Shop shopping: picking a new retail location requires much thought. See what you need to do to find the best place for your next store

Pool & Spa News, April 11, 2005 by Rin-rin Yu

Most importantly, Crookston cautions, don't put yourself out of business with your own store. "Anybody who's building the second store needs to be far enough away not to hurt the first store," he says. If customers are leaving one location for the other, the stores are too close to each other.

Sometimes taking over an existing store can help jump-start the new location. Rick Hajjar leapt at the opportunity to buy the property of an existing pool store from a dealer in West Boylston, Mass. "You walk into someone's existing location where it's known there's a site, and we feel ... we can develop it even bigger," says the co-owner of Surfside Pool Co. in Fitchburg, Mass.

Schallert says there are advantages to moving into a former pool store. However, retailers need to find out why the other business closed. "Some left because the rent structure was so high, it became cost-prohibitive to run a business there," he says.

Hearing such a reason should sound an alarm for a location shopper. But if the space is good and the business shut down because of poor management, Schallert says to grab the opportunity. "You capture everyone who knew the place before," he notes.

Some retailers go so far as to acquire the same phone number as the former store owner. "People still have the same magnet on the fridge," Schallert says. If customers are already aware of the location and contact information, it's free advertising for the new retailer. Plus, a pool store comes equipped with plumbing for demonstration pieces.

Hajjar's strategy involves taking the former business and adding more to it. "We start on an existing business, then we can develop it from there ... develop it to our own way of doing things," he says.

Still, Crookston strongly advises retailers to find out why the former store closed. "You don't want to repeat someone else's mistakes," he says. He adds that sometimes the information is difficult to uncover, but to persist and ask questions. Contact the local Chamber of Commerce for more information.

View from the road

Once a town is selected, store accessibility is the next key issue. Tassin's company services a large rural market, so it selects locations near major interstates and highways. "We make it easy for those people to get to us," he says.

County governments provide information about traffic, including car counts, street patterns and parking availability. They also offer answers and hints about how infrastructure changes can affect your business down the road, positively or negatively.

"You want to be looking for a location that's going to have high drive-by traffic," Schallert suggests to business owners whose strong suit is not marketing. "Ideally, you want to plant a business in an area with a high demographic mix of customers within a 15-minute drive."

Crookston agrees, pointing out that consumer behavior shows people won't drive more than 15 miles from home. For this reason, Tassin opened two locations in Lafayette, La., due to difficulty navigating around the city.