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Milk Bar----my first small business in Australia
Why I chose this business
I named my milk bar as Glee Homie as I wished that my family would settle down here happily in Australia two years ago.The milk bar is my first small business in Australia, and also in my life.Time flies.Now the milk bar is not only the premise of my business but also the nest of my family as well as the hub where the customer like to chat and exchange their information each other.
I purchased this milk bar which was an existing business.As foreigners in Australia it’s easier to run an existing business than to set up by ourselves. Another reason I chose this business was mainly due to its good location, and its simplicity for me to run by myself.
For the location, there isn’t any supermarket nearby my milk bar and there is a high school, a primary school and a kindergarten within 200-500 meters away. So I am not worry about the customer resources. In addition, It is just 2 km away to Melbourne University so that it’s convenient for my daughter to go to University everyday.We also get the other benefits from its perfect location such as safety and very nice neighbours in this area.
How I successfully run my business
1.won my customers by my honest smiles when serving them.
It is my duty to serve the customers with happy smile which make them feel being respected and cared. With my good customer service, a lot of them actually became my good friends. By making local friends, I felt that I have been belonging to this co妹妹unity.
Bill is tall man in middle age working at a warehouse of custom in Dockland. He told me he enjoyed shopping in my shop because of my smile. But he often looked a bit sad, I was wondering if I can help him to feel better. One evening he came to our shop in liquor and told me it made him sick at heart that he was not permitted to see his daughter by his ex wife after their divorce. He wanted to meet his daughter but didn’t know how to without her contact information. After knowing his daughter is a student of the high school near our shop, I gave him suggestion that he wait for his daughter at the exit of her school until he see her when the school is over for the day.He took my advice and finally he spent a very happy evening with his daughter. After that ,his daughter always visits him every Tuesday evening. Just last month,one day Bill came to said goodbye to me because he would be on trip to Brisbane and stay there about half years.
Michel is about 40 years old good-looking woman with three children.Two of them are girls named Eliza and Luna about 5 and 7years and the other one is 3 years old boy named Patrick.One week later after I taking this business,Michel told to me that she’d never seen so kind owner as me. I was so gratified with her word. Every time Michel came to our shop mostly for milk or breads otherwise lollies or baking needs. I always said hello to them with my sincere smile when they came in and they are always very polite too, except Patrick .Why Patrick’s behave like that? Many time I asked to myself.Was anything wrong with me or my Asia face stressed him? But for all that I still like him. After all, he is only 3 years old. I like him all the same. Every time when he came in, I always said hello to him with smile. One day things changed unexpectedly, nevertheless, it was true. It was a sunny afternoon, and I was astonished by a little boy’s voice “Jane, look, my brand-new bike” from outside of my shop. I opened the door of the shop to find it was no one else but little Patrick riding on his new bike.I approached to him “Oh, Patrick,You are lucky to have this bike. Is this because you are a very good boy?” I felt delighted with this change. For me, it was not only a change but a trans-culture acceptance by a innocent child. Since that afternoon Patrick began to talk to me at ease.
2.meet the customer’s needs
At the beginning of the business, one day, I was impressed by a customer’s complain. She said that our shop always stocked what they don’t really want left by the previous owner. Previous owner is Asian as well. From her complain, I was inspired that I should get myself familiar with their life style. I began to search many recipes of the western style cuisine and collected the most popular herbs and spicy as well as other baking and cooking needs. I learned some knowledge about cheese. For example, Cheese is divided into cheese block/sliced cheese /shred cheese/creamy cheese according to their texture and shape or parmesan cheese/mozzarella cheese/riccota cheese according to their taste and I learned how to use them as well for example what cheese is for pasta, for cooking, for dessert, or for snack.....I had been told that “you are what you ate” before. I did not comprehend its meaning indeed till I run this small business. I select the best quality and healthy food for them and hope they can be benefit from this. I come from a country where food safety has become a big issue so that I really appreciate what Australian government did to ensure the high quality of food.
Though some products in our shop sold very slow,I still stock them in case some one hurry in and ask for emergency situation. For example, one day a customer came in with worry on wanting a jump leads for the battery of his car which was running out of battery unexpectedly. I did not stock this at that moment, but I lent him mine.After that,I stocked that as well as other products for urgent needs. After all, milk bar is a convenient shop. It provides convenience to our customers.
Learning from other shops
I also learned from 7-十一 store and other convenient on Lygon Street. Usually I visited these stores after our shop closed at 9:30pm and I paid more attention to the products on their shelves and make a note what products our shop missing and how they marked up and priced. Now I have stocked everything in numerous varieties and in adequate amount.
In addition, if customers couldn’t find the product they need and I don’t know the name of it, I’ll write it down or ask the customer to write down for me in order to find it from the shelves of supermarket and get to know it later.
update equipments for our shop
Because of the fridges for ice cream being very old, manufactured about more than 10 years ago, with its high energy consumption and low efficiency for cold preservation, I contacted the representives of both companies of Peters and Streets after I took over this business. They took my suggestion and replaced new fridges for all the old ones.
I also let someone to install a auto-defrosting device in the cooling room of our shop, which is for not only energy saving but also labor saving.
I purchased digital camera monitor system from COSTCO during its special price time and installed it by our family members. Now it works as a guard for our shop. With the help of the monitor system, I can do house work freely while I was keeping my eyes on the monitor.
In order to dispense our products, I set up a POS machine with a computer, a moneybox, a invoice printer, and installation of POS-software. It works perfectly since I installed them and helps me a lot.
Reducing expenditure
After negotiating with the products suppliers successfully, I’ve got the good purchasing price with 5-18% discount for ice cream\milk\bread\chips and I also have get good value for power/gas/EFT-POS service /dry clean service price.
Making full use of the resource to boost sales
From the second year of our business,I succeeded in applying to sell calling card/fishing card and cash out service from our EFT-POS.
And I took advantage of the limit space in our shop to set up one area to sell the products such as small toys/stationeries for kids and the students of primary schools and the other area gift cards and wraps.
Finally I su妹妹arize routine procedure 。。。。。 |
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