for united and i will have my own poster. Im sure you have seen nike or adidas football ads. Im thinking of doing a commercialized poster for kids to put up on there wall, which i think they will love it and give them some inspiration. Of course its not just that. Make over and family portraits as well. Im not the best at what i do but i will try so hard to get what i want. I have found a massive office space (3,195 sq ft)in city centre opposite the arndale ( very high footfall) £30000 rent+ rate+ service charge+ insurance per annum.so what do you think?
Was there a comment a few weeks ago about a similiar Kids picture setup printing images for £10 inside a shopping centre.
So that's 3000 customers a year to pay for the rent, if you can work 300 days a year then you only need 10 customers a day to pay for that rent.
I guess you want a similiar Salary and will need a staff member (60K more or 20 more customers a day).
and i guess equipment over 3 years and rates will be another 10 customers.
So what's going to bring in 40+ customers (say 5 per hour) every day of every week for you to make a profit?
Is there 12,000 customers in your area each year - assuming no repeat customers?
Just my tupence worth based on the £10 kids photo prospect.
High jack thanks for the feedback. 1. I wont be setting up mini studio in a shopping mall, the place that i have found is right opposite the very busy shopping centre in manchester. 2. I own every equipment that i will need so no equipt. cost. And no way i will charge £10 way more than that.
Living and working in Greater Manchester photography is not a high priority for most people.
Unless you have an existing customer base that you can start with I would be cautious, from the figures you've quoted, business rates if memory serves is a percentage of the rent, plus a service charge plus all the liability insurance and so on + phones, electric, heating and so on I can easily see 50K pa, on top of that the Arndale is known as the cheap and cheerful shopping centre, it has a cruder tittle, so doesn't attract big spenders.
I'm not saying don't do it, but do a lot more research in terms of marketing and running costs, advertising and all the other boring but vital tasks in running a business.
Good luck
Quote: but £350 for a wedding more than a liitle inexpensive
At that price the punters will be piled higher than a football stadium, You should be very busy in these hard times.....!!!
You need more than a few dreams and cut price weddings, As stated above " Business & Marketing " is where its all at, Anyone can squirt a few images off....
But you need to sell them.....
Good luck whatever you get up to......
Go for it if you truly believe you can make it work....
Simple as that really
Quote: 1. I wont be setting up mini studio in a shopping mall, the place that i have found is right opposite the very busy shopping centre in manchester. 2. I own every equipment that i will need so no equipt. cost. And no way i will charge £10 way more than that.
From what JackAllTog said you might not be setting up in a shopping centre and you might be charging much more than £10 - but, your competitor is in the shopping centre and is charging £10.
But I also agree with Ade. If you really think you can make it work then go for it. You definitely won't make it happen if you don't take that first step.
From what i see here you either need to explain more about your plan or you are going into this ill prepared. No matter how much spirit you have business is business and the sums need to add up, you can pay bills without money. It's the simple facts of life, hard as they maybe. It sounds like a big venture to start of with if this is a first time business in this area. Why not start now form home and grow from there, if it takes of you go in bigtime but to risk all right from the start sounds reckless without more and better thought out plans.
There seems to be an assumption here (and on other threads) that in order to survive, you must be able to compete with the Pixi-Foto's of the world and others of that ilk. I would say you need to match your offering to a specific market and, yes, if your target market is £10 a pop, pile 'em high, then volume is the only way to do it. Similarly, if you're in the £250 for everything on a CD market, you still need to do a lot of work to deliver on your promises. That said, while the news keeps telling us about the 3 million unemployed, they never mention the 27 million still in work! I had a conversation with a client this morning who is one of the 27 million and their portrait order will come to about £2.5k. Pixi-Foto will need 250 people through the door to match that and whether they do or don't get those numbers, I don't care because I'm not in their market.
As Ade says,
Quote: Go for it if you truly believe you can make it work....
Quote: Pixi-Foto will need 250 people through the door to match that and whether they do or don't get those numbers, I don't care because I'm not in their market.
It may well be double that to get the same nett profit. That is one of the advantages of going to the premium end of the market.
Quote:
Without being noisy; can I ask how many of those orders do you get a year? If you don't want to say that's fine as it's not really any of my business.
I have only had a studio for a short while and am not yet in full swing, particularly with marketing (and that being the most important aspect!) However, most of the last few orders have all been in excess of £1000. The sub £1k tend to be round the £7-800 mark. I would add that there is no hard sell or coercion involved and no one has yet said, 'How much????!!!' in that way!
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