Buriram Expats
Buriram Province - General Category => Western Food in Buriram. => Topic started by: krasangchris on April 05, 2011, 02:31:15 AM
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Guys -
Anyone know how Norbies has done ? What do we think of opening a minimart
in Issan ?
Thanx/ Chris.
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Guys -
Anyone know how Norbies has done ? What do we think of opening a minimart
in Issan ?
Thanx/ Chris.
Presumably you mean Buriram and not Isaan. There was one several years ago -fell flat!
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Isn't that the place thats for sale ,,not far from Paddys
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That's more of a specialist mini mart - predominantly German food (or was when I was there)
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That's more of a specialist mini mart - predominantly German food (or was when I was there)
But wasn't Norbie a partner in that place?
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But wasn't Norbie a partner in that place?
He was -but rather strangely he was absent when they held their opening party! welcome1
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But wasn't Norbie a partner in that place?
He was -but rather strangely he was absent when they held their opening party! welcome1
Perhaps the penny had just dropped!!
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The minimart was mainly with German foods, the main problem was pricing of course.
Think about it, this idea was good lets say 2 years ago when Big-C wasn't here and you had to search real hard for 'farang' foods however that has changed in the recent 2 years and today you can find so many things around here in the big supermarkets and we have 'star foods' who make excellent products you can order, nookie is also in the game winkboy so a 'farang oriented' minimart have to be with very rich product variety and VERY good pricing for this area.
*The secret is in the suppliers you find and the investment you make to open such a minimart, it can be a success but not if doing it 'half way'.....
sawadi
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Very True Almog,,,the quantities you buy will dictate the price for products produced in Thailand,,,however imported items are costly mainly due to shipping charges & Thai Customs!
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But wasn't Norbie a partner in that place?
He was -but rather strangely he was absent when they held their opening party! welcome1
Norby of Surin N&N International(German) Minimart was indeed absent but his wife (Noi) was in attendance (as was I).
They sold the place to his german friend, Manfred, who then subsequently has now placed the establishment up for sale.
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Thinking of a 7/11 style. Sure suppliers and capital are important (as well as location).
And then there is the Thai Mrs. involvement - it's a HUGE leap.
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Assuming from your name, you are thinking of opening something in Krasang, then I would suggest having a word with David who has recently sold the (only)Beer Bar in Krasang. He was there a few years and would be a fair judge of the area (IMHO).
There are not many facilities in Krasang so it might be a good idea (I think) as long as there are enough regular customers
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I wish you luck because you'll need a lot of it
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I built a small shop for my wife about 5 years ago,it cost me about 130k in all, including stock and the big double glass door fridge.For the first year the shop took over a 100k a month ( on average ) ,with a 20% mark up that's a 20k a month income - 1k for electric=19k a month. A nice little income for the wife and mother in law to share.After a 3 year the wife and her mother had a argument about family helping themselves along with other things and the shop finished ( its a long story :wacko: ).As I was giving the wife a 5k allowance a month and this stopped once she had her own income I didn't really lose as I would have given her that money anyway. ::)
If a small shop servers the local community and you just don't specialize in western food you can make businesses and an income for the wife .The shop was never to make large amounts of money but to keep the wife occupied and stopping her getting bored in the village . But for some its far to easy to sit back and let the farang take care then to actually do any work themselves. smilenod
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I built a small shop for my wife about 5 years ago,it cost me about 130k in all, including stock and the big double glass door fridge.For the first year the shop took over a 100k a month ( on average ) ,with a 20% mark up that's a 20k a month income - 1k for electric=19k a month. A nice little income for the wife and mother in law to share.After a 3 year the wife and her mother had a argument about family helping themselves along with other things and the shop finished ( its a long story :wacko: ).As I was giving the wife a 5k allowance a month and this stopped once she had her own income I didn't really lose as I would have given her that money anyway. ::)
If a small shop servers the local community and you just don't specialize in western food you can make businesses and an income for the wife .The shop was never to make large amounts of money but to keep the wife occupied and stopping her getting bored in the village . But for some its far to easy to sit back and let the farang take care then to actually do any work themselves. smilenod
If you could manage a profit margin like that perhaps Big C or Tesco could use you as a consultant
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If you could manage a profit margin like that perhaps Big C or Tesco could use you as a consultant
If you buy crisps at 50baht for 12 and sell then at 5 baht a pack you make 10 baht = 20%
If you buy sugar at 20 Baht a Kilo and sell it for 25 baht then that's =25%
I could list out the whole shops produce range we did at the time and I can assure you the average profit was 20%,it isn't rocket science Nookie :biggrin:
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BTW Nookie ..once you have built the shop,you have no rent to pay ,no wages ( the wife is the owner,the profit is her wages ),as I've said before I was giving her 5 k a month pin money which stopped when the shop started ( so I was a winner over the 3 years the shop was open :biggrin: ) The only bill the shop had was Electric( that was about 800 baht and a few 100 baht a month for her or me to nip into town to buy new stock on the Honda wave),this isn't a Tesco or Big C ,its a small village shop and if done correctly and in the right place can make a small income for the wife if it is run western style and if you don't give free beer and cigs to family and give credit to people you know can't pay ,just to save face because you can't tell them to p*** off . smilenod
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Good advice,Alan but most WILL DO exactly the anticts you describe in your last sentence PLUS gamble the profits away.
