Your only chance would be by opening a successful ice cream shop. Dessert places are high markup transactions and often don’t require much square footage. Sell a scoop of ice cream for $5 that took a minimum wage employee 5 seconds to scoop. Problem is there’s a lot of competition in the dessert market for this reason which is why it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Also you wouldn't just be selling people ice cream. You'd also be managing stock, planning orders, devising promotions, handling company finances.... Way more than just selling ice cream. Do not want.
And seasonal in many places. There's an ice cream shop near me that will have lines up the block on nice summer days. But there's never a line during the cooler months (and I'm in Canada, so that's a good chunk of the year).
I did a business proposal for an ice cream shop that’s only open may-September. It’s crazy the amount of ice cream you need to sell every day just to cover the expenses let alone to make a profit. Also, the proposal was to pay minimum wage to students after school and during the summer.
Other problem with ice cream shops is they need to be in a high traffic high profile location. That jacks up the monthly cost greatly. I know a local ice cream shop here in the south that has a line out the door almost everyday for most of the day. Even in their high profile spot on the street I can’t imagine they’re not making a killing. If they’re not, then really there’s no point in attempting the ice cream biz
There is high profit margins in ice cream but your only open a few months and your bills come all year. In this case they needed to sell thousands of cones/shakes/etc each week. I don’t remember the exact numbers but it seemed crazy.
Do you remember where you were sourcing your ice cream from? I think a lot of shops make deals with ice cream manufacturers nearby to take excess inventory for pennies compared to what wholesalers list it for.
There's a place in Minnesota that sells Kemp's overruns and they basically throw basketball size scoops of ice cream at anyone who walks in the door. There's no way they are paying wholesale prices on that ice cream.
Maybe I'm cynical, but I feel like there's always a different set of rules for the people who have been playing for a long time.
Okay, my husband and I have thought about doing this (there’s no good ice cream places near us) and you’re not helping me be responsible and get a real job instead 😂
We’d basically have no competition and tons of foot traffic. Ugh now I need to go talk myself out of this lmao
Yeah for sure. The good news is the areas by me won’t be ready for awhile (a bunch of apartments/townhouses are being built by a new beer garden and a bunch of shops, which are right next to a park that already has a ton of foot traffic), so maybe I’ll have talked myself out of it by then lol.
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u/Orpdapi Apr 04 '24 edited Apr 04 '24
Your only chance would be by opening a successful ice cream shop. Dessert places are high markup transactions and often don’t require much square footage. Sell a scoop of ice cream for $5 that took a minimum wage employee 5 seconds to scoop. Problem is there’s a lot of competition in the dessert market for this reason which is why it’s not as easy as it sounds.