Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am on a search for any pros and cons to owning a pet store. If anyone has any info or expertise in this area. Im in the planning stages and need more facts. Thanks

If you are considering a "reptiles only" pet store, I think that's a mistake.

Reptiles are still a "specialty", and once everyone on your side of town has what they need, then where are you? You can saturate a small market FAST.

That's why the internent and this site in particular is a much better way to sell herps. You reach such a large market.

If you want to do a pet store, my advice is do a complete pet store.

Have some reptiles of course, but stick mainly to the species that are known to do well and are easy to care for (corn snakes, cal kings, leopard geckos, beardies, etc)

Stay away from anything that is going to bring you trouble (like huge constrictors, venomous, and harder to care for species)

In the long run you'll be glad. People will blame YOU if you sell them an animal that dies or hurts someone. If people come TO YOU looking for other species, talk to them and make a judgement call by customer if you think they can handle it. You don't want the bad PR that comes with lots of animals that die in people's homes.

It's hard to mesh love for the animals with a need to SELL them.
I hope you'll educate customers and try to sell them only what they can "handle", but...in a retail store, you have to cover costs and make profit or you go under.

Another note: Pet stores make most of their money on SUPPLIES (cages, cage set ups, food, bedding, feeder animals...etc etc)

You have to sell the animals to attract people, but the real money comes in taking care of the people who already have the pets. Far too many private pet stores over look this and try to deal mainly in animals. Huge mistake.

But...You really should consider being diversified, even if you "specialize" in herps.

I've had lots of buddies go under trying to just sell herps.

Good luck, and be one of "the good" pet stores, ok???

Dean Alessandrini

yeah, fish and fish supplies seem to generate decent revenue constantly. good luck..........

I too had thought of setting up a store within the next few years... and you make a lot of great points. Thanks!
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"Been there done that"
Canrivorous plant and Herp specialist
Ask me a question, I guarantee an answer.
May not be the answer to your question but it will be an answer.

It is true that better business sense comes with taking care of your customers. When owning a petstore you are in business to help people with owning and caring for pets. Diversity in dogs, cats, fish and herps will better your chances but make sure that whichever animal leaves the store the owner also has a book in his hand... and a cage, proper heating, lighting, substrate, food ect. This means profit. This means customer service. This means the pet has the best chances of a long and happy life.
I agree that with herps, stick to the easy to keep animals. Anything more will push the limits of a small business owner in many ways. (high overhead and higher liability).

Also and very important, are your employees. Any business should be able to florish and grow even if you decide to take 6 months off (after you're set up that is). This also ensures better customer service and more profit. An animal health technologist or vet. tech on staff does increase your overhead but should pay off ten-fold in your gross. For the long term, avoid the teenage highschool staff. They are meant as part time help, but your core staff should be loyal and hooked on pets themselves (this again means higher overhead when you pay more for the core staff and show your loyalty to them)
Good luck with your endeavor

Your fascination with reptiles may soon end when they become your income. If you enjoy herps as a hobby, don't destroy your hobby making it a business.

Most of your customers you will want to throttle. You'll be spending 2 hours selling an anole to a worried mom for her 7 year old son who will bring it back in a week because her son forgot to feed it - ever - and she wants her money back.

If you want to make money enough to live on you won't make decisions based on your opinions, you'll make them based on market analysis. Do you like pouring over tables of demographic data?

If you love animals, you will find yourself making uncomfortable compromises in order to make a profit.

Thats just my opinion.....

Joe

n/p
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I do understand that there is work associated with a store that has to be done and all is not fun stuff. That theoretical lady that you sold the anole after two hours should have known everything about how to keep anoles after two hours in store that cared to show her.(That is why I want to start a pet store, not many stores I have seen care about educating their customers). It might have been a hard sell but your customers will show appriciation by either returning or telling others about how well they were treated. If her anole died soon after she bought it that might not be her fault and replacing it is not going to break your budget. When the animal is returned find out why it died and tell the customer how to keep it from happening again. If it was something a lot more expensive make sure you have a return policy. Have a large selection of books and sell her one with the pet. Even a simple free phamplet on reptile care might help. The number one thing you or your employees should never recomend an expensive or hard to keep reptile to a first time buyer. Am I correct with my assumptions?

