dedicted tool stores

[rednecklimo85]

So I'm kind of exploring business ideas and figure this may be a good spot to gauge one idea. I want to open my own business something automotive related. I've already looked into an auto parts store but in our small town we have 6 parts stores, and the only bigger town before really hitting the sticks is getting two in the near future so.

But anyways, what would ya'll think of a dedicated tool store. Kind of like a non moving snap on truck, but not limited to automotive. It would be carpentry, metal working, automotive etc. All of our parts stores carry tools, of course home depot, and our hardware store, but there just a small very broad selection of basic hand tools, some tiny selections of air tools and specialty tools but usually cheap brands. About 30 minutes south there's a store like this but, most people don't plan that far ahead. One of the complaints from alot of my customers is having to go to three different stores just to find a six point socket size x/**. Or maybe you want to order that powder coat system from summit but want to see it before dropping the money.

But lets here ALL your opinions, good and bad, auto techs, home owners, tool guys and other business owners.

 

[mrb]

I think it would be very cash intensive. You would easily have 6 figures sitting on the shelves.

 

[Vulturej]

Renting and becoming a authorized service center would be a good idea. It’s hard to find places that repair the tools.

 

[daveblank]

The thing to think about is foot traffic. Will you get enough to keep the doors open. Also, will the brand you're carrying have a warranty? If so, plan on doing a lot of warranty exchanges for the 1st few months. People will come out of the woodwork to replace broken tools. If you're not prepared it will hurt the wallet bad.

 

[35mastr]

Is there an equipment rental place in your area? That is a good one to have.

 

[rednecklimo85]

These are all ideas that i did have. Repair, and rental. We don't have alot for tool rental. We have advance and auto zone but their limited. Then we have an equipment rental but there mainly bigger stuff. The one idea I have is used tools. Sometimes people are looking for cheap stuff just to get em by. What if I could get them in the door with a good quality used ratchet, or 12 volt drill, etc. I'm am worried about foot traffic, only in the sense of, buying tools isn't something you you do everyday. It's probably alittle different for the tool trucks because your dealing directly with people who use them day in and day out, but you've got your own bs to deal with then too, I've already looked into that. On the other hand. My town is in the northwest corner of the state, and if you go, straight north, and straight west to the boarders. Its all small towns with no retail of any kind. so there's alot of potential customers within reasonable driving distance. Sears would be the next closets store of this type but thats a half an hour drive into a dirty city mall.

Thanks so far for the ideas and brainstorming

 

[wantedabiggergarage]

Or maybe you want to order that powder coat system from summit but want to see it before dropping the money.

You mentioned one of your own problems. If you have high speed internet in your area, you will get a lot more tire kickers, who then order it cheaper online, and get free shipping.

 

[JeepsAreBuilt]

Buy sell trade tools !

 

[isr2kba]

A "dedicted" tool store scares me!

 

[Vulturej]

Here is a link to a web site of a tool only store we have in the Chicago area, they are not the cheapest but they have everything. Maybe you can get some idea's from their web site. I spent $1300.00 there last week.

http://www.berlands.com/index.asp?

 

[krooser]

Tough time to start a tool venture.... auto dealers closing, construction is down... the buyers aren't buying right now... they are sellling their stuff to raise cash.

 

[Joe B.]

Here is a link to a web site of a tool only store we have in the Chicago area, they are not the cheapest but they have everything. Maybe you can get some idea's from their web site. I spent $1300.00 there last week.

http://www.berlands.com/index.asp?

I love Berland's. They really do have a great inventory of power tools. They have millions of dollars in inventory and cater to a small niche of people in a huge city. In order to be better than Home Depot, Sears and the Internet, you need to have millions of dollars of inventory on hand and you need to cater to that niche of people who really care about tools. You would need to ask yourself if there are that many people like that are likly to make the trip to your store if you opened it.

I always thought it would be good to take a business like Berland's and use it to launch a larger internet business. They are the kind of place that really missed the boat when it came to the internet. They already had the inventory on hand and all of the vendor relationships. They could have expanded their potential customer base from just Chicago to the whole nation.

 

[T56 Impala]

I actually looked into doing the same thing you are thinking about. I contacted several, actually all, of the big players in the hand tool industry. 1/2 of them said that they would be happy for me to sell and warranty their products in my store. The other half said NO WAY. Actually on 3 of the big names you think of when you think of wrenches said okay. One company asked me if I was serious and stated that if "I knew anything about tools then I would know that we don't do business that way." They then PUSHED a truck route one me. Wanna guess who that manufacturer was?

Anyway, start up inventory was estimated at around $900,000. In today's market, that would be a hard sum of money to come up with for a niche market. Maybe I didn't have the best business plan, but I see a tool store as a risk. Tough to find enough shade tree guys to spend big money of tools.

