I want to start a petstore...BUT

For years I have wanted to be a corrections officer. after doing my schooling and training and so on, I figured out its not what I really want to do with my life forever. My bodys been made weak by being sick that Im just not to thrilled about it anymore. One day it hit me, I have loved Animals in general for many years and take pride in all of my varietys. I decided one day I want to open a great petstore. All we have in my town are petsmarts and petcos....and ONE small petstore that doesnt have good ratings at all. (a little petstore in the mall who overcrowds all their tanks and has no room for anyone) Also the closest place to get bigger cichlids and bigger breeds of fish is across the river and in another state, the middle of down town portland oregon. Which makes me wonder. Is the reason there isnt ANYTHING good up here because it just wouldnt work and this one place got lucky? And I was also thinking about selling different varities of BPs. I know they wont sell like hotcakes and I would be totally fine with holding onto some in my store for long periods of time. But I just dont know how that would all work out. Can someone who maybe knows a thing or two about this point me in the right direction to figure some of this out. Im prepared to go back to school and get some management and buisness owning classes but for right now, thats all I know I need to do...please help

I would love to have a pet/herp store. My husband and I have talked about it before. I just wonder how much money would really be in it. It sure would be fun though. Good luck if you do it! :gj:

Hell, I know that one! I worked thoroughbreds until I got sick. Chemo kicked my ass and now I'm absolutely bent on running a herp shop or something of the like. Where do you live? I have a lot of local shops and breeders who share a lot of valuable information.

I also work at an accounting firm. I suggest you learn your book keeping first. Calculate high and predict income small. Subtract money for everything, including what you pay yourself. Nothing is free but profit is more than attainable with the right amount of will power, practicality, fiscal savvy and willingness to make the right decision, even if it doesn't yield the most immediate profit.

the idea is cool,,, BUT, you cant tell a potential "customer" NO, I cant/wont sell to you.
There are only certian people that I would sell to (for the most part), so I couldent let go of one of my animals to a crack head. Unless you are willing to give up your animals to sub-par people, your gonna have to come to terms with the fact that your letting money (your rent) walk out the door. Every time I go into a pet store, I think to myself, "theres no way I would sell an animal to those people". maby Im just too picky,,,,,, thats why I dont have a pet store,..
spooky

I wanted to open my own for a while as well.
You would have to save up money for quite some time.
I currently work for a herp shop in Largo. (which i might add is the pet herp shop i have ever been to. ;) ) You wont be making much money in the first one or two years.
The electric bill will be sky high for sure. Getting your name out there and having a clean shop is good. You have to know products like the back of your hand, whats in them. How they are used and what you can recommend to people for their animals. You must be knowledgeable in all aspects of reptiles. Taking zoology will help out a lot, also getting books helps. You don't want to own a shop and not know about frogs or turtles, or what someone should do to kill ants without killing their spiders. Be friends with a herp vet close by so you can take your animals and customers animals, buisness for him/her and you.

You also need to get a feel for the area you decide to put your shop. You cant go and get a $500 snake to sell, and if you were to hold onto the more expensive animals to sell. You might be losing money on it. Who knows how long you will have that animal for and the feeding cost. Most people do not want to spend that much. Cheaper animals sell a lot better. Our corn snakes go like mad men.
It helps to take some type of vet schooling or tech. If your animals get sick you want to know how to help them. Specially if you get anything farm bred plus if you catch anything from other people's animals coming into the shop or people even just holding them.
Most of your money you will get is from feeders. so you would have have to build a room just for rodents, crickets, worms.
Dealing with the your suppliers will suck to. XP Making sure your tank orders are not cracked and broken when you get them.

There is way much more. But that is what i have notice from working in a herp shop. The day to day cleaning we do is crazy. Takes me 4 hours each day to clean everyone's cage :] But boy is our shop clean and the animals well kept. ahah
It is all about learning what you can and having a team of reptiles lovers that will make you go far.

That's what I'm in school for: to own my own exotic petshop (I was wanting to do auto body and repair but I'm more passionate about animals and exotics). I would recommend doing what you mentioned: go to school for a management degree (I'll be done next semester with mine - whoo!) and take some small business ownership classes as well (I'm also going to work on getting my Small Business Certificate). If you can talk to an actual petshop owner I would do that too: maybe they can tell you how to go about opening, operating, and starting up a business. Perhaps gauging interest in your area would be a good idea too (to see how much interest there would be in the products - animals- you'd be selling). Good luck!

