If you’ve ever wanted to start a skateshop, allow me to inform you a bit about what it takes. Everybody and their mom wants to start a skateshop at some point, but they usually give up once they figure out how much work it takes.
Sales Reps. The first obstacle you’ll face when trying to open a store is getting the people who sell product to talk to you. You see, the way it works is that every company has sales reps. They may be internal sales reps or independent reps, but that doesn’t matter. Some reps are really nice and will give you all sorts of advice, which may include “Don’t bother” if they can see you don’t have what it takes.
However, reps get so many calls from people who think they’re serious but who will ultimately never make it to the point of actually opening a shop that they often ignore the phone calls, emails, and other attempts to contact them.
Sometimes the response you’ll get from reps is “Give me a call once you have your shop open.” This might leave you scratching your head thinking “Yeah, but how do I open a shop without product?” Luckily the majority of reps won’t give you that line, so don’t worry too much about it.
Dealer Apps. Now where you’re probably going to give up is filling out the dealer apps for the skateboard companies. Every company makes you fill out an app. Some are easy to fill out, others aren’t so easy. What I find somewhat entertaining is that some of the biggest skateboard companies have the worst dealer apps.
The reason this is where you’ll give up is that in order to fill out the dealer apps you have to have all sorts of other information. You have to already be incorporated or have some sort of legal business entity. That’s going to cost you anywhere from $30 to a few hundred bucks, so there’s obstacle #1.
Then you’ll need to set up a business bank account. Obstacle #2. You’ll need a business credit card, a voided check from your business bank account, a city business license, a business card, landlord info, a fax machine, a website, photos of your shop, and a host of other information and documents. By the time you get halfway through all this you might just start saying “Man, I could have earned two years worth of skating money in the time it’s taken me to fill these out.”
My Experience. Filling out 15-20 dealer apps has taken me about two months. It’s not filling out the apps that takes so long, it’s getting together all the stuff you need in order to fill them out. In the last two days I’ve sent in about 7-8 apps to companies and I now only await the glorious words “Here’s an order form, send this in with a cashier’s check for your first minimum order of $3,000.”
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I can make lots of money but you have to help me out with a licens So I can sell .. I allready have brand names and very capable of detailing . Not to mention that I am a great skater and allready know people I want to sponser.
help me get a licenes so i can start saleing boards and makeing a lot of money. I’ve skated for 10 years and know how to skate well. I also know how to design stuff and even pretty good on my artwork. I also need to design skate shoes because I go through mine pretty quick. Have plenty of ideas for brand names. Man, I can do a premo to premo and then verial it back on its wheels, jump stair cases, and even frontside, backside nose slides . I can even do fakie 180′s and popshuvits and nose mannul. learning switch . know already people I want to sponsor. One of them can do a kickflip boardslide switch out.
Some people are on an entirely different wavelength.
hey i am also trying to start a skate shop, in Reno Nevada, there is good potential there, i have done all the reserch as in business license, sellers permit, and dba, i am curently working on getting them, but i do not have the money for the product, i work at round mountin gold mine at $19.00hr good right, not when you got a family, i would be able to afford a commercial space, but not the products, would i be able to be a business partener with some one, or how would i go about that, and how much product would i need to start safe, and how much money would that product cost,as in skate boards,trucks,wheels,ex
all i can say is WOW. im in 7th grade and ive always kinda wanted to start a shop when i grow up there seems to be so much that goes into and thx to sublimited for writing about how hard it can be. someday it’ll be a challenge but i would like to do that too. i guess this doesnt really heklpp things but i felt like saying it
I have recieved my EIN, and my skate shops name. We desparately need a skate shop in the city i live in, we have a city subsidized skate park, and NOT ONE SHOP… crazy huh!! but my biggest issue like hwat you were saying is getting vendors into my store. I have searched far and wide and am hitting a ridiculous amount of road blocks in contacting the companies tat i want product from. I have gotten most items needed for dealer apps, but cannot seem to find a way to contact the companies to recieve the apps and continue withthe process of securing merchandise. I was prepared to go to the ASR expo at the endoof this month, but due to all ofthe other stuff i am already commitedto i cannot go. i was hoping someone can give me a way of contacting these reps so i can get some product inmy store befor waiting for the next round of expos inthe fall. HELP!!!?
I opened up a skateshop and it wasn’t that hard to get started but it is hard to get dealers that aren’t from the other shop’s but we desperatelt need a name for the shop any ideas
Ok heres my situation, I have been skating since I was 12 and im 32 years old now. So I have seen alll the ups and downs in skateboarding from the death of vert to the rise of giant pants and pressure flips, so as a commited skater I have always dreamed of owning a skateshop. I have a little over a hundredthousand to work with and a decent paying day job that I intend to keep for benefits and all that bs a human being needs. I live in southern california and with all the skatparks being built it seems like a golden age for skateboarding again and not to mention all the posers running around that love the clothes. So should I take the plunge and go for broke with the money I have now or come up with another hundredthousend.
I’d say it depends on what you mean when you say you have $100K. If it’s money in the bank and you can afford to lose it all, then do your research, do everything you can short of actually shelling out money to get the shop started, and then if you still feel like it’s a good idea, pull the trigger.
If you’ve got a $100K loan on your house and that’s the money you’re talking about then I wouldn’t do it in a million years. I wouldn’t start a skateshop with any money I couldn’t afford to lose, and I wouldn’t do it unless I could start it, work my brains out for a year running it, and then walk away from it with nothing but experience and still be able to say “It was worth it.”
Im willing to pull the trigger ! The money is not from a loan so I could afford to lose it and not feel bad about it. I already found a good spot for a shop and the rents actually decent and its by a school and a future skatepark I just need to be pointed in the right direction.
I’m having massive trouble getting the dealers to talk to me, probably because I’m trying to work out of Kentucky. It’s not bad, I’m near a few big cities, but progress is slow. Is there anything I can say to them to get their attention?
I’ve been reading over the posts and everyone seems to be talkin’ about dealer apps. and how hard it is to get ahold of reps. I used to have a small shop and I always ordered from wholesale distributors such as AWH sales and Eastern Skateboard Supply. They pretty much had all the hard-goods I needed from all the different skate companies. I also got t-shirts and sweatshirts and beanies from them too. At the time they didn’t offer any shoes or pants that I can remember so I never had that in my shop. But that was o.k. because most of my customers got their shoes elsewhere and no one really wore the pants or jeans because they were just too darn expensive.
I guess to really make it as a legitimate shop you need to sell shoes and other apparel and I can see how that would be a big part of someone’s start-up budget. But as for hard goods I would suggest the wholesale distributors that I mentioned. They’re both very friendly and easy to work with and don’t make you jump through hoops to sell their stuff. Oh yeah, as best as I can remember there’s not a minimum dollar amt. after your first order.
hi,
Yes I too want to make money but are you ready to teach me regarding the ABC of sales????
thank you,
tom