Hi!



How many of us have thought about doing this? I know I have!

We keep thinking about doing the reptile/fish thing... it is

hard tho. I have seen quite a few fish stores here and in the

Bay Area open and close, open and close. They are hard. You

have to hope to build up a good name for youself as having

something people want. In our case we are into the fresh water

cichlids (tankbusters) and would specialize in those. Other

stores specialize in salt water and are known in the community

to be the place to go for salt water even if the other stores

that specialize in fresh water also carry salt. I will mention

that the fish stores we go to that have stayed open the longest

and have the biggest following are the ones that have illegal

fish. (you know, depending on the area, fresh water stingrays,

snakeheads, alligator gars, gold arrowanas, etc) and they usually

also seem to always see 2-4" baby turtles.. But what I mean

is those stores seem to have the biggest draw becuase they

always have "something hidden in the back room". Then they

get busted by fish and game and either shut down or in the

case of a local store here, take out all the illegal stuff and

now they are hardly ever busy anymore. *shrug*



One of the big points I was going to make when I started this

thread... is how about also offering other pet foods? How

about typical cat and dog food, like science diet, or other

higher brand name foods. That way you can get the usual buyers

that have more 'typical' pets coming in regularly which may help

suppliment the income (I know I would LOVE to buy my dog's food

at a mom&pop stores instead of from petSHMo). I used to talk

regularly with the owners of the sunnyvale reptiles store in

CA and they made a bulk of their income from selling the

reptile feeders, again, repeat customers buying food formed

the base of their steady income.



Also big displays are real eye catchers and bring people back.

Ever been to Prehistoric Pets in SoCal (orange co?) They have

a huge water dragon/basilisk display as well as a huge koi

pond where for a few dollars the kids can feed the fish. It's

a huge draw. now, I am not a big fan of the store itself

per-say or the dealings I had with the employees there, but I

haven't been there in 5 years and maybe they have improved or

at least got some better employees by now.



Maybe do a deal with a cage builder (barrs? boaphile?) and stock

the *good* cages instead of just glass reptariums, critter

keeps and cham. condos.



Having the common stuff is good, esp colubrids, kings, corns,

maybe pine and gophers, I would see people buy these more often

than boas or the bigger pythons. Also as BCIJOE stated, the

insects are good too, sunnyvale pets also had a big spider

section which was pretty popular.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, I hope I didn't ramble too much! lol

-April

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