Has anyone ever had a kiosk in a mall? if so, what type of business? Was it successful? I'm thinking about starting one selling soaps and candles after college is done and I'm trying to find more about it.

I have asked about this, but what I've found it that its REALLY expensive (like over $1000 a month) and even more for the holiday season. I'd check around, and maybe even talk to other vendor who do that. I think it'd be best to go in with some people, to cut costs.

I used to wrok for one of the carts in the mall. I don't really know about kiosks, but from what I've heard about the mall I worked at kiosks have to sign 3 year leases and the rent is about double what it is with a cart. The cart I worked at had two lease options, the first is to pay $325 a week plus a percentage over a breakpoint (the breakpoint used to be $1500, but it's higher now), this lease is Jan-Oct and for the holiday season it's around $10,000 plus a percent over an extremely high breakpoint. The other option is to pay $2,000 a month for 12 months and we have a breakpoint of (I think) $13,000. Unless you have an extremely high profit margin, around 500%, it's hard. You also have to carry insurance, you'll have to work all of the hours unless you want to pay someone. Just about everytime we go to lunch or the bathroom something gets stolen, plus we've been broken into several times. I recommend buying a 100 pound safe or doing night drops to the bank. Not to discourge you, but I know that my ex boss was losing about $500 a week after rent, salaries and supplies for the months of Sept and Oct. This is just the mall I've worked at, rent and leases vary from mall to mall. Call up the mall leasing manager and ask about the lease and go talk to other people that work in the mall. The leasing manager is going to tell you how wonderful it is and how much money you can make, the people who work in the mall will give you a realistic idea. I found out today from a friend that has a cart in the mall that he was told he could make $35,000 for the month of November, at most the cart I worked at made $7,000, last year $5,500. If you have more questions you can email me, I worked at one of the carts for about 5 years, plus I've got friends that have carts and kiosks.

favorgrl

PS to have a kiosk built the people I know paid between $30,000 and $60,000.

wow, thanks for posting this. Seems like the people making the money are the mall managers! While that's not what I'm looking to do, I've always wondered how those carts work.

Like I said profit margin is the key. The carts that sell sunglasses, they usually charge about $12-$13 for them, depending on the quanity they buy from the manufacturer they can get them for less than $2 a pair. In the summer months they can sell $2000 a week.

favorgrl

That explains why so much CRAP is sold at those mall carts. Sad.