I've been looking at commercial space lately and have found some really beautiful locations. One in particular offers me a LOT of space for a very fair rent and it's in a very central location. However, it's not in an area that would offer much foot traffic.

For those of you who have commercial space...how important is walk-in traffic to your business? If you have off-the-beaten path space...what do you do to compensate for that?

Your thoughts are mostly gratefully appreciated.

When I had a commercial space, in downtown Las Cruces, we got no walk-in traffic. It wasn't a big deal for us though.

Do you no longer have commercial space? What made you decide to leave it? Just curious...

Well, we left our commercial space because it was just freaking expensive, and we got a house that had about 1,000 sq. ft. of space isolated from the rest of the house that was perfect for a studio. So we ditched the commercial space, and started working from home. It's been fabulous.

For the record, we have a better class of clientele since ditching that space downtown. Our space wasn't that great, it was "something" but it wasn't "everything I wanted it to be". The house really is.

If you've got a bead on really nice commercial space though, and you're ready for it financially, go for it! I have to say that working from home does have a major disadvantage - sometimes, I just get lazy, and it's so easy to go nap if I want to - not always the best thing, lol.

Roz

Hey Dan...

This sort of answers your question:

I rented a space back in Feb for the purposes of having a dedicated space to work in and meet for client consultations. No shooting in the space... it was quaint and small and we still did all shoots "on location". . It worked very well for us.

Other advantages:
I live about an hour from my target markets and went from meeting them in THEIR cities to having them meet me here.

I only had one client that asked for a meeting but didn't want to come to our place. She wanted me to drive 1.5 hrs each way on MEMORIAL DAY to meet her. I stood my ground and naturally she did not book me.

However, every person that has come to meet me in our office has booked. EVERYONE. I realize that by doing this, I am only meeting with those clients that are sincerely interested in ME, but I also believe that "home field advantage" probably affected my presentation ... no coffee grinders or nosy coffee shop patrons to distract me....and first impressions upon walking in the space were impactful as well.

Now, after being in our space for 6 months, I had the opportunity to purchase the nicest building in our downtown area for an incredibly reasonable price. I took the plunge.

Both places got good foot traffic but we are open by appt only, so it really didn't affect us. Most of our customers came from past brides, former coworkers, acquaintances, etc...

Great feedback. I am looking at a space that would have not one...but two camera rooms. Or two client reception rooms...depending on the configuration. But there are two other really cool advantages that no other could possibly offer. So tempting...

We have gone from:

5 years working from home (part time) and meeting with clients there, lower end prices, hard for them to find the house etc.

6 months operating in shared space in the middle of town (though it is a country town on the outskirts of Melbourne). The space was also a Framing/Art Supplies shop. This worked well and was a good boost. We were able to up our prices, up our offerings and create a much more professional environment. We also started doing more portraits and running photography courses.

3 Months (we had to moved out from framing place) in a higher profile shop front building in the town next to Emerald, where there is not much "foot traffic" but there is a lot of drive by traffic and our signage is very obvious.
This has drastically improved our business in the area of portraits and courses, as the people that stop are specifically interested in these things.

The area that has still not taken off as much as we want it to has been the Weddings. We feel the main reason for this is distance from people. Emerald is not very affluent, and our pricing and what we offer in terms of packages may often be beyond their budgets. Then people that live in other areas do not want to travel to Emerald, they don't want to get lost, they don't want to navigate dark windy roads to find us after work at night.

We have decided that to truly reach the clientele that we want to we need to move.
We have plans to move to a very prominent house/building in central Berwick (which is a highly populated, boutique style suburb in outer Melbourne)

We plan to operate the studio from the front downstairs, and live in the rest, gradually renovating it and then setting it up longer term for our big business dream, which is under wraps at the moment.

So we are praying this building works out and that all things fall into place. I've done a lot of market research and investigation and believe that at least in Melbourne, location is a huge thing.

Thoughts people?

I really hope it turns out well for you. Congrats.

M.J.

We get zero walk-in traffic, and we are on the downtown square of our town. I think that portraiture is just not much of a walk-in business. (Unless you are in a Mall!)

Mall volume... mall quality... mall prices... No thanks! I'd rather be open by appointment only - it reinforces the impression that we're so high-end you can't just walk in, like a fine restaurant. (Photos aren't exactly an impulse buy anyway, right?)

Walk in traffic = stopping what you are doing to answer questions for people that are just passing time (yours).

There isn't really much walk-in traffic that helps a small (one photographer) studio. The only thing a studio will do is give you credibility, that you won't have working out of your house.

Well, credibility and bills. Figure out the amount of extra work you will need to sustain the studio overhead. From memory(with fails me at times), the latest PPA study puts the retail studio's at 250K revenues vs 150K for home based studios.

If that number makes you squimish, then stay at home. Plus given the economic conditions, it might be wise to wait 6 months before considering a lease.

Thanks for asking you questions Dan. I am in a similar situation. No outside dedicated studio/office now but thinking about it.

I guess I should've used a better set of words than "walk-in traffic" -- what I mean is...how many people found you because of where you are located...i.e., do you spend a few extra bucks to locate yourself in a trendy area where your brand will be identified with a certain type of (zip-code...income) clientele? And...how has it worked out?

There are a couple of considerations I have in evaluating commercial spaces...

-- I'd like to be in an affluent area
-- with exposed brick and timbers in a "loft" type atmosphere
-- the number of studios that are either closing up shop or going home based (yeah, I like to "zig when others zag"...but it really is telling when established & seasoned pros are boosting their profits primarily by cutting their expenses...many of them by going "virtual studio")

However...it's not easy to find the right balance...so...do I go off the beaten path for the right studio in the "close enough to right" location?

I know, I know...that's the 64 MB question...

So one thing I found that my commercial space always did for me is help in coming to mind when someone was ready to book. Now my old studio was in a spot with lots of other businesses and traffic around.

One thing I heard time and time again was when someone called, "I always drive by and see your sign and so when I was thinking we needed family pictures done, I knew who to call."

We just moved to a new town and my husband asked if we should just run the business from home and I immediately said no. We actually had a commercial space picked out long before we had a place to live. But I wanted to place myself where the foot traffic nearby would be of my potential clients. We picked a spot that shares the entrance with a high end business consultant and a home design and staging company. There is also a very nice spa in our building as well. The people that come to them are not broke. We are preparing to hang my art all over the hallway they walk down to get to their spaces, and we also replaced the standard door with a door with glass so people can see in and see my gallery inside. I don't need them to stop in to be exposed to me. And as long as they are seeing my work, they will come to me when they are ready.

I can't replace that exposure. Now, there are other reasons that other people mentioned that I completely agree with also. Like the fact that I am horribly distracted when working at home, and the space is great to meet clients in and adds to my credibility as a "business professional." Now we all know that working from a space or your home does not make you a better photographer, but as a client, I'd be much more comfortable paying thousands of dollars to someone at their place of business, rather than in their living room. I don't know? Just my $.02. **And I've only ever worked out of a studio space, other than random jobs here and there prior.

Good luck!