The thing I have thats handy to me, is my boyfriend and his sister, both worked in a store called "the pet gallery" They were both laid off cause the store was closing down cause the boss stopped caring, but they both got excited when I told them my plans. and they both said they would help out around there as much as possible. My boyfriend and I are the Google of the house. I enjoy researching things I love, So I have researched tons about atleast the animals I own (snakes, turtles, fish, cats, dogs, rats, even pot belly pigs lol)

My area By the way in Southern Washington state (vancouver to be exact)

This is actually a big relief that people on here think this would be possible. It makes me feel like I can actually do this. I know its going to take years and will probably make me gray before i know it. But I do know that i wouldnt get into selling puppies and kittens because they makes me sad to see free animals like that in a cage.

Where would I begin to even start looking for supplies for a Herp store? Will I learn this schooling? Im getting kind of pumped for this. :D "I think I can I think I can"

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Originally Posted by pinkeye714

Most of your money you will get is from feeders. so you would have have to build a room just for rodents, crickets, worms.

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This is a very important point! Selling a $100 Pastel BP is one thing. Selling rats (Live or F/T) to that BP owner for years to come is how you pay the rent and keep the lights on.

Be the shop in town that always has clean and healthy feeders, and herp owners will beat a path to your door. You won't have to beat the internet retailers on price, you just have to beat them on price + shipping. A much easier task.

I don't know how much it will help but Mike Wilbanks from Constrictors Unlimited did a short video on the BP business you might want to check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrHO...20FAAAAAAAADAA

He also said in the video that he is going to have a DVD coming out that explains alot about the business.

Hope it helps.

A pet store is alot more then just selling or working with the animals you like. The problem with opening a pet store especially in an area where big box stores like petco and petsmart is surviving. This is why most small pet stores have gone the way of the dodo bird. Same thing happened to hardware stores when home depots and lowes came about. Location is key for any good retail establishment. Therefore price of lease is crazy expensive. Also the general pet store public arent aware of the ball python market so selling morphs would be difficult. One thing to get into if doing a pet store would be saltwater fish. There is a way bigger market for general public sales with saltwater. Most big pet stores dont fool with saltwater stuff so you would be able to corner the market on it. Also dry goods is important but it would be very hard to compete against petco and petsmart on that. In order to be succesful you will need to move product fast. Again this will be hard with the big box stores in your area.

I personally would like to have my own exotic shop one day. By I know that it requires a lot of upfront money to start and you have to offer things that chain store don't. And with all pet store, supplies and food are your money makes not the animals. That's why my local Petland has my business. They are the only store in town that sells live mice and rats and feeders and not pets.

I wouldn't mind opening up a pet shop. I would have a DIY section, dry goods section, a reptile section, fish section (for my sister), and a large feeder section where I will have tons of rats and mice raising up for feeders!

I probably wouldn't want to carry animals with advanced husbandry (anything beyond a heat pad / heat lights / simple care)... I love monitors and big snakes, but I would keep them only for display. I might keep a pair of the advanced reptiles to raise up and possibly breed. I would sell the animals I bred myself, but I would require an application to be filled out if someone wanted to buy one. I would probably sell really cheap too, if I knew it was going to a good home :gj:.

I don't know much about the care on monitors or big snakes lol, but when the time comes (hopefully in the future!), I'm sure there will be a lot of great information on the care for those animals, and I would be able to do some good research :gj:.

Location - wealthier city with more loose money for hobbies

that is my biggest suggestion

I happen to work at a shop right beside a petsmart and petco your consumers will go there first of course but then when they have their animals die on them they will come to you. Location is everything even if the rent is triple next to a popular store or place it def makes a difference in the traffic you have in the store. It takes a lot of money to start but its def worth it in the end.

The sections I was thinking of having were Salt water fish, Fresh water fish (the basic fish and Larger sized Oscars etc) hermit crabs, small fur creatures (ferrets, guinea pigs etc) Aquatic turtles and tortises, the basic snakes(normal BPs, cornsnakes etc) then have a seperate section for the more exotic snakes. and of course, feeders.

I would probably make a questionaire befoe selling the exotics because those would be the pride of my store. I wouldnt want to just hand over a 500 dollar snake to some kid who has a tank with no heat like my roommate. (drives me nuts when I grab his BP and shes freezing cold) The questions would basically be about how they plan to house it how often they plan to feed it, do they got their own vet etc etc. my bf actually still has one from his old job at the petstore he managed. And I will probably use that as a guide.

Salt water here is very slim. You have petco (which I will never buy from there, who drops a fish and still sells it to you?!) and the small petstore in the mall and they mainly have sea urchines and nemo fish. (and the ocassional sick seahorse.) And my boyfriend has been ranting the last year or so that he wants a saltwater fish tank but I wont let him have one cause that would mean getting rid of my oscar (george) or getting rid of my R.E.S turtles. So this could be his way of getting a saltwater tank.

I think if I ever got a pieballed BP I would probably have in on display. I want one so bad but just cant afford it right now :(

I know I will learn alot more when I start to take these classes. It might be a little while cause I want to enjoy summer with my 18 month old ha. But I really do hope that I can do this. My son loves Animals just as much as I do. And Id really love it if he grew up around a petstore.

