A retail business plan is a document that gives you and your potential investors a roadmap on how your new retail business intends to get started and deliver its business goals over its initial few years (usually 5 years).
It is usually broken down into sections about the company, the industry it operates in, the competition it will face and a plan that covers marketing, financials and operations over the first few years in business.
Also check out this one-page Business Model Canvas for a retail business.
You can download this free retail business plan template from the link below. You will be able to edit the word file and export it into PDF format afterwards.
In the coming sections, we will explain the different components that go into the retail business plan, which you can then apply to your own plan when completing the template.
We recommend writing the executive summary at the end of the process, after you have filled out all the other sections in the retail business plan template.
In the executive summary you will cover the following points briefly:
You will also mention the total amount you will need to start this business, backed by the financial plan you prepared as part of this business plan.
The total amount that you want to borrow or have invested in your business will be the sum of pre-opening costs (initial inventory, equipment, rent. ) and the maximum negative cash flow as per your cash flow plan.
If you are writing this retail business plan for a financial institution to get a loan, mention how you expect to repay the loan, and you should have already included the loan installments in your financial plan.
If you are writing this plan for investors, mention how much equity they will receive in return for this investment and the expected return on investment, and expected cash distributions (dividends) based on your financial plan.
For example
An investment of 100,000$ in the business will result in the investor receiving 20% equity. We plan to distribute 50% of the profits every year, and based on our financial projections this will be a xx,xxx$ in the first year, xx,xxx$ in the second year, and xx,xxx$ in the third year. etc.
Here you will write about your business and give a brief overview about the type of store you will be starting.
You can cover the following points:
Write an overview about the industry (retail/ecommerce) as a whole and the most recent trends specific to this industry.
Cover areas such as:
You can find the most recent insights about retail in our Retail Statistics page.
Read Also: What is Retail ?
Write about your target customers that you know will be interested in your products. Mention demographic and psychographic details in this section. This will help afterwards in drafting your marketing plan.
You can cover the following details:
