Have you ever worked in the industry? Steven Pro did a lecture on this & he must have said at least 5x to be sure to work in a LFS for a year or 2.
Wanna run a retail aquarium Store (LFS)?
- Thread starter ---XR---
- Start date
Pufferpunk;1902766; said:
no i havent worked in the industry hence it is still a dream and i am not by any means ready to start such a large task. still lots to learn and much research to do. it may never take off but i will look into it at the very least.
i am also very aware that selling/trading fish cannot be the sole means of income. from my understanding you must branch into other aspects of the hobby to generate a reasonable income, internet sales as an example.
I've worked in the industry and the dream can easily become a nightmare. You really need a hook of some kind to make a go of it. this shop at glance seems to be a tight efficient store but I wonder why it's for sale and how nice it would look in person. being across the street from Wally World is hardly a good thing since they sell lots of cut rate Pet Supplies it would be difficult to compete with. It could be done but it would take a big infusion of capital over and above the asking price and a good idea of what you need to do to draw in business. (Maybe a topless staff?, thinking of the last pet shop I visited maybe not eewwww, these days it would have to be an extreme hook to make it! I did visit a pet shop like that in NYC about 40 years ago and it didn't stay long either!) With the economy tanking I would have to think long and hard if I had money to invest before I would invest it in a pet shop.
cichlid2006;1902332; said:I have a dream of doing this but i fear it may be more than i could handle alone, but i do have a wife that has said she will do her share to make it successful so i am not going it alone as she likes the idea of an aquatic/small furries (no live dogs/cats/birds/reptiles) store too. but it will stock supplies for reptiles as well due to some items being very close to aquatic supplies.
ahhh the dream.....
Keep it a dream. I had a close friend that did the same thing about 10 years ago. This was before all the big coorporate places got entrenched. He had a great store. Good stuff. Sold birds as well. At first, his wife was by his side helping him every day. Then as months passed by, and customer traffic was still very low, his wife stopped coming.. after all.. with only 1 or 2 people in the store at a time, no need to have her there.
The poor guy eventually had to file for bankruptcy about a year after the store opened..
Opening a LFS has got to be one of the hardest businesses to get into. The chain stores sell fish cheaper. The internet sells equipment and dry goods cheaper. It's just difficult to get an established customer base. Not to mention that fishkeepers tend to be big cheapskates.
paulW;1903673; said:
There is a thread going right now about that right now. The guy was a total cry baby because the owner wouldn't give him $5 off an already good negotiated price. Yes, the owner had negotiate down from his shelf price.
Additionally, there are no cars in the parking lot and zero customers in the store. When you buy a business, it is typical to pay for the inventory plus one years gross sales. The guy didn't mention what his sales were like...
...It is a bail out!!!
