Retail

[lejus]

Hello everyone

I don't think I ever introduced myself although I read a few things and I love it here.

My story is probably typical, I started a long time ago with a few online sales, I made decent money as a student, this didn't work out in a long term since website I was using blocked sales of online materials so it literally ended overnight. After uni I went to wage slavery and tried side hustle, a small export operation in clothing field which went belly up, I made a little bit money there but eventually, I wasn't able to sell my last batch, I was slowlaner at the time. I started small business based on my degree but that was going very slowly, with providing just part time income. I kept slowlaning so eventually, I saved up a bit in stocks/shares and other investments and decided to go retail. You can imagine what happened, I sucked, badly, I not only wasn't making any money, I got involved with a small franchise which was trying to drain my small retail operation causing me to lose money. But this time I decided I won't quit and I refused to go back to slow lane and wage slavery. I put effort, I read, I learned, I listen to podcasts, I listen to other people, I improved my shop, I left the franchise and become fully independent.

It is 4 years later from the day I opened my retail, last year we had 20% growth, last month about 7% and December is by far worst month in a year for us every year so if even that grew there is a reason to celebrate. Still, there is a lot to improve, I need to scale, one thing is having a successful retail business but another is repeating it.

There are a few reasons why I decided to write here, first one I loved a book, I need to check the newest too. I also need to re-read it and decide what to do with right mindset.

Another reason for my posting is my social life, I can't complain about my family and friends, however, few people close to me become recently very negative and struggle a lot in their lives, I find it very difficult to keep a positive mindset around them, I try to help them as much as I can but it is difficult, talking about business with most of my friends was always like talking about colors to a blind person, on wage slavery they have different problems, what did they boss do, who is their favor/worst co-worker, where to go on holiday etc. Problems I can't relate to anymore and they can't relate or help me with mine, now when they changed their attitude and become difficult to be around I find that I look forward to communicating with positive people who are more business oriented, after all, you are average of 5 ppl that you spend most of the time with, so I hope we can hang around guys to minimise impact of my friends till they get their life together.

Last reason is I am kind of in the middle of the road, retail is being slaughtered by online businesses so I am thinking what's my next move, on the one hand, I become decent at what I do and I could repeat it in next location. On the other, I didn't pull the trigger because of the overall condition of retail and incoming in UK Brexit. I started working on side-hustle, coding, building online store etc. Any other retail guys here? Do you scale now or do you sit on the money and wait? I would love to hear from other retail people and from e-commerce people because that's what I am thinking about as a side-hustle. It is close enough to retail with currently with meeting more criteria of the fast lane than retail.

I will probably start another post with questions of what I struggle with and what options I consider with more details, but by all means, if you guys have any advice, guidance, comments, experience, ideas, recommendations, criticism, or whatever else, comment, I will be happy to read and discuss.

 

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