let's talk about how much it costs to start a grocery store or corner store or a convenience store hi my name is vitu I make videos on business and finance if you like this kind of content make sure you subscribe for more so two years ago I started my own grocery store and I documented the entire Journey so if you want to watch that video it's going to be linked down below as I Was preparing to film for this video I realized it's also similar to opening a coffee shop there's a few minor differences such as permits and the actual inventory but it's very much alike so if you're interested in opening a coffee shop this video could be interesting for you as well alright so from the top your first expense is going to be business registration fees it's good to do this before you even settle on a location because you will need the documents in order to sign the lease or even if you decide to buy the place based on where I am which is Montreal Canada incorporating my business was roughly twelve hundred dollars this includes the actual registration fees and the fees for my accountant this heavily depends on where you live but I highly doubt it's gonna be anything less than a thousand dollars this little PSA the majority of the 1200 was for the government fees and not my actual accountant taking the fees second expand events will incur when he leaves the place I will be focusing on leavesing a place because it is the most common way to start as a first-time entrepreneur but if you want a video on buying a place and seeing how the expenses occur then then make sure to comment down below and I'll be happy to film one first thing you're going to need is a security deposit the most common is first month and last month so two months worth of rent now don't forget that when you start a business you will probably have to pay a rent out of your own pockets for the first few months because it does take time to generate some Revenue so just make sure you plan for that as well just to be on the safe side I would save for six months and then of course the two months for security deposit so that's a total of eight months worth of rent you might even not be able to open from day one because you're going to be renovating the place so make sure to budget that in as well think of it as almost an emergency fund if you have a nice landlord they might give you some months for free just make sure to ask them before signing the lease paying rent as a new business owner is probably one of the most stressful things ever because you just have a hard time forecasting how much money you're gonna make so make sure to just have that figured out I personally wouldn't sign a lease unless I have at least 6 months worth of rent because it's kind of stressful I'm not gonna lie I'm trying to scare you but I just want you to be ready this next expense is optional but I highly recommend it I highly recommend hiring a lawyer to look over your lease you can also always ask your agent if you're dealing with one to see if you can spot any red flags in the lease you might even be able to ask your accountant but at the end of the day a lawyer is a lawyer I've hired a few lawyers in the past who are in businesses and social media and things like this and I've never found one for under 500 per hour and for something like this it's usually going to be three hours so about fifteen hundred again this depends on where you live but it's just to give you an idea next expense are for your permits I needed about four if I'm not mistaken I believe it was one for the occupancy one for selling food one for selling tobacco one for selling alcohol something like that and it was roughly four hundred dollars some of the permits suggest alcohol and tobacco has to be is it Tobacco or tobacco anyways these two permits do have to be renewed yearly and I believe my alcohol permit is roughly 300 per year okay the next expense and this is where it starts getting expensive it's your equipment let's go step by step for most important to least important shelves please don't go buying ugly flimsy you know those weak types of shelves buy the good nice quality ones please invest in it once and for all if you do proper research you can even find some on Facebook Marketplace auctions and other places you can buy used equipment for grocery stores you do need Gondola shelves I'm going to insert a picture of what mine look like okay I bought all of mine brand new this is before I knew that you can buy these second hand from like previous grocery stores and restaurants I wish I looked into it because they were insanely expensive there's always a grocery store closing down there's always a restaurant there's always something happening and these shelves are really really good so even after like years and years like I think mine are exactly two years old and they still look brand new Gondola shelves in my opinion are the best because you can adjust them you can add as many shelves as you want you can make it higher lower you can do whatever you want promise I'm not like a spokesperson for these shelves but I've done a lot of research and I just find these the best ones if you're opening a coffee shop you honestly don't need something like this just because it's so expensive first of all and it's not that nice looking so I would just invest in some nicer maybe like stainless steel type of shelves if you want to display something next equipment fridge and freezers and try to find some used ones first I don't know why a lot of people are just super against buying secondhand equipment some of it works really really well and honestly in my experience the older the model the better it works I don't know there's something about the new ones they're just not as efficient but of course I would just get it checked by a professional just to make sure you're not buying some piece of garbage everything in my store I bought it from the previous owner except for the cold room I got it custom made it was actually