 

[FredB]

There is a hardware/tool store in Washington, dc, like you are thinking about, they have everything under the sun, but few customers in the storefront when I am there, they sell to the Local and Federal Government, you should see where and how the state and local government buys it's tools, and become a vendor to them if you can.

 

[Old Donn]

Good luck to ya. Snap-on had a brick & mortar store north of Detroit some years back, (when the economy was still kicking), but it didn't last long. I think Harbor Freight has the market you're looking at pretty much covered.

 

[Thedroid]

Snap on had a store here in New Mexico years back also. They had at least 5 or 6 of there top of the line custom toolboxes back against one wall. Every one of them was over 20g's. I remember seeing the tool trucks pulling in all of the time. It probably worked out good for the drivers, but I doubt that a lot of mechanics want to pay everything up front.

 

[rednecklimo85]

hmmm ok cool. wasn't the answers i was hoping for but, it was the answers I was looking for. Truthful and up front haha. It seems like you really need to get into something more repair oriented. Certainly not something that could be done online. There's a shop in my area that repairs and sells air tools, but they have been around for ages, probably one of the reasons there still around.

The internet certainly was one of my concerns, and you guys helped to enforce that.

Thank you all for your time

 

[vssjim]

What is the name of the tool store in Washington,DC as I didn't know of any in the city since WS Jenks went down the tubes.

 

[Joe B.]

hmmm ok cool. wasn't the answers i was hoping for but, it was the answers I was looking for. Truthful and up front haha. It seems like you really need to get into something more repair oriented. Certainly not something that could be done online. There's a shop in my area that repairs and sells air tools, but they have been around for ages, probably one of the reasons there still around.

The internet certainly was one of my concerns, and you guys helped to enforce that.

Thank you all for your time

You could always try some kind of niche online tool business. If you don't have a lot of cash you need to find a way to grow it over time. Wern hand tools is a cool example.

 

[Major Ramifications]

I work at a tool store that sells closeouts, overstocks, recons, etc. I can assure you that thanks to Home Depot, Lowes and the internet, the retail markup on power tools is SLIM. Dealing with returns, warranty issues, etc. is time consuming and expensive. Do you have any factory service centers in your town? Dewalt, Bosch, Milwaukee, Hitachi, etc? If so, it might not be too bad to carry their brand, as you can send warranty issues down the street to them. Home Depot and Lowes make large margins on consumeables (blades, bits, disks, belts, etc.) They are easy to compete with on that stuff, but not many people will go out of their way to save a few bucks on a blade.

Also, if you want to cater to the "pros", they shop early (open at 7am). If you are going for more of the DIY market, they tend to shop evenings and weekends.

If you want a place that really has everything, plan on dusting a lot of stuff that may take a LONG time to sell.

I know these thoughts are a little random, but that's how they popped into my head. If you do open such a place, let us know so that maybe we can visit.

 

[Chris Adams]

Just adding, selling to the government is the worst business you can get into with tools or anything else.
You bid on a contract with the feds because the alternative is shutting down, and even then, it's a close call.

I managed auto parts stores awhile back, and those of my managers that were stupid/naive enough to get into selling to local bases and other government installations were always coming to beg us to get them out of it after a short while.
Not worth writing 5000 words on, but trust me, not the best place to look for easy, or even hard cash.
The risk factor alone would keep some up at night. Remember, make a mistake selling to the government, it is a felony, not just an error.
The paperwork is always killer, and if you make a profit on the sale, you can be harassed like you would not believe.
Many people feel profit is evil, and guess what? Most of them work for Uncle Sam.

Government contracts are for cash flow, not for profit in the real world.


A high end tool store is a good times industry. You open a tool 'boutique' when the market is booming, and people are buying tools for swank.
Places like Harbor Freight are 'bad times industries' they do good when the market is up, they do great when the market is down, like gun stores, beer bars etc.

Tool rental sounds great, till you talk to your carrier and he gets a look like you just proposed selling babies on the black market.
When we had tool rentals it cost many times what the tools brought back in revenue.
It was a customer courtesy.
Eventually, we quit charging for rentals, for insurance reasons.
Several chains do that today.
Get a 100% deposit, then give it back when the tool returns. That got around the liability as we were 'selling' the tool, not renting it.
Or how lawyers killed another business model.

We used to have 5 equipment rental places in our area. Now we have one small one. And the prices have gone up till the last half dozen times I needed something, I bought it cheaper than renting.

So buy a beer bar, a gun shop (kidding, the government really hates them now) or a betting shop.

Or just hold your breath till we get a more business friendly government. On second thought, don’t hold your breath…

 

[JeepsAreBuilt]

Dont like my idea ?