P.S. I have a B.S. degree and statistics are not nothing new or something that I hate. They are helpful tools in buisness, science, and even the pet hobby.

Will try this again.....

The sad truth to this business is that the average person cannot make the connection that pets are living things you must be responsible for. They think of them as toys and when they get bored they neglect them and /or dump them on you (it's allways your fault) or in the nearest field or toilet. Any one who doubts me can go to work in a petshop for a couple of weeks and find out. You think reptiles are exclusive? Try the dog business (Brutal). Check the pound you'll find lots of the dogs and cats you sell there.
The good news is that rare individual that knows what they are keping and will be a kid in a candy store when the new shippment comes in.
It's (retail) not a business that people who love pets last in. Not without a definite amount of soul searching.
The trick by the way is knowing what is easy to start them on that is hardy enough to survive. I personally want to kill when I see w/c Ball pythons are sold to beginners.
Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

You might love running a pet shop - I don't know you. I'm just ponting out some potential problems. Consider that you spent an hour of your time selling an animal that netted you $0.20. The another hour dealing with the customers problems. So you made $0.20 in 2 hours. Now imagine that your over head is about $20.00 per hour. You may start to panic. When you panic your attention turns from your love of the animals to just surviving. Pretty soon the animals are no longer wonderful but just commodities. you've lost a life long fascination and replaced it with a frustrating, failing business. A loss-loss situation.

On the other hand, if you do extensive market research you may identify an area of a city that is underserved, has the appropriate demographic profile (income, etc) and get a thriving business underway. Justy make sure you let the market dictate your business decisions and not your personal desires. Thats the trade off. The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Joe

Business is hard I agree, and a large percentage of petstores suck for sure. Reason enough for the many negative responses. However if your heart is set on owning a pet store and you have some business skills and lots of herp knowledge then you're off to the races. If not on your resume it might be a good idea to first work in a reputable petshop just to scope the business out for the do's and don'ts. Also contact some very successfull pet shops that arn't in competition with you (like Pro Exotics) and use them as a mentor. They are strictly herps, however you can see that they use animal breeding and product endorsements to broaden their income. At first they may brush you off (there really is a lot of novices with lots of talk and no action), but with respect and A1 intentions, you may find an awesome mentor.

Don't do it- you may love reptiles and be an excellent owner but selling reptiles to the public is very frustrating and often dissapointing- you get the "well I'm not paying $60 bucks for all the supplies when the lizard only costs $10, can't I just keep it in this old fishbowl I had in my basement? What, it needs a heat lamp? That's okay I'll sit it in the window it will get heated from the sun. It eats crickets? Well I'll catch them in the yard. Etc. Etc." Then it dies and either 1. they are pi**ed and want a full refund or 2. They are happy because the kid has already lost interest in it and now they don't have to deal with it! Its sad.....

And the serious reptile owners rarely frequent shops- they are usually saavy enought o use mail order, internet and reptile shows to get everything they need cheaper than at a mom and pop store that has to charge more to cover rent, utilities, accountant fees, payroll, insurance, taxes, inventory, overhead etc.

Joe's right in many respects. When you have a big lease and loans, and overheads it's the bottom line or else! In that aspect, a home business greatly reduces the overhead and also takes some of the pressure off of you. Many would be pet store owners move into becoming serious animal breeders. Without the pressure you don't need to take [bleep] from clients either. Mind you some breeders are still in it for the profit, and a very small minority will make a good living, you can slowing establish yourself while keeping a day job while you still need it.

IMO

Buisness is buisness. Unless you have an established breeding facility that produses a variety of species, than youre going to end up falling prey to the importers and wholesale WC/CB market just like the reast of the pet stores out there. I dont see how someone who claims to be an animals lover can have this kind of a pet store and live with themselves.

If you wanna educate the public on reptile care, than teach, and do eduactional demonstrations. If you wanna provide the public with quality pets, than provide CBB reptiles. Maybe once youre established in those two avenues, you can give yourself a name, and open a "buisness". Maybe have staff trained to do eduactional demonstrations at b-day parties and other events. Meanwhile, you could sell your CBB critters, along with feeders, and other pet accessories at your store.

Hmmmmm... Maybe Ill do that someday.

I would take advice of some, but not all the things they say. Stick to simple animals? like corns? ERR. Wrong-both. Be able to sell a Diamond python for 600 and an corn for 20. Theres about three reptile stores near me that have way more specialized pythons than typical crap (corns balls). They have more bloods, and carpets and white lips etc. Interestingly, reptile stores are very low overhead actually. Think about it- you breed your own food for free for the snakes. Rat food costs money. Small price to pay, very small I do it. Your reptiles are free if your a BREEDER. Many stores, like East bay vivarium could probably be making a LOT more money if they actually bred their crap. But they buy and re-sell. I would like to have a store, someday when I have a large breeding collection. I certainly would rather buy a 1000$ timor python from a local store than over the internet any day of the week. You can examine it, and get a feel for it. I wouldnt listen to these guys too much. Also, if you have a store you can still sell online!! look at LLL and East bay vivarium. Meanwhile these guys are saying its hard, and stick to basics, and do everything, not just herps. Well it looks like LLL is actually DOING it than thinking about it. ALL reptiles, not typical dog food crap. People go to petco for that.
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Many feel that I need to be balanced with equal time. Wrong. I AM equal time.

-Rush Limbaugh, 1992

What exactly is "BS"?
Overhead such as electricity, and the cost of either bying the property, or leasing it, are not cheap by anymeans. Most stores actually buy their mice to resale and feed their own stock on. -At least the smaller stores.
LLL and Pro Exotics sell WC as well as CB and a little CBB; much more of the first two though.
There are MANY dynamics to running a buisness. Its not as simple as you may invision. Not to mention, its a cutthroat industry. Ive seen litteral "pet shop wars". As pitiful as it sounds, stores will intentionally try to sabotage each other; from calling animal control, to sending "spies" to their competetors stores to let animals loose, and generally cause trouble. Im being dead serious. Ive seen all this ridiculus behaviour with my own eyes.

Im not saying your not getting an overhead at all, but its much lower than other businesses. A camera store has to buy cameras, and use electricity to run them. A python breeder store gets his snakes for free since he breeds them and has to pay for electricity. See what im saying? Of course you have to pay for heating, but with my new panels the cost of running them has literally been slashed (as opposed to lightbulbs). Im just trying to point out that its a much lower cost than most businesses that buy and re-sell. If you have a vast breeding collection, and you can prove to the bank that you have breed and made a reasonable profit, and have something to go by (demographics) getting a loan isnt impossible. Thats the key, getting the loan. Oh BS means bull [bleep]. As long as you can breed and sell your store could be thriving, and demographics help. Your not going to open a store in South whitley indiana, where the people hold there money with their life. You would open up in say, Springfield MA where money is plentiful yet property and its taxes are in reach. Also, you say that most of LLL and stuff is WC, then why are they still thriving? Im not saying your lying, but wouldnt every one come back [bleep]ing saying they sold them a sick snake, since it would probably have internal parasites?
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Many feel that I need to be balanced with equal time. Wrong. I AM equal time.

-Rush Limbaugh, 1992

I hate to say this for fear of promoting the stick trade, but here goes. Many WC/CB animals acclimate just fine, and settle in without too much difficulty. If you think about it, they(the retailers) have thousands to choose from. These animals are MASS imported, so the larger stores, that are regular patrons of the importers get the pick of the lot. Naturally they select the healthiest looking ones. CB is a HUGE epidemic as well. CB does NOT = CBB. CB means to merely harvest eggs so that they may be hatched in captivity; a.k.a. captive born. Look at your tens of thousands of baby monitors and snakes each spring. You dont think that these were CBB, do you?

Just because a snake looks nice doesnt mean its not going to have internal parasites up the ass. Just because the dealers are the same, and they have a wide variety doesnt mean that the particular snake they caught doesn have mites and ticks which can suck the life right out of a snake.

You can believe that these dealers are captive breeding all their stock if you want... That would be nice if it were like that, sadly though, the reality of the situation is that MOST of the critters you see being sold are not CBB.

Im refering to the animals that are being sold at the retailers you mentioned....

Unfortunatly I have to agree that the large majority are wild caught, or in some species captive born. This is a tragedy especially when captive breeding is so successfull with many of these animals. It just seems a waste when the value of captive bred is not seen in the consumer (you get what you pay for). As for the business side though, if you can import a snake for 2-3 bucks (average when thousands bought and a dollar goes a long way in Africa) and sell it for 35-50 then your making money (but how can your conscience deal I don't know). Wild caught animals can, and are acclimated, however from what I've seen, the importers deal with a lot more complaints than companies dealing with captive bred.
Both businesses are viable, however with the captive bred's it is near impossible to have the breeding stock for your self (not enough to supply a store with variable species at all times of the year). You still end up "importing" animals, but from breeders.

retail oriented businesses calculate profits or losses by the amount of dollars they make per year compared to square footage of the store. If you are housing an adult pair of boas in a six foot by three foot cage-18 sq foot all year long, just to breed to make about fifty bucks per baby(unless you want them to sit in your store for longer periods of time). Depending on what you are paying rent wise, whether it's $10 or $15 per square foot, you really aren't making much money off of the 1000 dollars or so, from the babies, since you are spending a couple of hundred dollars a year for the square footage that the adults occupy, not to mention electrical/heating costs. IF you were to somehow run a successful retail business, the smart thing to do would to buy cheap animals in(from importers) and turn a significant profit(sandfish for $40). Whichever way you look at it, you just aren't going to be profitable, or even be able to support yourself.

BM

I disagree. You state that reptile specialty stores have very low overhead??? Breeding your own feeders just isn't gonna cover it. Reptiles require heat, hence pricey electric bills, there's always rent, supplies, salaries, and what most people fail to recognize is INSURANCE. THis can cost an arm and a leg; for what happens if you do not have insurance, and a child is bitten by one of your corn snakes, or better yet, timor python, you would ultimately be sued, and life as you know it would become an everlasting life of servitude, paying someone for the rest of your life, unfortunately, this is the world we live in. Insurance for this type of thing can be expensive and is a must. You also have to realize that, granted, there are new reptile keepers born everyday, and there are many 'alumni' as well, however, the majority of your clientel is unfortunately going to be walk in, impulse bought traffic which is generated from the supermarket which you located yourself next to. These people are not going to be buying 800 dollar timor pythons, they are going to stick to the cheap, tiny crap that is good enough to shut their kids mouths of "mommy, I want a reptile now!!", ie. anoles, import agamas, garter/ribbonsnakes, etc. These do not generate a strong revenue, do they? I agree that reptile specialty shops do have a strong base of knowledgeable, experienced patrons, however, their pockets are not bottomless, they are not going to be making those expensive purchases, like a diamond python a week, that are needed to stay open. Also, the deeper you get into the hobby, the more dealers and breeders you become aware of, especially as for feeders. Why on earth would anybody want to pay 1.50 per pinky for their hatchling mandarin ratsnakes from a shop, when they can buy them directly from a breeder for .15 a piece. Same thing goes for captive bred animals, why would somebody pay 375 dollars for a baby albino green burmese python, when you can buy breeder direct for only 140 bucks or so. With this said, I now think that almost all of your business will come from the unknowledgeable, inexperienced keepers, people who as a hobbyist, you probably cringed at, and now you are selling them your most prized, expensive, rare animals. So basically, I do not justify a reptile shop as being profitable, unless they are doing extracorricular activities/programs, like outreaches, birthday parties, television appearances, vivarium design, etc. There is just no way to compete with the explosion of online herp trading by selling ribbon snakes and sandfish to unsuspecting customers and the occasional 7.00 medium rat. So, when you are saying that reptile shops have low overhead, I think you should rethink all of the variables... I would recommend that if you were wantign to get into the business of selling quality animals, you should breed them yourself, this eliminates most of the "overhead" aside from electricity, and feeding costs.. Take care, I hope this helps finalize your decision.

