This no-nonsense guide to opening a shop offers a fresh approach to a popular subject. This book covers every aspect of setting up a retail business and usefully breaks the process down step-by-step. Topics covered include how to test your idea, surviving the crucial first six months and how to make your shop work in the internet age. There are also ready-to-use sample documents, including lease contracts and cashflow forecasts. Not only does the book give thorough information, it is also crammed with profiles, tips and real-life advice from the figures behind extremely successful retail businesses such as Dreams, Monsoon, Liberty's, and the children's shoe store, One Small Step One Giant Leap. It also includes the recent experiences of just-opened shops, uniquely combining information with advice, bringing theory to life. The book is written in conjunction with the UK's most popular website for small business, www.startups.co.uk. Startups.co.uk has been publishing information on how to set up a business since January 2000, and is now bringing all its expertise, case studies and understanding of the needs of this audience into a book for the first time.The author, Matt Thomas, has been writing about startup businesses for years, and has been the editor of www.startups.co.uk, the UK's most popular website for small businesses, since 2004. Matt has recently been named as one of the UK's Top 20 business journalists. He is passionate about small companies.