I just read through all this, and I will tell you this: Experience is necessary, and if not, luck and research, however expierence, luck and research would be the optimum. You need to know what your doing, and hopefully you can predict how the market will react beforehand. I'm in college for business admin., and had the dreams of working for myself at somepoint as well. However, take a few courses, and you will see things you never even thought to consider beforehand. Overhead is huge and can not be stressed enough, nor can location. Sure there is the convenience factor, but not everything I buy I need right away, I'll hit those things online, so I believe there is middleground in that area, local business will stay because of the convenience, but so will online for the prices. Just because you like fish doesn't mean if you build it, they will always come, there are a lot more factors. Anyhow, most of what I was going to say has allready been hit on other pages. While I still say go ahead with your store (minus the MFK part), I will also say you better know what your doing, and prior research will make or break you. It's great to dream big, but not so big that you are not grounded by reality. Myself, I plan on working after graduation for other businesses, and will only open one if I find the right market, or find an existing market and know that I can do what they do, but better than them. If you plan on staying afloat, realize you are competing against sites as well, and that the difference between you and them, is personal costumer service, and make that your strong point as well I would think. I know for me at least, it's not always the prices that get me, because I know I can go online, but how I am treated while there, I've known plenty of people just walk out of stores when they planned on making a large purchase, just because of the manner in which they were treated.
