u/7WIZ

My wife and I are starting to look into Aisle 24 as a potential second business and I’m hoping to hear from people who actually own one, operate one, or have been close enough to the business to give real feedback.

For context, we both plan to stay employed in our current jobs. I work in automotive management and my wife is a CPA, so we have experience with operations, customer service, sales, leadership, and financials, but we are still early in the research stage and trying to understand the reality of the business before going too far.

We live in a rural area that is growing, so the concept is interesting to us because there isn’t anything quite like it nearby. That said, I know a business can look great from the outside and be very different once you’re actually running it.

For anyone who owns or has operated an Aisle 24, I’d really appreciate honest answers to a few questions:

1. What has your overall experience been like so far?
2. What are the biggest positives of the business model?
3. What are the biggest challenges or headaches that people may not realize upfront?
4. Is it actually profitable after rent, inventory, shrinkage, software, fees, utilities, debt payments, and everything else?
5. How long did it take before the store became profitable, if it did?
6. How many hours per week do you personally spend working on or in the business?
7. Is it realistic to run this as a second business while staying employed, or does it require more hands-on time than expected?
8. How much time is spent on restocking, cleaning, customer issues, security concerns, tech issues, and inventory management?
9. For a rural but growing area, what would you be most careful about before opening?
10. How important is location compared to population size? For example, would foot traffic, nearby apartments, students, shift workers, tourism, or highway traffic make or break it?
11. What do you wish you had known before signing or opening?
12. Are there any costs, restrictions, or operational realities that surprised you?
13. How strong is the support from Aisle 24 once you are open?
14. Would you open another one knowing what you know now?
15. If you were evaluating a new market from scratch, what numbers or signs would you want to see before feeling confident?

I’m not looking for anyone to share private financial details they aren’t comfortable sharing, but even general feedback would be really helpful. I’m trying to separate the polished ownership pitch from the day-to-day reality.

Feel free to send me a private message as well if you’d rather not post publicly.

I’d really appreciate any honest insight. Good, bad, or ugly.