20 Retail Business Ideas to Start with low investment

Want to Start a Retail Business? Here are a few ideas that may work for you.

Start an own business is everyone’s dream today, so many kinds of business are there, such as retail business, franchise business, etc.

Some people have been starting and running a successful business online and those who make the dream into a reality.

If you want to become successful, you should learn all the standards in starting a business.

In this article, we will discuss the various retail business that gives you an idea to start one today.

Last few days, Online Home Income is concentrating on covering various dimensions of the business sector.

As a note, I am writing a series of articles on different kinds of business and their starting procedures.

Let me dive into the actual article now.

What is a Retail Business?

Retailing is a process of selling consumer goods and/or services to the customers through multiple channels of the distribution system to earn a profit.

Courtesy: Wikipedia

Retail Business is one of the fastest-growing segments of society.

There are millions of people who are either directly or indirectly involved in this business segment.

Thus, the retailing business provides an excellent business opportunity for people based on their time and investment.

Finding a place and renting a small brick-and-mortar building was the traditional way of starting this business.

But with technological development, the retail business takes a new phase of establishing a virtual online store.

We will be going to discuss all this in this article further.

How to Start this Business?

The person or a company that manufactures the products is called the manufacturer.

The retailing involves buying products or services from these manufacturers, wholesaler, agent or an importer.

Storing these inventories and later selling them to the consumers based on their needs.

20 Retail Business Ideas in 2021

These are the top 20 profitable retailing businesses to start this year to earn a considerable amount of income.

1. Open a Boutique

Opening an online fashion boutique retail shop is very easy to start a retailing business and anyone in any part of the world can start one easily.

This business does not need a huge investment as you can buy through credits from the manufacturer or wholesaler.

The most important requirement to start a boutique shop is opening a store in the best location choosing a crowded place.

You can start a shop in the mall, near the bus stop, bazaar, cinema theatres are some of the best locations to choose from.

Decorate your shop with different colors, types, shapes of clothes, and fashion accessories of major brands.

If you are located in a popular place, you can surely generate a good profit from this boutique business.

2. Retail Pharmacy Store

Another great retail business idea where you can consider selling fast-moving products was a retail pharmacy store.

Starting this business requires some strict rules to be followed and a legal license from the health department is necessary.

This type of business is highly profitable if you open a retail store in a prime location where people crowd together.

You can purchase and stock all drugs and medical supplies from different manufacturers and then retail directly to the customers.

3. Open a Bookshop

Though we are living in the world of digitalization, there is always a community of people who still love to read books.

This makes sense that, starting a book retail business is still profitable considering the market and the people.

You can list hundreds of books of a different genre from different authors and purchase from a wholesaler.

Open a brick-and-mortar store in a prime location such as a mall, bus stand, bazaar street, or any similar place.

Create a shelf to place all your books there to sell to the customers.

Consider starting an online bookshop and maintain both simultaneously for an added advantage.

4. Mobile Phone and Accessories

Mobile phone, smartphone selling is another easy-to-start retail business to consider by an entrepreneur.

In the world of digitalization, people might often buy a new model of Smartphone every day.

Hence, this helps to develop this business on a large scale if properly managed, as there is a large marketplace available.

Just like other business ideas, starting this business requires a perfect location where you can easily market your products.

There is a huge competition to start a mobile phone selling store and calculate at your own risk before starting one.

You have to buy all model branded mobile phones, smartphones, and accessories to keep in your store.

5. Mobile Phone Service Center

Like how long starting a mobile phone selling store brings you success, is the same starting a service center?

There are lakhs of sales are happening in this industry and at the same time, thousands of models facing troubles.

Consumers need a perfect and quality service center to fix the problems on their smartphones or mobile phone.

Like the mobile store, starting a mobile service center does not need much capital to buy some service equipment.

A small rental room is enough to run your business which is well located in the prime place of business.

6. Open a Cosmetic Shop

Whatever the businesses which were started targeting the female consumers often lead to great success?

Similarly, if you consider opening a cosmetic shop, then surely you are gonna make a huge profit.

