This is great info. I posted this poll because I will be opening a LHBS in a few months.
I will be selling kits so I'm wondering about bothering with clones.
What's interesting about your comment is that you say many of them use kits. That would be good for me if this holds true
Anyways thank you for your input.
Of course, my sample size is small, and I suspect there are pockets of homebrewers in some places that are much more into this than in other places.
Here's my 2 cents on this, from a LHBS perspective: you might sell some starter equipment kits to beginning brewers, but that's often a one-time thing. You need them to keep coming back to the store for consumables--ingredients!
And based on my limited experience--but I've seen this in other areas too, most people aren't that interested in understanding all the nuts and bolts, unlike me--people don't want to know all that stuff. They just want a kit that works well. They won't be buying pH meters, may not even want a refractometer. They just need ingredients.
So kits will be important. Do they have to be clone kits? That probably depends on the market. If you have a local or regional market for a specific beer that's very well received, then a clone kit for that beer probably would make sense. I'm trying to remember what my LHBS owner calls his kits--mostly they're styles, not specific clone brews.
Having a variety of LME and DME would be important for those who want to do a little experimenting. I'd also consider having some Maris Otter extract as well. It's my favorite malt (I do all-grain). My son, who also brews, had struggled to find it in an extract, but he did somewhere. He brewed with that and was hooked.
I'm sure there must be some other extracts like that as well. I'm not well-versed in what's available out there, but it may be worth having some unusual or off-beat ones for those who want to experiment.
Just a couple thoughts. Good luck with the business venture! Give 'em a reason to keep coming back.
