Can a Used Children's Clothing Store become a Bitcoin business? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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Can a Used Children's Clothing Store become a Bitcoin business?

2859 sats \ 25 comments \ @grayruby 4 May AskSN

Howdy Stackers,

I have never posted in AskSN, so I am here to rectify that error. @Aardvark is one of best and most engaged territory founders!

There is a used children's clothing store on the main street (downtown area-great location) in our town. It has been in business since 2009 and I noticed that the business has gone up for sale. We know the store fairly well as my wife has bought and sold a number of our daughter's clothes/toys there over the past few years. I have requested the financial statements for the business from the selling agent but have not seen them yet. The selling price seems very attractive if the business is at least breaking even. Who knows because rents downtown have gone up so much the past few years they might be underwater. I will find out more this coming week. Until I review the financials I am not mentioning this to my wife because she is going to fall in love with the idea of buying it and having it as a family business the kids can take part in and then she will be disappointed and hold it against me if I say no for a silly reason like not wanting to set money ablaze. Haha

There are some things I find very attractive about this business.

low inventory cost (most of the inventory comes from customers trading in for new sizes/stuff)
low labour cost (my wife and I can cover most operating hours of the store and even if we did hire one other person part time it would not be for many hours or $)
the kids can hang out in the back and do their school work and help out in the store
it's very close to home- 5 minute drive. I could walk there and back if needed in the good weather months.
Business is a going concern with existing customer base. I don't have to struggle to build it from scratch
There are immediate aesthetic improvements to the store I can make at low cost with a bit of elbow grease
With a bit of marketing, community outreach, partnering with other kid's related businesses in the area we can grow the business.
My wife is good at sales and likes befriending customers. She will do very well and be happy operating this type of business.

Here are some negatives.

I haven't seen the financials yet. I don't know how much the occupancy costs are and how long the lease is.
While I think we can grow the business the juice may not be worth the squeeze when you factor in both financial opportunity cost (doing other things to make more money) and lifestyle opportunity cost (trading leisure and freedom to do what I want for commitment and responsibility)
while it seems interesting and exciting right now. I think this would be more of my wife's passion project than mine. I may get bored of this business quicker than I expect.

So here is my question to you stackers. If I was to move forward and purchase this business what are some of your ideas for making a used kid's clothing store into a bitcoin integrated business?

Fire away!

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140 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 5 May

My two cents: My daughter and her two friends are completely committed to used clothing. They shop online (Thred Up) and locally. Perhaps expanding beyond children's clothes might open up the store to a young, tech savvy community too.

I have toyed with the idea of a local bitcoin based thrift store.

36 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 5 May

Having a physical location opens up the ability to potentially use it as a hub for online sales as well. We definitely could offer more things online.

400 sats \ 1 reply \ @bief57 4 May

I'm happy to read this. I can answer based on my experience. I used to sell used clothing online. Having a physical store wasn't within my reach, which is great because you attract new customers who happen to be nearby. It also allows you to create a website and social media accounts for the store. When people asked me about payment methods, I always included Bitcoin as an option, but I've never made a sale with that method. However, in my case, it's due to a lack of information about the community where I live. It's a window you should leave open. Bales of clothing from American brands arrive in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. Selling these products has become very popular in these countries. These 45-kilo bales, containing approximately 200 items of children's clothing, arrive from the United States, and in these countries, they cost between $300 and $700. So, in the United States, they must have lower prices. I have a question: are you selling the store with all your merchandise?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 4 May

Yes the store is being sold with all merchandise, fixtures and equipment. I wouldn't be interested otherwise.

Thanks for sharing your experience. If we do go forward, I will definitely reach out to you to get some ideas.

105 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 4 May

Not commenting on the bitcoin integrated business part (with someone like you helping, I don't imagine it would be very hard). The business idea itself sounds really cool, especially if it's an established concern that you could do some quick fixes for. And I really like the idea of having kids help out.

You could have homeschooled kids come in for "internships", they learn a little bit about the working world, you get the benefit of some labor?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 4 May

Yes, those homeschool kid interns will be my own. Free labour. Haha

Thanks for the reply and the words of encouragement.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @LibertasBR 4 May

Stores like this benefit greatly from the rotating economy. From what you said, it already works this way, but it works better when you have a network of locations in various regions capturing these items. The established clientele already helps and children's clothing never falls into season. I don't know who the target audience is, whether it's cheaper or branded clothing, it could be an important variable.

The rotating economy stores that I know work with credits, thinking about bitcoin this model becomes difficult because the business will not be 100% in bitcoin and you will end up with a bomb credits in hand.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 4 May

Certainly it wouldn’t be 100% bitcoin. I am looking for ways it could integrate Bitcoin.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 4 May

What do you mean by integration? In terms of system, accounting and economics, or with your customers?

Pricing will be interesting. You could use the traditional average cost system to define your price, all in bitcoin. Since I imagine you don't live in a circular economy of bitcoin, you will need to include the price variation in this calculation.

