I own a pawnshop - ask me anything you’d like to know about the industry, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life and I love every second of owning it. The stress can be high but in the end it’s worth it.
I own a pawn shop and sporting goods store in a rural college town, and we've recently outgrown our current location and are moving into a larger building. I posted here back in December asking for advice on funding and growth to actually start the business and now that we've been operating for a few months, I'm running into managing problems.
The biggest challenge right now is staffing.
We've had a terrible time finding employees who:
For those of you running retail businesses? Have you found certain hiring methods, age groups, backgrounds, or screening processes that work better than others?
Another issue is that customers overwhelmingly prefer selling items outright rather than taking pawn loans. From a resale standpoint that's great because margins are often better, but it creates a huge inventory management problem. We buy a lot of inventory, but getting everything photographed, listed, priced, and sold is becoming overwhelming.
For those of you selling both in-store and online:
**1)**How do you manage the flow of inventory?
2) Do you have dedicated employees for online sales?
3) At what point did you decide it was worth hiring someone specifically for eBay, GunBroker, Marketplace, etc.?
The administrative side is also becoming difficult. On a typical day I'm handling:
**1)**Bookkeeping
2) Payroll
3) Supplier orders
4) Customer service
5) Pawn transactions
6) Firearm transfers and background checks
7) Inventory intake
8) Employee training
9) General management
There are days where I feel like I'm being pulled in six different directions at once.
For those who have grown from owner-operator into a larger operation:
**1)**What tasks were the first things you delegated?
2) Did you hire a bookkeeper?
3) Did you outsource accounting?
4) What systems made the biggest difference?
Training employees has also been frustrating. No matter how many times I explain procedures, write instructions, or demonstrate tasks, some employees seem more interested in socializing than learning. I feel like I spend more time correcting mistakes than actually growing the business.
How do you hold employees accountable without becoming the constant "bad guy" in the workplace?
For those who have successfully scaled a retail business
1) What systems or processes had the biggest impact
2) What mistakes did you make during growth that you'd warn others about?
3) If you could go back to the point where you had outgrown your first location, what would you do differently?
Any advice is appreciated. I'm at the point where the business is growing, which is a good problem to have, but it feels like I'm spending more time managing chaos than actually moving the company forward.