How to Choose the Location for Your Gym

The location of the gym is a very important aspect to consider if you’re looking to open your first gym or want to relocate your current space. This guide would help you with several factors that you need to consider and will help you make an informed decision on how to choose the location for your new gym.

Factors to Consider for Your Gym Location

Demographics and Accessibility

While selecting the location of the gym, your target audience plays the most important role. The target audience can be anyone from bodybuilders, students, people working in corporates, low-income groups to those who are well-off financially. Every segment of the target audience has different needs.

If you’re targeting the upper-middle class or the high-class society people then you need to make sure to have enough parking space along with a valet because this section of the society would be visiting the gym in their fancy cars. The location of Gold's Gym in Bandra & 48 Fitness in Andheri West, Mumbai; where all the Film actors & television stars work out are the perfect examples of the gym that fall in this category.

The aspect of accessibility of your gym location goes hand in hand with demographics. It’s essential to consider if your gym is:

- accessible by car or public transport such as rickshaw, bus, or Uber.

- located in a residential area where most clients will be walking for the session

Talwalkar’s gym next to Fergusson college in Pune helps to attract students studying there. Similarly, you can consider having a gym in a commercial building where most multinational companies have offices to attract the professionals working there.

Visibility

A location with high traffic and visibility will help you attract more clients but the rent for the same location will be too high. Abs fitness in ICC tower SB Road & Fitness First in BKC helped to attract the people working in the corporates. Contrarily, there would be locations with low rent and lower visibility. If your target audience is the general population, then high visibility is a must.

Market Research and to be Away from Competition

Knowing the existing competition in the area is very important before deciding the location. Below are a few things you need to consider about the competition:

- Age of the business

- Membership fees

- Demographic of the clients

- Brand and quality of equipment

- Number of staff (certified trainers or not)

- Number of members

You need to be highly visible as well as accessible if your target audience is the general public and also far from direct competition. Having your location on the outskirts, away from the competition is not the solution. Finding a balance between both is the key.

General Gym or Dedicated Gym

A bodybuilder gym may not cater to the general public, and bodybuilders may not mind traveling some distance to a dedicated gym hence such gyms need not be in the heart of the city. If you want to set up a general gym focused on the general public, then it is important to have the gym in the central area.

Rent or Buy

You must have a huge catchment area to pull the maximum crowd towards your gym. This can be a better option than having a gym in a high profile area/location. If you are still unsure of the area, a safe option is to rent out space instead of buying it. This can help you test and understand if you are going to progress there and make profits.

Budget

Your funds need to be allocated to many things like equipment, interiors, staff, rental deposit, etc. Before you finalize the property, ensure to:

- check if the area is a resale property or a new property because each of the conditions will determine the amount you need to spend on the interiors.

- know the rent escalation clause

Gaining a balance between everything will help decide the funding in the right direction.

Signage Board Availability

To help the clients and people to identify the gym it is important to choose to set up the gym that has sufficient signage board availability on the building facade.

Plumbing Lines and Showers

Know if the property already has the basic plumbing lines or would have to set aside a part of your funds for such basic amenities as well. People do appreciate and want clean and functional bathrooms with showers. This is particularly important for clients who attend the morning sessions as they need to rush to work post-workout.

Floor, Columns, Natural light, and High Ceiling

When the gym is located on the lower floor, maximum people can access it easily without worrying about the elevator not working. Also, it will help the maximum people see the signage board. Having space with few columns or no columns along with an ample amount of natural light and high ceiling should be preferred to make space look larger than its size.

Neighbors

This is one of the most important tips to follow while choosing a location for your new gym. Frequent complaints from neighbors about noise etc. would affect your business as you would have to put restrictions on clients which we all know that clients would not prefer.

City Type

Cities are classified into different tiers based on the population in India. Hence, a lot of factors like rent, cost of living, transportation, etc. depends on the city type you are planning to set up the gym.

Conclusion

The major cost of setting up the gym is going to be branded equipment. It is always better to start from a small scale and move to a larger space as your client base grows; this can help you:

• Save money by not renting out a huge space right from the beginning
• To not have the pressure to make profits through a huge client base.

Also, if you are planning to set up a franchise gym, then you may have to deal with some specific criteria. For example, gyms like Gold's gym do not allow you to set up in a nearby area of an existing franchise.

We hope this guide has helped you to get a clear picture. If you want more details, check out our detailed blog on how to choose the location for your gym.