Would a store that specialized in anime make any money?

Sup

I was thinking today about what I would do if my career in IT turned out not to be for me and I came up with the idea of opening a store that specializes in anime. I would sell anime, toys, posters, clothing, bags, pretty much anything that they sell in stores in Akihibara and I would even sell bishoujo games and hentai anime as well. My concern is that it would not sell very well, I have no doubt that I can provide better selection in anime because pretty much the only places in Vegas that have a comparable selection are Best Buy and Suncoast Motion Pictures. However I have trouble believing that anime will sell when there are so many sites out there that allow people to watch anime on the internet for free and there is also the fact that there is a large amount of anime available through channels such as peer to peer or bittorrent sharing. Like I said this is just an idea I was kicking around as a secondary career. Also there is a much greater collection of merchandise available in Japan than in any store in the US and I also had an idea of making custom t-shirts and bags cause I have a friend who is pretty good at that kinda thing.


So, What do you guys think and are there any obstacles I am missing

If it's at teh right palce it might as well be one of the most popular store in the district.

In the early 90's the was a store near me called Anime Crash but it went out before the anime boom of the 2000's. one would probally work now though.

I had an idea that could possibly cover any losses I might take with the store. Considering how proficient I am at IT and how I love fixing computers I had an idea to simply get a large space and split the store in half. One part of the store would be for selling all things hentai and anime. The other half would be a store that specialized in computer repair. Computer repair isn't really a steady business but it could help off-set any losses I might take if the anime store doesn't do well. I really got into this and started planning out some of the larger aspects last night and I think I'm gonna do it anyway although it's gonna be awhile because I need to get my career up to speed first. Anyone have any names for what I should call it. I was thinking Otaku Paradise but it sounds kinda corny.

Well, make sure that you have a good location to put the store. Location is everything.

I don't know about businesses that do that do 2 different things. I guess it could work but I've never seen anything like that.

Also try to make sure that there's enough people around the area that actually likes anime. You just just call it
Anime+Otaku
Anime Works

Assuming you are in the phillipines, you might get filthy rich cause mostly here anime merchandise can only be found on megamalls and their location is really fucked up.took me forever to find it.
therefore you must position yourself right after a computer shop or sumthing like that.

I agree with unsigned...

In my country, only a few stores that sell those products.
But those aren't small stores. They are big stores which organized by different companies.
Wanna know why they became like that?
because there're only a few competitors and they placed their stores in some cities that most of the citizens are young people or students. Well, those're quite some achievements for me.

Yea, I think I would probably put it close to the University. That way I can guarantee some measure of business for the computer repair part of the store since almost every college student uses a desktop or laptop.

Gotta agree with that. When I went back to the Philippines for a vacation. I went to the 'Mall Of Asia' spent about an hour or so looking for an anime store. Well.... It is a huge mall but, such stores shouldn't be hard to find. Should be near an entrance or an internet cafe.

If there was one somewhere around my place they would at least have one permanent customer!

It depends on location, if the location of your store is not in the public eye it will not bloom as much as one that is on a high street or square. In england at the moment anime is very un appreciated by the masses, as such i would regard it as an underground interest. I used to work in an anime specialist shop on a high street for two years but because it was not very much in the public interest and sales were going down I had to be cut loose, and it is now three times smaller than it used to be and in a back alley street which is kinda sad i think.

If you want to open a store i would recommend opening a small store to begin with, and create a website so people can order online, then you dont have to worry so much about attracting people physically. Using an online store is also better in the fact that you can do alot more advertising.

i passed by a small one a week ago but all it sold were like main stream english dubbed stuff

This.

It's a niche market, depends mostly no where you are and how many customers you can draw in. Over here most of those kind of stores are also game stores that sell board games and trading cards, while mostly also serving an internet café. Just so that they can make money from those things combined to keep there heads up.

I think it could make money. I don't see it becoming like a huge chain, or anything. But there is a market.

If you did start one, it might be a good idea to join a bunch of major sites to poll users on what they would desire.

hey ill put in the first application and everything bealeive and u shall succeed... or fail

Where I live, as far as I know, we have two stores that sell some Dutch manga and crappily imported animés, and one store that sells some more Dutch manga, some French manga, and some English manga imported from America, and relatively well imported animé but in such ridiculously small stocks that they almost always only have later volumes, so basically you can buy the really popular manga series and maybe some animé films.

So such a store would be very welcome around here.

Nope. I download my shit for free, see.