You too can own your own record/stereo shop

I'd guess that many of you have pleasently spent some time daydreaming about owning your own record or stereo store. It's a fun daydream. Of course it would be very risky and capital intensive to actually open your own store, but there is a way to have a scaled down version of this for relatively little risk or investment.

Last year while suffering from a short-lived bout of underemployment, I got a third job working as a clerk at an anitique mall. For those of you unfamilar with such an operation, antique malls rent out booths, floor spaces, etc. to dealers who sell their stock. The clerks merely facilitate the sale. Clerking was not very challenging and I had a lot of time think and daydream and pretty soon I started to think that I could rent a booth and sell records and stereo equipment. So I did.

I picked up a bunch of vinyl and vintage stereo equipment the usual ways and was able to stuff about 600 lps and a half dozen receivers, turntables, tuners, etc into a 4x7x2 booth. I also picked up a vpi rcm (which I had wanted anyway) and a bunch of new inner and outer sleeves. I spend anywhere for 0 to 6 hours a week buying, cleaning, and repairing. Since I'm an ex-employee my rent is dirt cheap, but even if I paid full price, I would still clear a couple hundred every month (though of course if I was simply interested in making money, my time and energy would certainly be better spent elsewhere).

It's a fun, low stress, hobby business that turned a modest profit in its first year of operation (all profits get pumped into my own stereo system creating a nice little self-sustaining stereo economy).