 

[FredB]

Actuality it is W.S. Jenks & Son, they are hiding/are lost out at 953 V Street N.E. They moved about 5 time since they left 7th st nw, I lost where they were for about 5 years in the 90's thought they were goners, then in 2002 had to do work in NE and found them again.

 

[-B-]

it would be nice but i would only like to see pro level tools and lost of brands to compare just in hand tools alone I'd like to see SO, Mac, Cornwell, S&K , Proto, Armstrong, Facom, Wright, and many more

 

[Old Donn]

Snap on had a store here in New Mexico years back also. They had at least 5 or 6 of there top of the line custom toolboxes back against one wall. Every one of them was over 20g's. I remember seeing the tool trucks pulling in all of the time. It probably worked out good for the drivers, but I doubt that a lot of mechanics want to pay everything up front.

The one up here advertised on the radio quite a bit, suggesting DYI'ers come in, see how the other half, (read pros), lives, and trade up. I got a few things there, stuff I couldn't get elsewhere, but the biggest problem for me, and I expect most other amateurs that walked in was sticker shock. I didn't have to get back to the 20K boxes to know I was in the wrong place.

 

[south pier garage]

just send me all of your money now and save yourself 3 or 4 years of sleepless nights.

unless you have an unlimited $$$ stash it won't work. think of the sheer amount of items you will need to stock. joe schmoe looking for a left handed kniffling wrench to use once is not going to pay fair markup prices, so he's out of your customer base. pete regular goodguy is over at Craftlowedepot buying stuff from the sunday paper flyer and Learned Larry Mechanic is surfing the web and not minding the S&H costs if he can get what he wants from the Tool Mart of Outer Gigordia.

all the while, you're holding inventory and hoping someone will come in and buy enough stuff so you can pay the electric bill.

sorry to be a bummer . . . . . maybe specializing in the odd/ rare collectors' tools (like the ones here folks want) and offering a parts/ repair/ refurbish service as a niche business, but you're going to need 5 years easy to build inventory & reputation.

 

[Shocker]

Here in the Seattle area there is Tool Town. All tools. 4 stores I think. They have been around for a long time and are still selling.

I had many of the same ideas. I think that a tool truck route might not be a bad idea. A lot of folks seem to think I am crazy and that the tool truck model of sales is dying, but I am not so sure.

 

[Hip2u77]

We've got "Clark's Tool & Equipment" here in the KC area.

I never have seen them crowded, but I've also never been there without someone coming and going. There's always some pro coming in and buying a few drillbits, hose reel, floor jack, etc.


While they are higher than internet prices I think it's worth the extra money to have access "right now" to quality tools / equipment. (For example, 12" Knipex Plier Wrench were $64.)

 

[Merkava_4]

Mid-State Tools was a neat little store in Fresno. It had all the tools separated by brand. You'd see SK, Facom, Proto, Lisle, Cal-Van, KD, Ingersol-Rand, and OTC all in separate locations. Then one side of the store was all import stuff for the "means to an end" type dudes.

 

[wantedabiggergarage]

We've got "Clark's Tool & Equipment" here in the KC area.

I never have seen them crowded, but I've also never been there without someone coming and going. There's always some pro coming in and buying a few drillbits, hose reel, floor jack, etc.


While they are higher than internet prices I think it's worth the extra money to have access "right now" to quality tools / equipment. (For example, 12" Knipex Plier Wrench were $64.)

The Gladstone one, is supposed to be the SK warranty place (they try to say they aren't affiliated).
But that isn't the only tool store in the area. You have Worldwide liquidaters for low end stuff (Used to be Cummin's tools), to Harry Epstien's and Fastenal, Cisco (commercial only from what I have heard), some Wright distributor (commercial) in Lee Summit, and a few more.

 

[vette-kid]

Good luck to ya. Snap-on had a brick & mortar store north of Detroit some years back, (when the economy was still kicking), but it didn't last long. I think Harbor Freight has the market you're looking at pretty much covered.

But there just arent enough HF stores around to say they have the market cornered. And most of their stuff is cheap no name stuff.

As a DIYer I would LOVE to have a store in my area like this. And I can tell you for sure that I would have spent a good $1k in the last few months alone. The problem for a DIYer is that there really arent any options outside of Craftsman. I like Craftsman but sears customer service *****. To be attractive to the DIY guys you would have to carry hand tools that are in the same price range as Cman with at least similiar quality. And if you carry used pro tools, then Id say that counts. Ill pick up a used SO ratchet anyday, but I just cant afford or justify the price for new. So for me right now, the only game in town is Sears (really ***** when you want to tell them where to stick it, but you know youll HAVE to buy from them again next month)