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Anyone else worried about going out of business soon?

R

Red_Baron

New member
So today I noticed that the topic “5 months and ready to fold help!!” received a disproportionate number of views (over 2000 so far) to the average post of 270 views. This got me thinking- Are there so many independent pizza operators visiting these forums who worried they will have to fold shop because of how the numbers are looking?

This is your time to chime in. Please, drop a brief post telling us in short detail what your near-term worry is financially and what you think the cause is. No one here wants to see one of us go out of business.
 
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Highly worried right now. The reason…competition! Population of 15,000 (including rural addresses that we have to go 8 miles to service) with a pizza shop population of 9 plus one other deli that dabbles in pizza. There is just NOT enough people to feed this many shops. Maybe others would disagree; I’d love to hear other counts.
 
I’m confident in my shop and futures. I look in regularly on gobpile to see what the latest is. I have contributed and read regularly . . . I was drawn by desie to help someone out of a tail spin, and not my fear of eminnent failure on my part.

Poor debt structure, and POOR OR NO WRITTEN BUSINESS PLAN I believe are the most common reasons for failure in opening businesses. If there is no written business plan, then the business is flying absolutely bind. If it ain’t written down . . . it don’t exist.
 
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In a town of 65,000 and there are over 50 other pizzerias. 2 opened in 2006. 4 are slated to open in 2007 (that I know of) Not very many make much money or profit.
 
if you are confident of ur product you shouldn’t be worrying… I think there is 3 important keys on running a good shop…
1 clean place
2 outstanding customer service
3 good food
no matter how much competition you have if you keep your eye on the prize u’ll be okay. keep up with the competition… if they are offering wraps, sell wraps, different kinds of them etc… plus we all have each other here…we all in good hands
 
It could just be that a lot of these people are in the same boat as me. I’m in the process of opening my own pizza place and just want to make sure that I am fully aware of the proper things to do, and the inevitable challenges that I’m going to face as well. If nothing else, it’s nice to see all the help that has been given to this person to help her and her husband out.
 
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RaymiR:
if you are confident of ur product you shouldn’t be worrying… I think there is 3 important keys on running a good shop…
1 clean place
2 outstanding customer service
3 good food
no matter how much competition you have if you keep your eye on the prize u’ll be okay. keep up with the competition… if they are offering wraps, sell wraps, different kinds of them etc… plus we all have each other here…we all in good hands
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I’m not so sure good food is much of a factor. Afterall, probably everyone here in a town of at least 15,000 has to compete against a Papa John’s, Domino’s, and Pizza Hut and I doubt any of them will be winning a taste test anytime soon. And they all on average, are probably winning the battles against most of us.
 
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I could not agree more DFW! As soon as we each have millions of $ to throw at advertising, they will continue to beat, on average, most indy’s out there. I’m not saying let the quality go down the tube, but also don’t fool yourselves thinking that by you having an awesome product will put the big boys under.
 
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DFW PizzaMan:
I’m not so sure good food is much of a factor. Afterall, probably everyone here in a town of at least 15,000 has to compete against a Papa John’s, Domino’s, and Pizza Hut and I doubt any of them will be winning a taste test anytime soon. And they all on average, are probably winning the battles against most of us.
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Not that I’m sticking up for the big three but there is no room to be complacent that indy food is ‘just better’ - we all know that consistently ok food is way better than bad pizza and there are plenty (and we all know that means loads) of bad indy pizza’s.

If the big 3’s food was so so bad and indy food always so so good then even $millions wouldn’t help them.
 
We struggle constantly with sales. We have taken over a shop with a really bad name and are in the planning process to change it. We have had 1 week in the past six months when we topped 5K (our operating goal) after a postcard mailing and are settling back to $4400-$4700. We really try to stay up-beat and positive, but jeez, it’s tough. The store has had 4 orders today since 11AM and it’s now 3:30. Yesterday we did $425 all day.

We have a very clean store, great employees, and a great product. Our town is about 70,000 and there are over 20,000 Marines stationed within 6 miles of our store. The Dominos a couple miles away regularly has 6-8 drivers for Saturday daytime and Saturday nights their delivery time goes to 2+ hours. We get some of their overflow business then but can’t seem to tap into the goldmine. We doorhang, flyer base 2x weekly and many many other marketing efforts.

I think it’s just the first year or two you just totter on the brink of going under before you get stable. I certainly hope it’s not permanent.
 
