Im thinking about opening a pet store in the distant future, need your help

[Noto]

+ infinity

Most startup businesses fail, and the reason most fail is not because the owner doesn't know his product but because he doesn't understand business. Take business classes, get a good grasp on what you will need to start your business, how to figure out margins and budgets, what your competition is doing, etc., etc., before you even think about opening your own store.

Also, running a small-scale operation from home first is a good way to get your feet wet without taking out huge loans.

 

[Stingray12]

Any pet store owners here.

 

[Hesh69]

I dont plan on opening one is saranac lake, where I live. I plan on either opening one up in plattsburg, pretty big town, currently has 3-4 petshops in it. One is petsmart, another is animal house pet shop(decent petshop been open at least since ive been alive, bridge street aquarium(alright for sw), and one other I've been in once for like 5 min and left(bad). Or I might go to like glens falls and try one.

Im planning on going to college for business, animal management, or biology. I would like to have a backup.

make sure u hv customers where evr u gonna open it!!! do sm reserch.. go to ur lfs once a week n chk which fishies are gone!!! if there is a whole new set of fishies that means he got sm bussines goin great ryt? i would say first start with fish thing.... dont start with saltwater thats a bad idea.. IF u insist try to sell saltwtr tank with all other thing that means fish+lights+protein skimmer+filtr blah blah becz u dont wanna get the complains do u?! then comes the reptiles n all! okie..... KEEP UR STORE CLEAN.. thats thats the golden point..dont keep sick fish nywhere customers can see them..!!! make sure u got all the accessories customers ask..u dont want them to go for a nthr lfs dont u?keep 'em happy!!!! good luck bro!

 

[smpage]

I was looking into opening my own about a year or so ago and it never came to fruition. The idea is great but there needs to be a demand for it in your area.

 

[Noto]

Here's an idea: start a tank maintenance service. You will need a reliable car, buckets and hoses, scrubbers, a basic tool kit, etc; your continuing costs will basically be fuel, replacement scrubbers, dechlorinator for fw, and RO/DI water and salt for sw. It would also be a good idea to get insurance, which is a big continuing cost.

Pros:

The start-up cash needed is modest and can perhaps be borrowed from your parents or other family instead of from the bank.

You already have the know-how.

You don't need employees.

You can start ASAP.

It will give you experience running your own business, without risking huge debt.

Cons:

You must be willing to put in the necessary time- unlike an hourly job, you can't get another worker to sub for you when you want to do something else.

There may not be a big enough market in driving distance to make it worthwhile.

 

[MadBob]

if you do a quick search, you'll find my opinion that I gave to the last 4 people with this same idea.

 

[SteveR]

Currently I am a junior in highschool but hey, you need to research. I've kept pretty much all animal legal in NY with very few exceptions and have been successful with almost of of them. I love animals and always want to be around them,so thats why I'm thinking about owning a petshop. I live in a town that has about 8,000 people in it, so my closest petshop is over 1 hour away and they are not the greatest ones either.

Heres what I plan on keeping for animals:

Fish, Ive kept them for almost all my life, both fresh and saltwater(Ive had a sw setup for over two years now)

For freshwater there would be the usual, tetras, gouramis, barbs, and other community fish + goldfish. There would also be the more unusual, datnoids, cichlids(kinda not unusual), motoro stingrays, and a few other oddballs.
The stingrays I would require to have a 180 gallon minimum for purchase.

For saltwater, there would be clowns, cardinalfish , tangs, and other reef fishes. I would also have the more aggressive such as lionfish, pufferfish, triggerfish, cortez stingray, eels, small sized sharks.
The shark and stingray would also need a 180 gallon minimum and the only sw stingray would be the cortez stingray and for sharks, the coral catshark, marble catshark, maybe bamboo.

i dont plan on having those petsmart style fish tank setups, I plan on taking a big wall for fish and building a stand that would hold various sized tanks, probably mostly 20 gallons and up. Each would be drilled and connected together by pvs and a sump with a big pump would supply all the filtration.(Obviously the sw and fw would be not connected to each other.)

This would be my biggest section


I would keep reptiles, though not ones I think shouldnt be kept.

