Making a Move
Moving a car audio shop involves vast planning, long hours of physical labor and staying in the black while doing it. Tree mobile electronics shops recently managed to do all these things—without losing business.
WORD BY RUTH E. THALER-CARTER, CONTRIBUTING WRITER
R
yan Pepsin, owner of SRQ Custom Auto Sound, Sarasota, Florida, has already moved his shop not just once but twice—three times if you count going from his garage at home to commercial space—and is planning yet another
move for 2015. Pepsin specializes in car audio for the upscale market. He had
two employees and now has five, with plans to add one more next year. His first move took him from 4,500 square feet to 2,200 in the same building and his second reversed the process; next year should see him in 10,000. “The first time we moved was because I bit off more than I could chew. I started the business with the building I wanted instead of what I needed,” he explained. “After four months, I moved down to what I could afford until the business was really
ramping up. Then I moved back to the original space. We’ll move again next year when our lease ends, across town.”
Planning Way Ahead Jon Kowanetz of Handcrafted Car Audio, originally in Mesa and now in Chandler, Arizona, believes in planning ahead. He started up in 2007, providing integrated high-end audio systems, and thought about moving almost from the start. “Every year, I would search for a new location,” he said. “I thought our location was holding us back. It was very much a destination location (customers came there specifically for Handcrafted Car Audio’s services, rather than noticing the shop or dropping in as they went by on their regular routines). It was what I planned for in the beginning so I could control how many people were coming through the door and perfect our way of doing things. I let myself be convinced over and over that our type of business didn’t belong on the main street as a specialty business.” He finally decided that it was time to move out of an industrial park and into a more mainstream, publicly visible and accessible location with more convenience and space for the business to grow. The 350-square-foot sell floor had six to eight people working in that space. “It was really awkward,” Kowanetz said. “Everything we did was professional and aimed at big busi- ness, until you came into the shop.” He also wanted to work on boats, RVs, and other larger vehicles.
» Te CarTunz staff celebrates the grand opening of their new location.
16 Mobile Electronics June 2014
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