Going to get rich!

[allmote]

Breeding ball pythons is easy but selling a $500 snake to sombody that thinks "Screw you man petco has them things for $40" isnt easy. Average Joes dont buy $1200 ball pythons unless you can think of a sales pitch and these days its "Buy this guy and breed your own to make your money back". Breeding normal and albinos wil most likely make more money then what most people consider "Hi dallor" morphs.

[TripleMoonsExotic]

A friend of mine opened an exotics store in Manhattan (Uptown Birds, LLC) a few months ago and if I remember correctly, his total cost to get everything up and running (rent, lawyers, contractors, display, products, animals, etc) was in the $250k range.

[Schlyne]

You may want to branch out and keep a few arachnids/other insects around for sale as well. There's a few of us out there with both. Be sure you get knowledgeable or hire somebody who is though.

[Jenn]

A friend of mine has owned a local pet store for about ten years now. She no longer sells snakes. There just wasn't a local market for it. And the random phone call from some idiot saying "the #%@#&^$ snake you sold me last year just bit my neighbors kid" didn't help.

She quickly learned that the real money was in dog grooming and fish.

[Ginevive]

It takes a lot. My friend started up a general pet store 5 years ago, and this year she had to take on a second job and downsize a bit. She is still going, but she deals mainly in fish/tank supplies, and the local walmart has beat on her sales badly. She can't sell things for as cheaply as the big box stores do.. yet she does do well enough to float the store, even if it does not really make her money (her husband works fulltime too.) They also run a farm, and that in itself is more of a labor of love these days as far as I can see, Not a way to make money.
BUT there are niches out there. I know of another couple who opened a shop in Buffalo and they deal mainly with reptiles. And they are doing good! However both of them have outside jobs (he makes quite a bit of money at his fulltime job) and I have never exactly asked him for his financial info! But they are doing great and getting into breeding. If you want to do this, my advice would e to do it without expecting to make huge $$, but with the Internet, hey, you could drastically augment things in that department. I personally would count on most snake sales to be online. Like Jenn just said.. my friend has trouble moving snakes out of her store, and that coupled with people's relative ignorance on them locally, pushed her to not really sell them. She'll take them in on consignment but does not breed or order them in. Yet, she is also not big on internet herp selling, so if you are and you have a snazzy website and a steller rep on forums like this.. there you go!

[Coins]

And the random phone call from some idiot saying "the #%@#&^$ snake you sold me last year just bit my neighbors kid" didn't help.

To which my reply would be, did you not realize you bought a snake?



Anyway, I think it would be a fun endeavor to open a pet store. However, if I was in the OP's shoes, I would hold off until at least the election or this soon to be recession is over.