want to open firearms store [Archive]

herose

11-13-2006, 17:56

Hi,

I'm hoping to find helpful information. I live in a city of 20,000 and the nearest firearms store other than pawn shops is 45 minutes away from my town and farther than that in the three counties bordering mine.

My wife and I would be the only staff to begin with and we are both used to hard work and long days.

I've always wanted to have a firearms store and understand the FFL process. What I don't have a lot of experience in is general retail. For instance small business loans, figuring start up money, factoring living expenses in the initial start up money, govt requirements for being self employeed (social security, taxes etc.)

Does anyone know of a place in the net where I can get this information.

I've been talking to people here for the two years now and have gotten great feedback to having a store in this area.

Thanks

Leathercrafter

11-18-2006, 03:46

I'd suggest contacting the folks who issue the business/occupational license for you and see if they have any resource information available. You may have to go to a surrounding city, if your community is small. Then I would talk to the folks that are listed as resources. Larger communities will have a whole network in place to help the first time/small business owner.

You might want to talk with the bank(s) regarding financing, as there's a myriad of programs available, each with their own qualifiers.

Talk to an accountant, and an attorney, about the best way to set up the company. For example, my parent company is a Limited Liability Company, but we've recently changed the way the IRS views us for tax purposes. There are considerations to be had at each level.

You're going to want to talk to the insurance folks as well. The considerations there will be the actual physical location of your gun shop, the security of it, products being sold, and the assigned liability of each. For example, you may have a lower insurance bill if you sell guns but not reloading equipment/supplies.

Hope this info helps, and best of luck to you.

:thumbsup: