Liquor Store Business Plan

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

Jokes apart, a liquor store is one establishment that definitely fetches a lot of revenue and is extremely profitable and starting one is not a difficult task. A business plan involves planning and research for a market and also applying for the appropriate license and permits to the strategy for enhancing customer experience.

Business Plan for a Liquor Store

The first step in the liquor store business plan is research. It is important to know all about the liquor establishments and liquor brands. It is also important to know where the prominent liquor manufacturers are located in your country and how many manufacturing plants they have. Taste all the products that these manufacturers have on offer and study their contents. Obtain all the information about the manufacturers by analyzing their sales and the popularity of their brands. You may also consider studying their annual reports, if they are available, to get to know more about them.

The next step is to systematically tour your city, town or village and locate all the popular liquor stores, especially the ones that are open 24 hours. Take a casual look at the store and have a look at all the brands that the store sells. Then, find a locality that does not have a liquor shop so that you would have less competition to start with.

Apply for the liquor store license and also analyze the liquor laws. After you have received the license, approach the wholesalers of the liquor brands and manufacturers and request for catalogs and quotations. From your research, you would know the popularity of the brands and the liquor that is purchased the most. You may then start furnishing the shop and planning the layout of the shop. The manufacturers and wholesalers themselves may sell you the refrigeration and facility and would provide brand specific apparel for the shop. Bear in mind that you would have to invest a lot of money in the process. Publicizing the shop is also an important task and for this you do not need any complicated marketing plan as you may resort to mediums like the Internet, local print papers or you may simply put up eye-catching banners.

Customer is King

Treating the customers right is the most important thing that you need to bear in mind while opening a liquor store. You can follow simple tricks like suggesting different types of drinks to the customer or describing to him, the taste and specialty of every drink. This may sound simple but it is a quite difficult. The advantage is that if you are friendly, polite and courteous, you will earn yourself loyal customers. A trick of trade is expressing your love for liquor. Once the customer steps into the shop, do not ignore him, nor pester him, but suggest new liquor types and brands, that the customer would readily purchase. For this, you need to develop an acute skill of observation and an ability to gauge the purchase power of the customer. Another very important tip is to never ask a customer anything other than about the liquor he is interested in. This might sound weird but liquor store owners have observed that if a customer is asked polite and casual questions related to work or family, he gets irritated very quickly. A light discount also tends to gain loyal customers.

You would also have cops and local authorities examining your store. Hence, devise a system of recording sales and purchases and also the amount of liquor that is in stock. In the initial stages, the store may not make a lot of money. Hence, gain popularity by using simple measures like buzz marketing and also approach establishments like restaurants and bars and attempt to develop long term business relationships.