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Good advice,Alan but most WILL DO exactly the anticts you describe in your last sentence PLUS gamble the profits away.
I think we can agree on this one then thumbup
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Bad idea. The market is too small, as are the margins.
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Bad idea. The market is too small, as are the margins.
For a shop that you rent in town to supply western food to a limited amount of people ,yes. smilenod
A small shop in the village ( our village has 300 house-holds and 50% are the wife's family ) was a good regular income for the wife..If the money had been borrowed from the bank to build and open the shop it would be open now.Because it was free money they did give a ********* steamingMad......But hey,I'm not bitter :laugh:
A stupid thing to do is open a shop in a small village were there are 3 or 4 shops already and only 30 households as some do ::)
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Running a shop for the locals is one thing; running a minimart for farangs is another.
Most farangs will rely on their wives to produce the meals, and farang food will only be the occasional luxury. I live near Krasang (and my partner runs a minimart in our village), but no way would I open a farang minimart there.
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If you could manage a profit margin like that perhaps Big C or Tesco could use you as a consultant
If you buy crisps at 50baht for 12 and sell then at 5 baht a pack you make 10 baht = 20%
If you buy sugar at 20 Baht a Kilo and sell it for 25 baht then that's =25%
I could list out the whole shops produce range we did at the time and I can assure you the average profit was 20%,it isn't rocket science Nookie :biggrin:
AND I take it everything was delivered to your place 'free of charge'.....Well my lass has been running a pretty busy Thai oriented Bar/Restaurant for the last 4 years together with a large range of mainly frozen foods for the farang where the profit margin averages out around 20% but you are talking thro your hat when talking about 25% on a bag of Sugar...its a long time since sugar was 20 baht a bag,& you would be very lucky to sell it on for more than 22or 23 baht unless of course there wasn't another shop within a 100km radius..........Perhaps Greed was the main reason for your downfall...........Its not rocket science either redman
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If you could manage a profit margin like that perhaps Big C or Tesco could use you as a consultant
If you buy crisps at 50baht for 12 and sell then at 5 baht a pack you make 10 baht = 20%
If you buy sugar at 20 Baht a Kilo and sell it for 25 baht then that's =25%
I could list out the whole shops produce range we did at the time and I can assure you the average profit was 20%,it isn't rocket science Nookie :biggrin:
AND I take it everything was delivered to your place 'free of charge'.....Well my lass has been running a pretty busy Thai oriented Bar/Restaurant for the last 4 years together with a large range of mainly frozen foods for the farang where the profit margin averages out around 20% but you are talking thro your hat when talking about 25% on a bag of Sugar...its a long time since sugar was 20 baht a bag,& you would be very lucky to sell it on for more than 22or 23 baht unless of course there wasn't another shop within a 100km radius..........Perhaps Greed was the main reason for your downfall...........Its not rocket science either redman
The sugar was just an example on pricing, it could have been 10 baht and we sold for 13baht ,it was a few years ago now :P
Why most Thai small shops fail is because the owners think that once you have a shop you must have a big new 4WD Pick-up to drive 40k to pick up 3 bags of crisps and a box of Chang..Our local Chinese Wholesalers was 15k away and we went daily( sometimes twice when busy and was as cheap as Makro ) by motor bike to pick up the stock so the transport cost were minimal.Beer and soft drinks were supplied by a guy that came round in a lorry and I got special deals by buying in bulk. At one time we were buying Archa at 200 baht a box ( had to buy 50 at a time ) and was selling at 4 bottles for 100 baht ( a mark up of 33.3% thumbup).I'm not saying these prices can be achieved now but I still believe an income for a bored house wife is possible if the location is right and you don't employ staff or give freebies to family .IMHO
BTW ..The shop finished because it was on my wife's Mothers land and I told her that her son was a lazy no good c**t.so she told us to get my wife's shop off her land,which we did ( removed the contents and sold the lot) .The shop has been standing empty for over 2 years .The joke of it was ,after we finished the shop she asked us how much we would give her a month as now she didn't have a shop to work in and also had to buy all the things she took for free . Me understanding Thai culture and the way things work told her to "**** off" :biggrin:
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haha..... Are you for real? wave1 You have to continue the story.. we are all waiting to hear what happend next.............. love5
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I think you know the answer to your question, Admin.