There is a big market for cosmetics and beauty products among women and even some men show interest in their external appearance.

This trend ensures a steady inclining demand for cosmetics, beauty products, body care products, etc.

Opening a cosmetic shop is a pretty easy and simple thing without any kind of technical skills needed.

A prime place such as malls, cinema theatres, the city center is essential to open the store.

Display all major brands and various products from them in your store to ensure a steady sale every day.

7. Music Store

Who dislikes hearing music and watching a movie? There is a big marketplace where people still buy CDs and DVDs.

Even in the world of digitalization, audio CDs and video DVDs have enough potential to find consumers.

You can open a retail store in a prime business location and sell different kinds of audio and video materials.

You can sell academic videos, education videos, movies, DIY videos, or anything.

8. Grocery Store

A grocery store is a very good retail business to start without much risk involved, as here every product can be retailed.

You can sell almost all consumer goods such as FMCG products, food items, cosmetics, beauty products, stationeries, etc.

People visit the grocery store from time to time to re-stock their home with those products mentioned above.

Consider an online presence by having a website and enable people to create online orders to purchase from your store.

There is huge competition for this business because it does not require any special skills and even an uneducated can start a retail store.

But you can ensure a steady flow of cash daily if you stock constant moving products in your store.

9. Open a Fruit Mart

Opening a fruit-selling store is another great retailing business that an entrepreneur can consider starting.

Just like staple fruits, people consume fruits in their everyday routine and this ensures a market for this business.

Also, this does not require any huge capital investment because you can’t store fruits for a very long time.

However, you need a refrigeration system to preserve your fruits for some days.

Like other business startup ideas, starting a fruit mart needs a perfect location where people crowd together.

Also, you can open a fruit juice shop on the same premise as an added advantage to generate more revenue.

Learn the different small-scale business ideas here.

10. Retail Food Stuff

Since a grocery store can sell all kinds of products, but some people still consider a specialty shop to purchase.

One such example is to start a retail food store to sell especially food products such as rice, maize, whole grains, etc.

You can consider buying a large volume of these items and repack them in smaller quantities to sell to the people.

Food is an essential commodity in every part of the world and this ensures a large market for this business.

Do small homework to list all possible high-moving commodities such as rice, wheat, whole grains and find top manufacturers.

Open a retail store in some prime business locations and with some marketing strategies, you can easily find consumers.

11. Frozen Food Mart

This is another typical retail business to start considering the current growing trend in the fast-food industry.

Frozen foods such as chickens, meat, fish, etc. are generally consumed in a large quantity worldwide.

Many top brands such as KFC, McDonald’s, Burger Chicken consume a large number of frozen meats for their products.

You can start a small retailing store else you can start a franchise business with these major brands.

Even you can sell to local restaurants, highway inns, especially biryani hotels, etc.

Starting this business does not require heavy investment and also, the physical business location is not an important fact.

Rent a space somewhere interior and prepare some refrigeration equipment to stock meats for selling.

12. Meat Mart

Similarly, another great business opportunity for the entrepreneur is to start an open meat mart to sell fish, goats, and chicken.

Like vegetables, and fruits people consume meats more or less similar to the same quantity as they do.

Hence, starting a meat retail business is considered to be a profitable business ever.

There is no huge capital required to start else the business location determines the success of your business.

The ideal place for conducting meat mart business is around foot market and residential areas.

A small open place or a room of 10×10 sq.ft. is enough to start this meat business.

13. Footwear Accessories Store

People give much importance to their external appearance such as clothing, makeup, and footwear, etc.

Hence, this trend leads to a very good thriving opportunity in the fashion industry, which means opening a footwear accessories store.

Various accessories such as shoes, chappals, slippers, belts are some of the fast-moving products from these stores.

You can also sell wallets, hats, caps, handbags, and other leather products in your store.

Consider starting an online website for your customers to make online order placements for additional income.

Starting a business will turn into being a profitable venture if you consider involving the latest technologies along with it.

14. Open a Coffee Shop

This is also a kind of profitable retailing business if you are a serious-minded entrepreneur-thinking to start your own business.

