Cheese Shop Business Plan, Marketing Plan, How To Guide, and Funding Directory
The Cheese Shop Business Plan and Business Development toolkit features 18 different documents that you can use for capital raising or general business planning purposes. Our product line also features comprehensive information regarding to how to start a Cheese Shop business. All business planning packages come with easy-to-use instructions so that you can reduce the time needed to create a professional business plan and presentation.
Your Business Planning Package will be available for download after your purchase.
Product Specifications (please see images below):
- Bank/Investor Ready!
- Complete Industry Research
- 3 Year Excel Financial Model
- Business Plan (26 to 30 pages)
- Loan Amortization and ROI Tools
- Three SWOT Analysis Templates
- Easy to Use Instructions
- All Documents Delivered in Word, Excel, and PDF Format
- Meets SBA Requirements
Cheese shops are popular businesses given that they provide a wide selection of artisan products. There has been and taken the popularity of cheese shops over the past 10 years as people are demanding more unique food items. This trend is expected to continue as many people now consider themselves to be “foodies”, and as such – they are looking for unique food items to include as part of their cooking. The startup costs associated with a new cheese shop are range anywhere from $50,000 to about $250,000 depending on the initial scope and scale of the business as well as where the cheese shop located. Typically, the gross margins generated from the sales of cheese, aged meats, and related items typically is 65% to 80%. In some instances, cheese shops are allowed to sell a limited amount of alcohol usually in the form of wine or beer. However, this is state dependent as to whether or not a liquor license is needed in order to sell alcohol on the premises. If the cheese shop is thinking about being able to sell beer or wine as part of their overall offering then a properly qualified attorney should be retained in order to determine what laws would be applicable to this type of business activity. Within any given market, there are usually only a handful of other cheese shops that operate an independent basis. It should be noted that some supermarkets have integrated a cheese shop within their produce or meet sections.
As with most retailing businesses, a bank or financial institution is usually willing to provide a capital injection of up to 80% of the total startup costs associated with this type of business. Of course, a cheese shop business plan is going to be required. This business plan should include a three-year profit and loss statement, cash flow analysis, balance sheet, breakeven analysis, and business ratios page that feature industry statistics that are on par with that of a food retailing business. Of special importance within the business plan is to discuss the many ways that the business markets and sell its products to the general public. These days – many cheese shops have taken to launching an online e-commerce platform in order to divest inventories of specialized cheese and meat products. This trend is expected to continue in perpetuity as people will usually turn to the Internet to source unusual products. As it relates the local market, a full demographic analysis should be developed that includes a discussion regarding population, population size, population density, median household income, median family income, and the percentage of people that earn income over $50,000 a year. Typically, cheese shops do typically target a middle income bracket as their primary customer base.
Beyond the business plan, a cheese shop marketing plan should also be developed and included as part of the overall package it’s going to be submitted to a bank or lender. As it relates to online marketing, again – it is important that the cheese shop owner have an understanding of how to develop and maintain an e-commerce base business so that products can be sold anywhere in the world. This will drastically increase the inventory turnover associated with these products and can and will ensure that profits are higher given that there will be less inventory spoilage. As should be discussed in documentation regarding the business, an overview of the inventory spoilage issues that are common to a cheese shop should be discussed included as well. This e-commerce website should be listed among all major search engines including Google, Bing, Yahoo. A presence on social media is also very important for this type of business given that his is selling a highly unique line of artisan cheeses and meats. Now there are e-commerce platforms that allow a company to directly sell these items on websites such as FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+. Additionally, a presence on social media will boost the visibility of the business as it relates to being a local retailing food company. Beyond the online marketing channels, a localized print campaign should take as well. Prior to the onset of operations, most cheese shop entrepreneurs will distribute flyers that provide for discounts on all items at the location. This will drive a significant amount of traffic to the location and will familiarize people with the company’s offerings. One of the other things that is done in order to boost revenues from the onset of operations is to develop ongoing relationships with event planners, caterers, and other companies that will call on the business for large trays of artisan cheeses and meats for large parties. This can be a substantial revenue stream for the business moving forward.
A cheese shop SWOT analysis should be produced as well. As it relates to strengths, cheese shops are able to generate very high gross margins from the sales of their products. Additionally, they are able to generate ancillary revenues from the sale of these products in an online capacity. For weaknesses, the underlying operating costs associated with cheese shop companies is somewhat high. Additionally, there needs to be an expansive understanding of how to keep inventory spoilage to a minimum. For opportunities, these businesses will frequently expand by increasing the size of their e-commerce marketing activities while potentially establishing additional locations. For threats, there’s really nothing that is going to impact the way that cheese shop conducts operations moving forward. One of the nice things about these businesses is that they do not sell a commoditized product, and as such –a cheese shop is able to source a number of unique products will be able to remain profitable, competitive, and cash flow positive at all times.