Opening 2nd Retail Pool Store

I don’t have pool store experience but do have retail development experience in Florida. My advice is to do a deep dive study into the demographics for your existing store and your proposed store location.

So far I haven’t been able to figure out a slick way of qualifying just pool homes without looking at and guestimating from aerial images, but in Florida we use a percentage of homes to determine the number of pools in a market (my market area is 26%). Consider your market to be a 15 minute drive time of your store. Compare the number of homes between your existing store and your proposed store, then factor in your market share with your competitors. 

This is the answer to the question of is your proposed store in a big enough market to sustain itself. Add growth of homes coming to your proposed store area into to your analysis, especially if its a high growth section of town. I might also add median income to make sure there is a comparable or better amount of money in your proposed market. 

The pool store market is incredibly interesting to me, but I know nothing about it. I can tell you Leslies is really disorganized as a corporation (at least here in Florida) and the Pinch a Penny’s are independently owned franchises here so some are good others are terrible. 

Most of the demographic databases are pretty available online, but If you want me to run some basic demographic reports, message me. I’m happy to help. 

Hi Randy, it sounds like you’re trying to create some distance from the new competitors and protect your margins, which makes sense. There’s definitely a lot to think through before making a move like this. How’s everything going with your plans for the second store so far?