50 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei 5 May

Oh lovely. This is a fun question to ponder. My suggestions:

Organise a drawing competition. How do you imagine Bitcoin to look like? Award prizes in the form of sats.
Decide on the winning drawing. Organise a fashion competition - kids are given half an hour to comb through the items in the store to come up with OOTD for the Bitcoin mascot. Would be good to have a famous local person to role play as the mascot
Order a life-sized mascot costume based on the winning outfit from 2. This will be your Bitcoin mascot.
Leverage your mascot to organise outreach activities and attract people to come together for fun (and to buy your clothes)!

24 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 5 May

Now this is the creativity I was hoping for when I posted. Rather than "accept bitcoin payments", "sweep cash into a bitcoin treasury".

I was thinking a sats faucet in the store would be cool. A QR code that people can scan when they come in and get 100 sats. Or bitcoin as part of rewards program. Maybe a treasure hunt as well.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 7 May

Sorry for late reply.

I like the idea, and don’t think you should provide the 100 sats for free. I went to Pokemon Centre. There were 3 stations - each with a question. I enjoyed running around the store to find out the answers amidst the Pokemon merchandise and retrieve a souvenir at the end of it all. You can organise a fun Bitcoin quiz!

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 5 May

If it is a viable business and you can generate free cash flows, there's no need to burden your customers and impact your conversion rate by pushing bitcoin payments, sure it can be an option, i venture to say less than 0.1% will take you up on it unless you're at some conference or in a circular economy

Adding Bitcoin to your business is simple, sweep any free cash flows into Bitcoin and just keep doing that each month. If bitcoin outpaces the growth of the business, hodl, if you can drive growth from that capital at a higher rate than bitcoin's cagr tap into the capital and expand the business

If your treasury grows to a point where you can offer cheaper prices to drive volume, do that too and capture more market share.

170 sats \ 5 replies \ @Fabs 4 May

You really think that the customers there are going to be cheering that you integrate Bitcoin as a payment option?

100 sats \ 4 replies \ @grayruby OP 4 May

No idea. I am looking for ideas besides simply bitcoin as a payment option. Maybe as part of a loyalty rewards program. Maybe a QR code sats faucet in the store that people can scan to get 100 sats or something when they come in to shop. Maybe I can create some kind of treasure hunt where kids learn about Bitcoin and get some sats.

Of course we would retain a bitcoin treasury if possible.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 5 May

I think the hustle won't be worth the squeeze, but you could offer - free - workshops in regards to LN and use a small pool of sats to have them play around with, and have them buy clothes (with sats sponsored by you) et cetera.

They learn something in the process and leave with a free gift of their choosing, making it a positive experience and maybe more probable that they're gonna use it again, although you'll have to heavily subsidize them with sats in the start, I think.

It could be useful, but it could also turn out that they simply go along with it as they get - semi - free stuff, then ditch ya - we're humans, after all.

40 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 4 May

How many other places in town accept Bitcoin? I think that it will make a huge difference if you are going to pioneer the concept locally or you join in on an existing community - no matter how small it is - simply because you don't have to do all the work by yourself in the latter scenario.

This shouldn't decide whether to accept bitcoin but it should definitely impact your strategy.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 4 May

None of the other merchants in the area accept Bitcoin. There is one small farm nearby that has a shop that accepts Bitcoin. They are friends of ours and I think I am the only one that pays them in Bitcoin.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 4 May

Right so you're gonna orange pill the town with your new shop then.

Start with 15% off if paid with LN?

140 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 4 May

If you really want to turn it into a Bitcoin integrated business, I'd suggest you also open an online store for the same.

I had come to know a very cool idea of reselling/donating old books through an app here in India. They do it for fiat but I think it can be done better with Bitcoin.

The best thing about the app it allowed to contact the buyer to seller so as to get physical pick up of the book the buyer wants and the seller wants to sell.

17 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 4 May

Having a physical store location opens up the opportunity to sell things online and have a place to store the inventory and a pick up location. So you raise a good point. Selling online for Bitcoin might be more attractive to people than selling in person for Bitcoin.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 4 May

Thanks. And when you go forward with it, I have some very interesting things to share. I've done a lot of research regarding used goods market.

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @kurszusz 10 May

It's been a long time since I've read better articles than this. Thank you! I look forward to the developments on this, keep us updated with the information

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @unschooled 5 May

If the financials make sense then I think you should do it, fwiw. Do it even if you think you can make them make sense.

Not enough people really follow their hearts in this world. Most people put limits on themselves because of irrational fears like the ones you've expressed, ie.:

"Not doing it because you might get bored later" This is a lousy excuse, imo, because that will be a risk in undertaking anything. I don't think this is a rational concern. If you do get bored, then it means you will have grown and matured as an individual, and you can gradually shift your focus elsewhere. Not to mention, if it doesn't work out, it will be anything but boring. If you don't, then you'll be living a life that is exciting and full of adventure. Either way, it's a massive payoff.

Lastly, parents and bitcoiners are both very low time preference so I think there might a potential market segment there.....

And I think you're in Toronto (?) so l'd pay visit next time I'm there.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 4 May

A lot of our kids clothes have been given to us, then we usually pass them on to someone else.

Could be risky. On the other hand it would be fun for the kids to learn about running a business.

BTW, are Canadians having many babies?