How to Open a Baby Goods Store

You have dreamed of opening your own baby goods store for a long time and now, you have finally gathered enough courage to open one. You have an idea of what you will sell in the store, you have even imagined where it will be located and how customers will enter it and come out with bags full of baby goods.

Dreams are a great thing, but in order to be able to open your own store, you need to take some important steps that we will try to introduce to you right now.

How to open a baby goods store?

We assume that in order to be able to carry out legal business in the country, one of the first things you need to do is to register a company. However, it is a good idea to come up with a slightly complicated but useful business plan beforehand. Do not miss this step because the success or failure of your store will depend on whether you have a good business plan or not.

Step 1 Business Plan

If your idea is to open a slightly large baby goods store, you do not have to make a very complicated and detailed plan and perform complex calculations. Simply outline the plan by dividing the plan into two main sections: financial and marketing.

● In the financial section, describe all initial costs: attorneys' fees (if applicable), payments to an accountant, money to register a company, money to purchase a cash register, rent a room, rent or purchase equipment, etc. Remember to make an estimation of income and expenses for at least half a year in the financial section as well. It is also a good idea, if you have the opportunity, on the basis of these calculations, to keep some extra money in reserve, so that you can rest assured that if something happens in the first few months and the store does not bear the revenue that you were hoping for, the reserve money will help you “stay above water”.

● You should include in the marketing part of the business plan on how you intend to advertise a children's clothing store. You can get a lot of creative ideas here, because nowadays advertising is very important for attracting consumer interest.
Don't just settle for standard signboards, handing out flyers and business cards, and sticking promotional messages around the neighborhood. Think of your own website, a Facebook page, local radio, television, and newspaper advertising, etc.

Step 2 Company Registration

Before proceeding with the registration, you need to decide what type of company you will be registering, whether it will be EOOD or OOD. The difference between these two types of companies is the number of people who own the capital. For example, in the OOD, there must be at least two founders, and it is not necessary for them to participate in the company with equal capital, while at EOOD, the capital is of sole ownership.

After deciding what type of company it is, you just need to fill in all the necessary documents for the company registration. All types of forms can also be found on the internet, but our advice is to consult a specialist to ensure that you have correctly completed all the steps of registration.

Once the documents have been prepared, you should go to the bank and do the following:

● open a fundraising account

● contribute the specified capital

● pay the mandatory fee

The bank, in turn, will provide you with a note on the paid-in capital. After that, all you have to do is go to the Registry Agency, enter the necessary details and get a number through which you can find out when your company will be registered.

The registration process will not take you more than 2-3 days.

Step 3 Select a property

While you are waiting for your business to be registered, you can do several inspections of the premises suitable for the baby goods store. Take a look around the neighbourhood, see where the biggest flow of people is, and especially where the mothers go to in the neighbourhood’s supermarket, the kindergarten, or school, or the park. Take the time to choose a property, because location depends largely on whether or not your prospects can find you easily.

And yes, do not open a children's store near other similar stores!

Step 4 What type of baby goods will you sell?

This step is crucial because it will effect whether you will be able to attract the right customers. To handle this, look at the competition, see what items sell the most, and what they load most often. Also ask for information from moms in the neighbourhood where you plan to open a children's store to find out what's missing or what kind of baby items they find it most difficult to avail.

Think about the prices of the goods you want to sell:

● If you are considering selling high-quality, branded children's clothing, toys, furniture, or more, it's a good idea to have your store in a neighbourhood that is mostly home to people with better financial means.

● If you decide to sell cheaper goods then you can choose a neighbourhood where lower income people live.

Step 5 Select Manufacturers and Suppliers

Depending on the baby products you want to sell, you have to choose the manufacturers and suppliers you want to work with. To do this, you just need to contact them, make an inquiry and after careful considerations, you can decide to get the baby products from those manufacturers and suppliers.

If you do not have a large initial capital, you can search for any goods yourself and order them online from any warehouse that offers wholesale baby goods.

Step 6 Purchase Cash Register and Equipment

To be able to operate a baby goods store, you will need a cash register in addition to the premises, goods, and company registration. Therefore, one of the first things you should do after registering your business is to contact a licensed cash register company to provide you with one.

Important! Without a cash register, you can't start your own store and you can't sell goods!

To buy a cash register you need to choose a company that offers similar products and provide the following documents:

● company data

● the details of the retail outlet

● the data required by the cashier's dealer/service

After doing all this, the service will commission your cash register (they will program your company data into the device and register it in the NRA). Before they give it to you, they will include a one-year service contract with you with a data transfer fee (for a period of one year from the date of registration) and finally issue you a certificate of registration of the cash register.

Once you have a cash register working, you're almost done with the final rights. All you have to do is refresh the room you rented and take care of the layout of the store. The equipment (dummies, booths, etc.) that you will need can be rented (thus saving a little money).

Step 7 Stand arrangement

You have to put a lot of creativity in here so that you can arrange the products in such a way that they are visible to the customers entering the store and not to overburden their eyes with overly diverse merchandise.

The stands must be stacked with a lot of taste to attract the eye. You can also use a very old but still working trick in the layout:

● The most expensive baby goods are ranked at eye level

● Cheaper products at the lowest or highest stand

Storefronts should showcase your best baby products and inspire customers to come to your store. (If you find it difficult to handle the layout yourself, it is a good decision to seek a professional to give you professional guidance).

Step 8 Formal opening of a baby goods store

We've made it to the final step, but if you think that once you know how to open a baby goods store and once you've made it here, you just have to unlock the store and wait for customers to start rushing in, we will have to disappoint you. It just doesn't work out that way! If you want your customers to know about your store and visit it, you will have to work a little more.

What do we mean?

To attract interest in a baby goods store, it's a good idea to start advertising it intensively at least a few weeks before opening it. Hire a few people to give out flyers to open the store, run attractive local media ads, and advertise on Facebook. Be creative and don't get expensive!

Prepare surprises for your first visitors, hand out sweets and candy to your youngest customers, sell any of the discounted baby items to anyone who makes a purchase on the first day of the store opening, or make a raffle for a customer to win who had purchased the goods.

If you have more resources and opportunities, hire a catering company, invite some popular celebrity to the opening, or local television to cover the event. If you wish, you can also invite a priest to light the room.

As we said before, be creative and turn the day of opening the store into a special and unforgettable day for you and your customers.

Once this step is done, you are required to always be of service to your customers, treat them with care, provide them with the baby goods they need to buy, have a lot of patience, and make sure that a desire to work does not decrease. Good luck in the endeavour!