BM

you also have to take supply and demand into account. I already see an oversaturation of the market with certain animals. There is only a limited number of the population who will or currently keeps herps. Granted it is growing, but not enough to support the obscene number of animals being produced or imported. This industry has gotten soooo big, and I predict that some portions of it will simply bottom out in the years to come. People continue to produce sulcatta tortoises, yet there are thousands of unwanted ones floating around the country, and don't get me started witht the whole green iguana thing. YOu will reach out to your clientel, but they are only limited as to the number of animals they can/will keep. What do you do when, there is nobody left to buy more animals from you?? They already have four bearded dragons, a pair of corn snakes, an albino burmese, a uromastyx, and a green iguana... SUpply is becoming greater than the demand, when this happens, prices fall, and markets crash.. There will no longer be a demand for your "specialty shop". Just my .03....lol

BM

I live close to EBV and go there many times a year. They do breed things and have a wide range of items and herps from the basics to rares like Croc Monitors,Rhino Iguanas,etc. It's a popular store some times I've seen people waiting outside the store before it even opens!
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"Been there done that"
Canrivorous plant and Herp specialist
Ask me a question, I guarantee an answer.
May not be the answer to your question but it will be an answer.

You will work long hours, you will work your ass off, and deal with crappy retail customers, and you will never be rich. But, if you love the industry and the animals, and you do indeed work hard, you will be successful. Don't specialize in your area unless there is no competition, and your market is very large...like a major city....

T~

Except personally, I would start out online. Start breeding your own reptiles and getting a name for yourself. Once you've been online long enough (and advertise your site) chances are anybody around your area that's in to herps will know about your site and then it will be easier to open your store.

I'm going to do the same thing. Going to open a reptile shop.. it's going to be a long, hard process, but all I can say is Look at LLL Reptile and Pro Exotics. They did it, so can you!

Hi,
I have owned a reptile shop myself for a few years here in Holland. It is hard, hard work and you will find out that the wish to work with animals won't come true. I worked hard to keep my head above water. I stopped because I found myself more behind papers and solving problems than be with animals. Now I try to breed snakes in my home and I have to admit I feel a lot better. I can pay all the attention I want to my animals. No sick animals from importers anymore (and all the problems around it), my animals are top of the bill, that is the way I had it in my mind all the time. Also the costs of running a shop are much more than you think. I would suggest if you have the space in your house, work from there and avoid all the stress.

Chris van Kalken
The Netherlands
Link

I worked for about 6 months for a guy who bought a pet store ( that specialized in reptiles for the most part) and he knew very little about pets or business. Assuming you had a good idea how to run a business, there are a few things to know. a) You see a lot of animals die, even in the best scenario with good competent care; so you better have a good idea how to take care of a hundred animals each with different eating needs and different enviromental needs. b) It is difficult to make a profit on selling just animals with cages, so most people have a secondary end to the business or a "cash cow" angle selling live feeders like crickets, worms, mice, rats and rabbits etc.. this becomes an entirely different buch of critters to feed and take care of. and c) to make a profit at any of it you will definately need a breeding program both for your stock and for your feeders. almost all profitable reptile stores breed stock. If you are serious about it, you have probably done some breeding on your own already and know how to sex the animals, incubate eggs etc... finally d) know your animals laws. You can encounter big fines for having some animals in your store especially in California where there are many protected species and also the health department can shut you down quick if you don't run a clean shop and take care of the animals and in some cases it is not legal to breed the animals in the store. Many places frown on breeding rats anywhere. But on the upside, its pretty fun.