I would keep:
Ball Pythons
Corn Snakes
Kingsnakes
Blue Tongue Skinks
Bearded Dragons
Crested Geckos
Leoperd Geckos
Chameleons
Russian Tortoise
Chinese Dragons
Turtles:I think most get bigger than people think
Mud Turtles
Musk Turtles
Spotted Turtles
Maybe RES(i think they get pretty big)
Maybe some smaller type of softshell turtles

All these turtles stay pretty small around 6".

Ill include Amphibians in this list to
Pakman Frog
Green Tree frog
Poison Dart Frogs(arent poisonous when kept in captivity)
Newts


I would also have various sized crickets along with mealworms.



Small Mammals
hamsters
gerbils
Guniea Pigs(srry spelling)
Rabbits
ferrets
Chinchallas(again spelling)
Rats
Maybe feeder mice(Snakes should be weaned onto frozen mice, better for them)
All will be seperated by sex

Birds:I love birds, but they are also a great responibility

I will carry:
Budgies
Canaries
Zebra finches
love birds
Conures
Senegal parrots
Miniature macaws
Amazons
Goffins Cockatoo
Cockatiels
Maybe african greys
Im not sure about a few of these, I dont think i want to carry any of the big macaws or cockatoos becuase of the huge responsibily they carry.

I might carry a few dogs if I can find a breeder to give me one. I know people say that a good breeder wont give their dogs to petshops buy a select few around here, have dogs and they all come from breeders and have papers to prove.

As for supplies, I wont carry junk. Hey they could go to petsmart and have a informed employer reccomend a crappy protein skimmer and then the person out 60 bucks.
I will only carry supplies that I think is good quality and works well, stuff I have read is good on the many forums I am on, learning.

I will also make caresheets for all the animals I sell, and give one to every person who buys that animal.


Do you think this is a guy idea?

So what do you guys think?

I am thinking about going to college for business and also might go for a biology degree.

What types of licease do I need? Where do I get them?

Have any ideas on where the best place to open one up is?

Anny suggestions, shoot

Thanks

Sounds cool and all but I'd avoid it if you ever want to have a nice life with any money! No offence but think about the overheads. The power for the filters, lighting in the tanks, equipment, you have to feed the fish in your shop everyday which costs a bomb! Then there's the margins which are razor thin. Sounds like barely scraping a living to me. But good luck to you. As many others have said if you want to make money in the fish business start with $5million to begin with and even at that who knows. It will literally drain money from every resouce you have and you will be working 24/7.

Also, be wary of the type of pet shop you want to open. I myself hate stores that are the jack of all trades. I'd prefer a specialist shop with fish or reptiles, more choice also.

 

[Cheetah]

By far the most brilliant pet store idea in recent memory was putting puppies on financing.

Locally owned pet store did it when the tiny dog trend started fifteen years ago. Chiahuahs and terriers selling for $2k - $5k with two years to pay. Made a killing initially.

Then a premium chain pet store started doing it in an upscale mall, suddenly the local guy goes belly up.

Posted on mobile.monsterfishkeepers.com

 

[net master]

i would recomend buisness classes, but as far as how to handle customers, look up petstore pro it is a free learning site that teaches u how to run a petstore . personaly I would only adopt out pound dogs and cats, they need the help more if someone wants purebred animals breeders are easy enough to find. I personaly like stores that have many diffrent animals

 

[snyder810]

hey,your plan sounds great, the only question I have, is...are you gonna do this for money or values? I live in UK and the pet shops over here will sell anything to anyone for the sake of it , just to make a turn over. If you ask me pet shops(owners who care) should have a baseline questionnaire if someone does not know about the animal, fish, arachnid whatever they are buying then theyt should not be allowed to buy the animal.So basically good luck to you, but if you are in this for love of animals then you have a duty of care,.If there was a petshop in uk that sold on a knowledge of animal basis I would personally drive for miles and be willing to prove myself before being allowed home with the animal

there's a reason not many of those type of stores don't exist. they don't make the money to keep going. because if you tell them no well that store down the street will be more than happy to sell that $80 animal to them. like it or not pet store is a business and just the same as any other business is about making money. without it that business doesn't exist no matter how much you care for the animals