"Perhaps Greed was the main reason for your downfall"
I doubt if this is true, Nookie. Its probably more likely to be naive business sense or just plain none at all. We all hear of people coming over here, opening a bar, feeling that they have 'made it' because for the first time in their sad lives, they think they are 'The Boss.' The truth is, people venture into professions with no prior training/ minimal market research and expect to succeed in a different country than they are used to monkeydancing. They start of with a beautiful 4Wheel Drive 4 door truck and end up with a moped! bike037 They can also get caught up in all sorts of scams like investing their hard earned money in imaginary homes/pig farms and the like bravo1. Then sit at home being miserable to the happy people around them. slapfight
Please don't think I am being too self righteous because my wife and I also opened a mini-mart and the truth is, it is constantly failing on a monthly basis, but as I expected nothing out of it on 'day One' I am not too disappointed!
p.s. Beware if Isaan lady with a machete too! (Old Thai Proverb)
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Hello Dude,,,it would seem you know an awful lot about this Character
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I was generalising and not mentioning anyone individually, that would be rude!
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Dave ,you are a man after my own heart...........I'm never rude to people either icon_heart
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Have to agree with most of what DtD says.When I first came to Thailand I did all the things you shouldn't do but some things I'm glad I did.I had a Bar in Koh Samui like thousands of others and it never made money but I never lost a great deal either.I bought land on Koh Samui and doubled my money in under a year,I had a nice house and nearly doubled my money ( after tax) after 2 1/2 years so after 3 years I came away from Samui better than most.
After 7 years of living in Isaan I'm still here with some funny stories and some tales of woe.The Village shop was set up for the wife so her and her family had an income for as long as they wanted it. I was against the shop at first having seen so many shops like Dave's fail.After finding out that half the village was her family and know one in her family had a shop I decided to let her give it a go.It was a small success and made a good little income for the family but stupidity from the wife's family saw its demise. As I told the wife ,the shop was hers and the only person her family was cheating was her,up to her.
As Dave's post is mainly to have a laugh at me over things we have said to each other in the past ,I will tell some more of the stories Admin has asked for.
I tried to help out the wife's Uncle ( who's a village vet ) and make some money by setting up a Pig Farm ,to cut a long story short the pig farm failed ( mainly down to me having false faith and not keeping a closer eye on things ) but her Uncle ended up with a renovated house and a tractor.The sad fact was that if he had run the farm correctly he could have had a new house,tractor and car in 10 years.Thai Isan people in general want everything now and don't have the foresight to see that if they save and work towards a goal there is better things over the horizon.They have a must have now mentality and the ability to fail or cheat a helping hand when the prospects are good are all to common.
My advice to most that come to retire in Thailand is to find a good hobby like Golf,Fishing or gardening as most business venturers like bars,Mini Marts and restaurants will end up making as much money as a hobby.For the few that succeed there and hundreds that fail.So to Krasangchris and his OP question,keep your money in the bank as from what I have seen over the years you will make more money that way. :biggrin:
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Guys -
More about the proposed Krasang minimart. Issan girl's family now works a "stall
style" market 7 days a week. Seems like they have done this forever - but I really don't
know how long. Not that this means they have business sense. Sometimes they make
mistakes about what will be a big seller (and end up eating alot of home meals that are
much the "same/same"). But they do work long hard hours daily.
Minimart would be Thai based (although a "western section" could help). Family
has a small piece of land (lot size) on which to build. I am not really sure that the location
is good. Seems a little bit too far out of town. Nothing would be sadder than a shop
without customers. Not looking to be another Tesco here, but something for her to have
as her own, keep her busy (and out of trouble), and provide a small income. This would
also leave her with something when I'm gone.
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Chris,
I admire your enthusiasm and understand your motives.
My advice would be to take your time and look around 'absorbing' the details of businesses already established and considering what market you want to aim for (and what market actually exists)
"Monkey See, Monkey Do" is a common failing in Thailand, I would implore you to avoid making the same mistake.
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Agree with all Coffeecorner says,as I have said before location and customer base is the key.Like you say"Nothing would be sadder than a shop without customers".I think deep down you know the answer.Hope it works out for you and wish you the best of luck. ;D
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Chris, I had the same view as you and would suggest the possibility of them getting a small loan to start the business, not from you or the chinese loan sharks, just something to tie them into the project and give them some responsibility/drive and COMMITMENT.
I know a few farangs in Krasang and farang bar/restaurant owners past and present. There is not a large number of Farangs around there and some are only seasonal visitors, so I would suggest not spending too much money initially until you know the expected 'foot-flow' figures. As I have already suggested, I recommend meeting David, he will give you good advice and KNOWS the location well.
You need to do the groundwork yourself, its the only way.
Good Luck
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I'm Sorry,but what CC says is 'bang on',,,,Chris,You seem to have your head in the clouds & will come down to earth when its too late
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Guys -
Wish to thank the members for their advice and input. Nothing like "been there/
done that " to put things in perspective. I am in Canada now, and will have to give a
longer look next time back. Will let you know if something developes. Again, glad to
have found Buriranexpats.com.
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Best of luck Chris