Adding Sheds and Barns to Your Farm Store or Equipment Lot
Already run a farm store, feed store, or equipment lot? How portable sheds, lofted barns, and cabins can fit alongside the business you already have.
If you already run a farm and ranch store, feed store, nursery, or equipment or trailer lot, you have something a new portable building dealer has to build from scratch: a steady stream of rural customers and a property they already visit. Sheds, lofted barns, and cabins sell to many of those same people. This guide looks at how a display of portable buildings can fit alongside the business you already have.
All American Structures is looking for businesses across Texas to display and sell our buildings. Here’s what to think through first.
Your customers already need storage
Think about who comes through your door. Ranchers need dry storage for feed, tack, and tools. Landowners need a place for tractors and mowers. Families moving to acreage need a workshop or a garden shed. Those are the same needs a portable building fills, and your customers are already in buying mode when they visit you.
- Feed and ranch customers: lofted barns for hay, feed, and tack
- Equipment and trailer buyers: workshops and larger barns for machines
- Nursery and landscape customers: garden sheds and compact utility buildings
- New landowners: cabin shells and tiny home shells for weekend places
Use space you already have
Many stores and lots have unused frontage, a side lot, or a corner of the yard near the road. A row of finished buildings in that space is a visible sign to every passing driver. Before you plan, check:
- Room for several buildings with aisles between them
- Truck and trailer access to move buildings in and out
- Firm, well-drained ground
- A spot visible from the road but clear of your existing traffic and loading areas
Keep it simple for your staff
Your team doesn’t need to know every building spec by heart. Customers can design and price buildings online, and questions about delivery or a specific site can be answered with photos and a phone call. What helps most is someone who can walk a customer through the display, explain the basic differences between a storage shed, a lofted barn, and a cabin shell, and take down their contact details.
Check the rules for outdoor display
Adding outdoor display or new signs can involve city zoning or county rules, even on a property that’s been commercial for years. Ask your city’s planning office, or the county if you’re outside city limits, before you set up. Our service area pages list official city and county contacts for many Texas towns.
How a partnership conversation starts
Every location is different, so we talk through how a partnership could work, including terms and timing, directly with each business after reviewing its inquiry. Sending an inquiry doesn’t commit you to anything. If you also have a shop and crew, you might be a fit for building, too: see what a manufacturing partner needs, or compare dealer lots and manufacturing partners side by side.
New to running a display lot? Start with our guide to starting a portable building lot in Texas.
Talk to us about a partnership
If you have a lot, a storefront, or a shop anywhere in Texas, tell us about your business on our Become a Dealer page. The inquiry takes a few minutes, and sending it doesn’t commit you to anything. Prefer to talk first? Call our main line at 903-851-3000 or send us a message.
