opening my own pet store,your opinion/tips will help ;)

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ska_kid

ska_kid

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jul 24, 2012
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I'm planning to open a pet store in couple of years and want your opinion on some questions

1.what do you guys look for when going to a pet store ?

2.what aquarium heaters do you guys like and hate?

3.when looking for fish what do u you guys look for ?

any extra tips you guys have I would love to hear ;)

thanks
 
I don't want to shoot you down completely, since i have no idea what the market in your area is like, but from what i've seen here locally and online is it doesn't necessarily sound like the best idea imho...

Personally i have seen friends over here close their LFS' due to different reasons from Rent costing too much, the market just not being as good as it once was, getting the right balance of fish to sell to the public etc... just so many variables that could go wrong, plus, if you can't move your live stock, that means ongoing fees to keep them alive till they do move, and then that also means, till you move said live stock out of their current tanks, you may not be able to order more fish in to please your customers, and as i've often seen as other stores, if you don't keep your stuff moving and interesting, people just stop going to the store all together, unless you are known for stocking very rare / unusual fish you can't find else where...

But to answer your questions:

1.what do you guys look for when going to a pet store?

I go to different stores for different reasons, there are Specialist Plant shops i go to purely to check out their Aquascaping and to pick up plants, then there are those that i go to specifically for Shrimp products and finally there are those that i go to specifically to look for rare and un-usual fish i know now where else will stock, but might have a chance at finding there (such as my Gymnothorax Polyuranadon...

2.what aquarium heaters do you guys like and hate?

Personally i've now stuck with using Ferplast heaters, and Ferplast heaters alone... been running some of them for over 15 years and never had a problem with them till this day...

3.when looking for fish what do u you guys look for ?

One thing i personally cannot stand is going into a fish store, and all i see is standard bread and butter fish for sale (Guppies / Bettas / Neon Tetras etc) in empty fish tanks with no decor, so when i go to stores, i check how healthy their fish look, how rare are the fish, and how well the tanks are maintained and setup... I want the full experience and i want to see the fish with their colors nice and bright, not all washed out and stressed to a point you can't tell if something is nearly worth the price...
 
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1) Decent prices(I know a LFS that's asking $12 for a mid size convict...really?)
2) N/A(don't use them). When I did, the length of the cord was my biggest issue.
3)While livebearers are the 'common' fish, 80% of the stock should not be them.

Extra: When at a fish store, I don't judge them on how 'pretty' the tanks look but on healthy the fish look.

I'm slightly turned off by stores that only have tanks under 30 gallons in them. You should have at least 2 or 3 that are at least 180 gallons for the 'bigger' fish.
 
1) I look for the mainstays, including the main cichlids such as: Oscars, Severums, Angels, Firemouths, Acara's etc, then bonus points for the more niche fish such as jaguars, Salvini's etc. Then I like to see the popular tetra's such as neons, cardinals, black neons, as well as other popular varieties, again bonus points for rarity. Then on and so forth from other genus', conversely, if the shop has minimum space, I'd like to see the stock chosen wisely.

Also, every aquarium must look pristeen, no green hair algae on the substrate etc; indeed if there is substrate, bonus points for looking maintained.

All fish should look healthy, if not should be shown to be getting treated or segregated from other fish.

Should hopefully stock a good variety of decorative items including driftwood, manzanita, as well as functional aquarium necessities such as filters.

Hopefully also see a well maintained selection of plants.

2) I like Jaeger heaters, but I agree with Fat Homer Fat Homer on the Ferplast.

3) basically included in point 1 lol
 
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Haven't read everything yet, but if you don't have a live bait and tackle shop close buy, carry rosy reds, shiners, and large baitfish as well as staples for wild and captive fish, reptiles and amphibians, like waxworms, mealworms, nightcrawlers, butterworms,, also eels, squid, shrimp (live if possible), surf clams (the huge ones that are too tough for people to eat, hellgrammites, crayfish, leeches, etc.

This is how my friend's Shop is keeping up with the corporations. You will also need a loyal steady clientel, numerous brands of high-end dogfood and rewards cards will always entice customer to see why Ma and Pa is better than Petsmart or Petco or whatever. Keep showtanks in the shop for as many of the animals as you can and make them as spectacular as possible within a budget, so customers will be drawn in a hypnotized by them and want the same thing for their family.

More later. Sorry, this Irish Whiskey is kicking my butt lol Im about to open a 18-year old Scotch hahaha
 
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Very few fish only pet stores can survive in today's economy. Stores in my area that have been around forever have been closing left and right. If you do open a store, make sure you have plenty of capital. You constantly need to buy new stock. Hobbyists don't want to see last weeks fish.
 
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joe jaskot said:
Very few fish only pet stores can survive in today's economy. Stores in my area that have been around forever have been closing left and right. If you do open a store, make sure you have plenty of capital. You constantly need to buy new stock. Hobbyists don't want to see last weeks fish.
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From your fingertips to God's ears....awesome advice.
 
How about a few more details first before to help us give you advice? eg.,

- do you want to be a LPS or a LFS only?
- how's competition in your area
- have you got a good supply chain/breeder network?
- are you importing them yourself? need a big operation to do this.
- do you have enough capital or a good enough loan?

- what kind of fish are you going to stock? personally, you are asking MFK'ers so you are going to get biased answers. we like big fish by definition. that means cichlids, esp new world, and ancient fishes and big catfish. it would be awesome to have a specialty store stocking monster fish.
- HOWEVER, 90% of your sales are going to be to people who know very little about fish, let alone monster fish. They're going to be the dads bringing their kids in on the weekend for their first goldfish set up.
- There is limited store space and you need to work out how much turnover/profit per tank and overhead you want.

- at the end of the day, you have to balance out the high turnover from mass horde of casual, first time fish keepers who just want a cheap price and tacky goldfish bowl with decorations vs the few serious fish keepers who pay close attention to the fish welfare in your store and are willing to pay more for better quality, quarantined fish or rare fish they can't get elsewhere. these will be the people on the forum answering you and these will be your return customers. but these are only a fraction of your total customers.
 
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