less expensive getting it custom made versus buying a brand new or secondhand one for mine I don't remember the dimensions off the top of my head but I put it on the screen and it was roughly ten thousand dollars plus labor I just want to say mine is really really big and we store a lot of inventory in there so you might not need one that's that big also sell frozen fish and meat so I don't know if you're gonna sell that but that's just a little PSA then there's a front counter for the cash and just for people to be able to leave their stuff so the cash desk itself really depends on what you want um for me the most expensive thing was the cash and the scanner itself it was like fifteen hundred dollars plus installation and by the way scanners are not cheap I think the scanner itself was like seven hundred dollars but it's definitely worth the investment so my store is 1500 square foot I don't know if it's square foot or square feet but you know what I mean so some of the equipment I bought from the previous owner some of it I bought brand new some I bought second hand and it came up to roughly thirty five thousand dollars this also includes the labor to build the cold room including in that was also some shelves that I bought from the previous owner but they were so garbage I just threw them out so and I replaced them with new ones the last thing I will mention is don't forget about delivery and installation because a lot of these are not priced in when you actually buy the equipment if you're trying to open a coffee shop you're probably gonna need everything I just meant but you're also going to need a commercial kitchen which I'm building from scratch right now and let me tell you it's not cheap I think it's much better to find a unit that already has a commercial kitchen if you're trying to open a coffee shop or a restaurant even if you want to open a grocery store I think it's great to have a kitchen because we actually make food and sell it at the grocery store as well next up we have inventory and this is really variable depending on how big or small your store is for example if your store is 5 000 square feet it's going to cost you four or maybe five times more than how much it cost me to fill up the store to fill up my store to the maximum it was forty thousand dollars can open a store without having stuff to sell so you do need to fill it to the maximum especially when you first open I had a combination of low ticket items and high ticket items just saving you an idea if you want a rough estimate as to how much it could cost you just call A supplier that you're planning on working with and just ask them how much it could be to fill up a store like yours next up we have insurance now Commercial Insurance is not cheap where I live it's considered apparently fairly low but I have nothing to compare to because all my businesses are in Montreal I pay around 250 and it's very good coverage but I have friends that have stores all around the states and it's nothing less than 500 per month make sure to shop around and find a good rate you can even hire a broker just to do the job for you they can picture different companies instead of you shopping around but I'm going to be completely honest I've hired brokers in the past but I was able to get myself a better rate so maybe you want to try both I'll leave it up to you the one thing I will say is please do not be cheap with your insurance okay God forbid something happens a fire theft just water damage and so on you want to be protected also you might need property insurance as well most landlords require it so make sure to ask for that as well you can get both the business insurance and the property insurance from the same company but a lot of people do two different it just depends on rates next up we have security so I personally installed four cameras plus the alarm system and it was roughly two thousand five hundred dollars with the installation that I have to pay a monthly fee of roughly 20 dollars per month for the maintenance and for just them being able to show up if something were to happen they will explain to you better than I could but that's roughly how much I paid signs I got two signs installed and they were designed and installed for two thousand dollars so checking my notes because this was like two years ago um but yeah it was two thousand dollars I was super lucky because my unit already had the lights in the box but if yours don't come with the lights you're gonna have to get this installed and it is not cheap nothing is cheap if there's something you need to learn from this video is that everything is really expensive my mom and my sister actually just opened a new restaurant and their tiny little sign they're being quoted for over three thousand dollars so prices definitely went up but don't expect anything less than two thousand dollars next expense you have is labor so you have a few options for this and it really differs from one person to the other it also depends if you have a lot of Manpower in your family if you do you're not gonna have to hire that many people especially to set up the store setting up a store is a lot of manual labor so so you can either hire people or ask your friends and family to help you I just didn't myself with some friends and some of the employees that I hired for the store but some of the boxes do weigh like 50 pounds and more so if you can't live that just prepare yourself lastly we have phone and internet I'm gonna let you figure out the expense yourself because it really depends on where you live but make sure to shop around for rates all right I think that's pretty much it if there's anything that I forgot or anything that comes to mind I'll make sure to commented below but if you have any questions please also leave it in the comments below and I'll get back to you I hope this video was helpful to you if it was please give this a thumbs up and I hope to see you in my next business related video bye