Starting this business requires a small investment to purchase machinery and furniture’s to cater to people.

The best example I can tell you now is, Cafe Coffee Day, a well-known popular coffee shop along with major highway locations.

You can start this business targeting various groups of people, Cafe Coffee Day is for business class people.

Well, you can consider starting a small coffee shop where normal people can spend time there also create some business.

You can sell coffee, and other snacks to increase your revenue. You can even start a franchise business with major brands.

15. Open a Gift Shop

If you want to start some business that would be creative and fun, then I suggest you start a small gift shop in your area.

This is a very interesting business and also a profitable one when started in the right place.

You can sell various gift items, handmade products, home decors, greeting cards, and much more.

To make this business profitable, you should stock a wide range of products from many different manufacturers.

This business is best suitable for housewives who have knowledge and business skills. I have listed a few other business ideas for housewives in this article.

I mean to say, give your customers a wide option to choose their beautiful by stocking a large volume of collections.

Location is very much important because a person usually gets tired of commuting a long distance to reach your shops.

The perfect location to conduct this gift shop retail business was the mall, cinema theatres, bazaars, etc.

16. Retail Home and Office Electrical Fittings

In Tamil Nadu, we use to call, a hardware store, which consists of all the home and office equipment and fittings.

It includes various electrical items, bath fittings, plumbing items, and other different home needs.

This business is very easy to start and manage, but it requires some investment to stock various products from different manufacturers.

The home electrical and office electrical and other equipment will have a short lifespan which is needed to be replaced.

Hence, starting this business in your area is going to be profitable for the long term.

17. Open a Stationery Shop

It is also considered the most profitable retail business depending on your principal area of business.

It is profitable if you open a store near to any school or college or in a good marketplace to conduct your sales.

You can sell notebooks of all sizes, pens, pencils, papers, CDs, DVDs, small office consumables, etc.

Stock all the items from different manufacturers to give your customers the best price and quality product.

It doesn’t require any heavy investment and also the margin of profit is good when compared to other businesses.

Hire or rent a room of 20×20 sq.ft. to stock all the materials on shelves and sell on-demand.

18. Retail Children’s Toys

Children love toys with which they spend most of their time playing with them and sometimes they break them when mishandled.

So what do their parents use to do? They will buy a new one immediately and hence I recommend this business to start.

Consider opening a children’s shop and sell toys especially for small children under the age of 10.

The place of business is very important and I personally suggest you find a store near the malls, theatres and city centers.

Stock as many items as you could and with some little marketing effort, you can easily bring in sales to your store.

19. Open a Sports Shop

This is another great segment of the retail industry and surely gonna be the biggest investment for your future.

Here you can sell all sports wears and sports wares for various sports requirements such as shoes, track pants, tracksuits, balls, and hand gloves, etc.

If you plan to start a retailing business, then consider opening a sports shop in your area to sell sports items.

This is very similar to other retail businesses, sports shops are easy to manage and operate.

Ensure you have a prime location for your brick-and-mortar store with display boards and banners to drive people in.

Stock all major brands in your store and a variety of sports stuffs such as shoes, suits, balls, accessories, etc.

20. Electronics Store

Televisions, Home theatres, Radios, Amplifies, refrigerators, are highly sellable products.

Starting a home electronic store is a very good idea. It is indeed a thriving and more profitable business.

This business requires a heavy investment from your side because all items are a bit costlier, which you have stock and display in your store.

Tie up with all major and notable brands of consumer electronic item manufacturers to start your business.

Again, the place of business is very important that determine your success.

Conclusion

Thank you for spending your valuable time reading this article and I hope you got a lot of ideas today.

Even though starting a business won’t be a much difficult task, however, managing and running them for a long time matters a lot.

Prepare a proper business plan in your beginning and then execute the plan for the smooth running of the business.

I have listed a few profitable and easy-to-manage retail business ideas you can start today.

The success of this business is purely biased due to the physical location of the store, and hence I insist on this point many times in this article.

If you find this article useful, share a word with your friends, else, if you want to add something valuable, post it in the comment section.