Starting a new business can be very scary. A sweet shop is a place of happiness and the business owner should be happy as well.
In fact, starting a sweet shop in India is a great career option where you can make a good amount of profit.
Here are a few ways you can be a happy and successful sweet shop owner.
Table of Contents
Your customers
Who do you want to attract? What is your target audience? What kind of sweets do you make – traditional sweets made in desi ghee or western cakes and pastries?
Name your shop accordingly. If you make barfis, halwa, laddus, gulab jamuns, and rasgullas; your customers might be families with children, you would want to keep your name simple, something that maybe involves your family name.
Everybody loves family businesses. If your niche is exotic new-age sweets, you might consider creative names. You should also keep your clientele in mind while selecting a location for your shop.
Market Research
Go through other similar shops, visit them, look at their prices, sample their sweets, look at their location, and how they function. Check out your competition.
See what changes you would want to make, what can you do better than them? Also, think of the things you might want to take inspiration from for your shop. It is also good business practice to make friends with your competition.
Budget and loans
Acquiring money is one of the most important, one of the most challenging tasks. You never know who to approach and it is especially easy to fall into traps or be conned. One of the ways to look at it is government loans.
The Ministry of micro, small and medium enterprise – MSME, provides loans to people with a minimum of 3 years of working experience in the industry.
They have a special scheme that provides loans in 59 minutes. This loan is available to anyone who is registered in the ministry. Another thing to watch out for is the CGTMSE which is the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprise.
This can also be availed if you are MSME registered. We at ZIPLOAN provide small loans to small business owners like yourself. The best thing is that we don’t have a pre-set interest rate and decide it according to your credit history.
We provide business loans up to 7.5 lakhs and will be with you every step of the way.
Franchise – competition or friends?
When it comes to franchises, you can either view them as friends or foes. When starting a new business, you might consider making a deal with a pre-established franchise and then running your shop under their name.
You can avail several benefits from such an endeavour. It will help you in obtaining legal permits, money, advertising, and they might help with their experience. Big names will help tremendously in bringing footfall to your shop.
On the other hand, if you aim to create a completely independent shop, you might want to steer clear of the franchises. You might feel that big billboards and costly advertising is a daunting competition and how you will not be able to do the same enough, but you must remember that the franchise was also a small business like you once.
Never doubt your capability, ideas, and quality. No mass-made rasgulla can defeat a rasmalai made with love.
Financial planning
When starting a new small business, one might not have the luxury of money. A businessman would have a limited amount of funds to allocate, and many times the money might not be enough.
A good way to tackle this is strict financial planning. You must keep track of all income and outgoing money and allocate money to each requirement wisely.
Whenever you receive a profit or have an amount remaining after all the requirements are fulfilled, put a good sum in savings. You should follow this practice religiously in your budding years.
Then maybe you can treat yourself with a chashni filled gulab jamun when you have money saved for the rainy days.
Licences
There are many licenses, registrations, and subscriptions you will have to get for your shop. You will also have to either lease or buy a space for your shop.
It is always a good idea to go for the first option while starting up a new business because it provides a sense of security and it saves money.
Some things you may have to subscribe to are electricity, water, security, cleaners, etc. You will also have to get a food license, business licenses, GST and tax registration, etc.
You will have to register yourself as a small enterprise in the Ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises as well. Which can be done online easily on the UDYAM registration portal.
Staff
While starting, it would be a good idea to have your family members and friends help out, especially if money is tight. This way, you will not only have help but also emotional support in the startup.
Later on, you can go about, gradually hiring help. If you do not have anyone who can help you, hiring someone right off the bat might help however, you should hire a minimal amount of people instead of splurging too much.
GST Registration
The Gross Service Tax you pay might be different depending on the facilities you provide. If you include a restaurant with your sweet shop, you might get to pay less GST.
You might have a different payment scheme if you opt for delivery systems like Swiggy and Zomato. The standard rate is flat 5% of your annual earning is below 70 lakhs.
While it might take some time GST registration can also be done online so it is quite convenient as well.
Can you survive if you fail?
While it is good to take risks, the food business is tricky and needs to be approached with caution. When starting a new business, you should keep a fail-safe to fall back in an unfortunate situation where the need to close down shop may arise.
Get a small loan and start your sweet shop today. Ziploan offers the best market rates especially for you! Contact Ziploan at customer.care@ziploan.com for any further details.
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