As hard as it may be to believe, not everyone has access to the internet – and even those that do may go on vacation and need to check their emails for some reason.
All of which opens up the possibility of providing that service for them in an internet café. This is a business idea that obviously requires quite a large injection of cash to get it going – after all you need to provide internet access, computers, premises and so on. You could find a partner to do this with, but either way if you have the cash to put into a project like this, it might be worth thinking about in more depth.
The first thing to think about is where you are going to situate your internet café. You will of course be restricted to whichever premises are available, and it’s normally worth spending some time finding the best possible location, since if your café is somewhere that doesn’t get a lot of footfall going past, you won’t do as well as you would in a prime location.
You will need to be patient with this business opportunity since it will probably take several months to find the right property, agree on terms and get the interior laid out exactly as you want it. It’s definitely an idea for the more patient people among us!
Think about what other additional services you could offer to people as they come in to use the computers as well. There are plenty of ways that you can add extra streams of revenue into this type of business, such as building an actual café into the building, with light snacks and a wide range of non-alcoholic drinks as well.
If you don’t want to go that far but you like the idea of the extra streams of revenue, then think about adding vending machines for hot and cold drinks as well as candy machines that people can use. You’d be surprised how much of a difference this could make to your earnings.
As for calculating charges for people who use the computers, you can buy software products that do all the hard work for you. This is well worth the money since it provides by far the easiest way to work out what each customer needs to pay in terms of how much time they have spent on a computer. You can also set up different pay scales depending on what type of person they are – for example you can charge less for students.
There is clearly a lot to think about before you seriously consider getting involved with this business, but then it is important to know exactly what you are doing before entering into any kind of business, however simple or complex it may be. Doing some research on the area will also help you decide whether you have picked the right area and location for your café – and you’ll be in less danger of getting a nasty surprise later on if it doesn’t take off.
The moral here is to do your homework before jumping in, but there is a real potential to make a decent profit here once you are up and running.
Be sure to leave a comment using the form below before you start researching locations in your local area, and let us know what you think!