Chicago electronics store opening

[AndyJ]

Hi all! A question for anyone from Chicago!

I do electronics for a living and hobby, like many of you. I'm thinking of opening an electronics store to cater to the hobbyist and student markets in Chicago. Would you make use of it, even for "oh crap!" deadline stuff?

Lets say it had:

• Fully stocked walls of passives, priced by the inch of tape.
• Very reasonable prices (Ain't nobody want to pay $5 for 5 resistors!)
• Full stock of Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, ICs, programmers, etc.
• On-site laser cutting/engraving
• Classes/meetups and contests

How often would you visit? How much might you spend? Just trying to gauge! Thanks.

 

[CocaCola]

Make it a monthly membership tech center as well with workshops and you might be able to sustain... Other wise you simply will not be able to survive, IMO at least not if you have average retail store rental cost... I would LOVE a fully stocked local store but sadly 'local' being the keyword, I can have stuff overtightened from Digikey or Mouser so easily and as such great prices at least for me the inconvenience of driving is mostly negated just for parts... I live on the Illinois/Wisconsin boarder and a trip to Chicago is half a days worth of driving, and $15 worth of gas round trip, (and a parking nightmare usually) hardly worth it for me for just components, thus the need to make they trip more appealing with 'tools' and 'toys' that are impractical for most people to have at home...

Get the CNC laser engravers/cutters, even small cnc mills/lathes and a few more 'hobbyist' level toys (3d printers, 3d scanners for example) and you can draw in constant traffic for workshops and membership...

 

[AndyJ]

Thanks for the response.

There are already Hackerspaces that provide access to lots of cool tools, so we'd have to provide something yet different. Perhaps say $20/month gets you a 10% discount and a half hour of (guided) laser time. It's a thought.

The dream is to bring in your project, talk with us a bit, talk with the folks there a bit, get some ideas, and pick up some parts.

Let me know!

 

[(*steve*)]

I can have stuff overtightened from Digikey or Mouser

Are you using an iPhone? ;-)

And to the OP, yeah, look up hacker spaces. Maybe you can do something similar, but slightly more commercial.

 

[CocaCola]

Are you using an iPhone? ;-)

Nah, can't stand Apple's sealed ecosystem, but I have been playing with global auto correct on the laptop, so same difference if I don't pay attention... Especially since I tend to type pretty sloppy unless I focus...