If there’s one thing Americans love to do to beat the heat of summer it’s eating ice cream. Americans love ice cream. And in fact they eat a lot of ice cream. The average American eats ice cream 28.5 times in a year and about 40% of Americans eat ice cream in any given two week period.
If you’re looking to open up your own business, and ice cream shop just might be one of your best bets. If you’re passionate about ice cream and other sweet treats, you can turn your ice cream shop into a one-stop shop for all things sweet.
Armed with a good business plan and a lot of creativity, you can really make your ice cream shop the place to be in the summertime. Sure, there’s the potential to make a lot of money with a good business plan, but more importantly you get a lot of creative freedom to create a welcoming atmosphere that people will enjoy.
If you’re creative you can have control over each and everything that goes into the shop. You can pick the color of the paint for your shop’s walls. You can pick the color of the ice cream cups and spoons the people eat ice cream with. You can pick the different ice cream flavors and other sweet treats that you offer. Bottom line: you’re the boss and the sky’s the limit when it comes to creativity.
With a place that’s warm and cozy and serves good ice cream, everyone–from grandparents and their grandchildren to out-of-town families–will be drawn to your ice cream shop and will see your passion shine through and how much you love what you do.
Operating an ice cream shop can be a lot of fun, but you also need to be realistic about what it takes to run one and how to be successful at it. If you’re going to open up an ice cream shop your biggest business concerns include: supply costs, competition, business growth and scheduling among other things.
To hit all those objectives and to be successful, here’s how you can master some of those business concerns:
- Use technology: These days technology is in every nook and cranny of every business. Where does it belong in an ice cream shop? One of your biggest tools maybe a point-of-sale system which can help you keep track of orders and inventory. This will help you keep track of things so you don’t run out of needed items like ice cream cups, spoons and paper drinking straws.
- Market yourself: this goes hand-in-hand with using technology. With today’s multiple social media platforms, it’s easy to get out word of your business and any deals and specials your business may have. You can post photos of a new flavor in an ice cream cup to places like Twitter and Instagram for example. You can post news of upcoming sales and new items that you’ll have available on Facebook.
- Be flexible: as a boss one of the best things you can do for your employees is to make things easier for them. This can be done by streamlining scheduling and allowing your employees to swap shifts if they need to. For new employees you can also create a training program that has clear objectives and shows them exactly what you’re wanting them to do.
- Invest: if you open up your shop in a big city, it’s likely that you’re going to have some competition from other ice cream shops. What you need to do is figure out what your place can offer the average customer that they can’t get anywhere else. Whatever that thing is that’s unique, figure out a way to maximize it so the people are coming to your shop for ice cream and nowhere else.
As previously mentioned, the sky is limit when it comes to opening an ice cream shop. You get to have your say in everything from the color of the average ice cream cup to the flavors of ice cream being served. With a lot of passion and creativity and flexible business practices you can turn your ice cream shop into a destination during the summer.