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DFW you are right in that sense… unfortunally now days some people don’t care if they get good food, they only care about getting a good deal on a pizza…those companies like u said spend millions on advertising and shove their products in our mouth but you also have ur loyal customers who love ur good food, and they keep coming back and also they tell their friends, families etc… I’m still a strong believer that if you apply the 3 points I addressed before, you have a good chance to stay open and make good money… the one thing I forgot to mention too is advertising wisely…

believe it or not on my days off I get pizza ( I love pizza can’t get enough of it) in my town there’s 2 papa ginos, 2 dominos and 6 independent shops… guess what? they all suck… I drive fifteen min to the next town so I can get a decend pie. my brother in law’s shop is 45 min so is too far. but like I said I drive the 15 min to get eatable pizza and not the crap those 10 places offer
 
RaymiR:
DFW you are right in that sense… unfortunally now days some people don’t care if they get good food, they only care about getting a good deal on a pizza…those companies like u said spend millions on advertising and shove their products in our mouth…

believe it or not on my days off I get pizza ( I love pizza can’t get enough of it) in my town there’s 2 papa ginos, 2 dominos and 6 independent shops… guess what? they all suck…
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so as I said above its not just the big boys - 60% of your local pizza shops are indy’s and they all suck (in your opinion).

I agree totally with your three points BUT obviously someone is keeping these 10 shops in business.
 
RaymiR:
believe it or not on my days off I get pizza ( I love pizza can’t get enough of it) in my town there’s 2 papa ginos, 2 dominos and 6 independent shops… guess what? they all suck… I drive fifteen min to the next town so I can get a decend pie. my brother in law’s shop is 45 min so is too far. but like I said I drive the 15 min to get eatable pizza and not the crap those 10 places offer
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Why drive so far to get a good pizza? Don’t you do a good one of your own, or are yours crap like all the others? :lol:

Dave
 
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For ONCE, someone in this fourm really touches the topic of the REALITY of this industry. Face it, the market is saturated, over populated and the competition is not pizza vs pizza but pizza vs talent.

If you are not the best and very established, forget it. You need to be in your shop all the time. You need to be UNIQUE and the BEST.

20 years ago, perhaps even 10, it was a decent living. It just is not anymore and people are losing their shirts because they are not educated in this industry.

IMO, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Papa Johns, Papa Ginos, Olive Garden SUCKS. They are easily beat. They are poorly managed, run by people that are there for a job, not the product (for the most part) and are not in control of their business.

I read about the 5 month scare and I fear for that couple. Somebody needs to get into that shop and catapult them into success. Obviously, they had two airheads that started them out, robbed them blind, did not care about food cost, prep or customer service and placed them in a horrific place.

Based on what I have read, they can make it. Every little corner of that store needs to be examined from the walk-in to the front desk. They need a pro.

Who wants to go? I will, cost free.
 
wa dave:
RaymiR:
believe it or not on my days off I get pizza ( I love pizza can’t get enough of it) in my town there’s 2 papa ginos, 2 dominos and 6 independent shops… guess what? they all suck… I drive fifteen min to the next town so I can get a decend pie. my brother in law’s shop is 45 min so is too far. but like I said I drive the 15 min to get eatable pizza and not the crap those 10 places offer
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Why drive so far to get a good pizza? Don’t you do a good one of your own, or are yours crap like all the others? :lol:

Dave
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of course not… the fact its almost an hour away, I don’t want pizza that bad lol… but trust me it aint crap like those…
 
i would do it in a second. i live 1/2 way across the country. There has to be someone near them.

i would never turn on my parents the way they did. I owe my parents my life. They started me out in this business and i am eternally grateful.
i think gob has done a great job increasing her sales, but her food costs are way out of whack. i don’t do the buffet thing, and i can imagine that there is a lot of waste causing your food cost % to skyrocket. They need to get their takeout/delivery business going.

I agree that the market is saturated. my market there are 13 indys with population 40,000. No chains. 1 went out of business 3 months ago. i’m still there cause i still have the cheapest prices in town, and the volume is there.
 
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DFW PizzaMan:
RaymiR:
I’m not so sure good food is much of a factor. Afterall, probably everyone here in a town of at least 15,000 has to compete against a Papa John’s, Domino’s, and Pizza Hut and I doubt any of them will be winning a taste test anytime soon. And they all on average, are probably winning the battles against most of us.
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I would have to disagree as I fit the profile (pop. 18K) yet we only have Dominos that is barely still in business after already has failed once before. It depends on your market. We have approx 14 indys, but continue to grow based on quality food & familyowned & operated service

PS How do you guys get to vote? Am i that computer illiterate? :?
 
It’s at the top of the page. If you haven’t voted it’ll give you several options to pick for your vote. If you already voted it’ll just show you the results.
 
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