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Originally Posted by Zoos.at.my.pad

The sections I was thinking of having were Salt water fish, Fresh water fish (the basic fish and Larger sized Oscars etc) hermit crabs, small fur creatures (ferrets, guinea pigs etc) Aquatic turtles and tortises, the basic snakes(normal BPs, cornsnakes etc) then have a seperate section for the more exotic snakes. and of course, feeders.

I would probably make a questionaire befoe selling the exotics because those would be the pride of my store. I wouldnt want to just hand over a 500 dollar snake to some kid who has a tank with no heat like my roommate. (drives me nuts when I grab his BP and shes freezing cold) The questions would basically be about how they plan to house it how often they plan to feed it, do they got their own vet etc etc. my bf actually still has one from his old job at the petstore he managed. And I will probably use that as a guide.

Salt water here is very slim. You have petco (which I will never buy from there, who drops a fish and still sells it to you?!) and the small petstore in the mall and they mainly have sea urchines and nemo fish. (and the ocassional sick seahorse.) And my boyfriend has been ranting the last year or so that he wants a saltwater fish tank but I wont let him have one cause that would mean getting rid of my oscar (george) or getting rid of my R.E.S turtles. So this could be his way of getting a saltwater tank.

I think if I ever got a pieballed BP I would probably have in on display. I want one so bad but just cant afford it right now :(

I know I will learn alot more when I start to take these classes. It might be a little while cause I want to enjoy summer with my 18 month old ha. But I really do hope that I can do this. My son loves Animals just as much as I do. And Id really love it if he grew up around a petstore.

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Unfortunately, as a business owner that's something you'll have to learn to deal with. Like previously stated, you can't watch your bills walk out the door. Best thing you can do and hope for is to educate the buyer in proper care to the best of your ability.

Running a pet store honestly seems like a terrible job for an animal lover IMO. You'd really need to learn to disassociate your feelings with business.

It would be a lot of fun to start a pet store. My fiance and I have also talked about it and would love to do it. I'm just afraid of how much money it would take to start and how it may not work out. Around here there are pretty much only chain pet store, and the "mom and pop" pet stores are dirty and slowly close down.

I personally wouldnt be able to do it. Im planning on breeding my bps next fall and i am already thinking about how hard its gunna be selling them to people i really dont know. I know ill have to because i wont have room to keep all of them, but its something ive already considered. I cant imagine running a whole petstore...
Not for me, but best of luck to you!

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Originally Posted by dart

Unfortunately, as a business owner that's something you'll have to learn to deal with. Like previously stated, you can't watch your bills walk out the door. Best thing you can do and hope for is to educate the buyer in proper care to the best of your ability.

Running a pet store honestly seems like a terrible job for an animal lover IMO. You'd really need to learn to disassociate your feelings with business.

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To some extent, I agree with this, however, I've also seen the opposite work. When I first got into snakes, I went to a small, local pet store looking for a snow corn. The reason that I, and everyone else in town almost, went to that store again and again was because they cared. They bred their own snakes and geckos but would refuse sales to people they didn't feel right about. Granted, it's a fine line. They also got business because they would stop what they were doing and chat with you about any questions you had regarding animals. Because of that, people felt comfortable coming to them with questions even after buying the animal which generally turned into 'oh, I need feeders while I'm here.' If your accounting is good, you run a quality shop, and are a people person, it can work even if you turn away the occasional crazy guy who wants the snake so he can look 'macho'. The rapport you create with your clientele is the most important thing in the world to a small business. That's what will make them come to you instead of the big box store. I would also recommend looking into the local chamber of commerce and any herp clubs in the area. It's good advertising and only takes some time.

It is a bad idea to start a pet store if your a hobbyist. It will burn you out and you wont enjoy it. I got myself in a similar situation 5 years ago. Im a bow bunting freak. I mean i seriouslly eat and sleep it. About 5 years ago i took over my cousins outfitting buisness in maine. Although i kept the staff i also was adament about being very much involved even though i live in virginia. So the plan was set. Come bear season i would spend the month there and run things hands on and when moose and deer season comes in ill be back and fourth. Pretty killer gig for a big hunting enthusiast right? Wrong. I was so busy working for my clients and taking care of buisness i only got to hunt myself 3 times. Every year since then i handle things from a far. We are now revamping to include waterfowl and other things so we are taking this season off. Moral of the story. Dont do your hobby as a full time job. It wont be as fun as ya thought it would be.

It will be hard, stressful, and will require a large investment of money.
Also, plan in advance for people to try to rip you off--one of the big complaints I've seen from specialty stores is all the thieves who come in to try to steal high value animals.