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.
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