i want to open a reptile shop.

[Athravan]

Originally Posted by Palmanda

I am fairly sure you will need a City and Guilds in pet shop management to be issued with a pet shop license.

I am just starting to study for mine, I think you may also be shocked on how much it costs to get started in your own buisness......I know i was!!!

Good Luck

Only a very small handful of councils have implemented this clause ... and most of them do not require you to have it, they require you to show evidence of working on having it... ie. I got my license by just showing the acceptance letter on the course, I have not yet taken the exams.

The hardest step is really to figure out your budget, with a good solid business plan - and then figure out supply and demand, costs... everything, and then you have to ask - where is this money coming from? You might be able to do it for 10k.. but do you have a liquid sum of 10k cash? If not, you will have to get a loan, or borrow from someone, or go into partnership with someone who has it.

[madaboutreptiles]

My local council have insisted that I have the C&G beofre they grant the license which is ok for me.. I wish I could get set up for 10K, in oder to maximise profits I need to buy in large quantities from the wholesalers (as you will already know)
this is just so I can compete with internet sales

[Plutino]

tbh it's hard to compete on the common things unless you breed yourself or have a friend who breeds and gives you good discounts. Wholesalers, while they do the bulk, have to buy from breeders anyway if it's CB and make their profit before selling to shops. There are many species of lizard and invert that are only available CF or WC which a shop might stock from a wholesaler, but tbh if all you sell is from wholesalers, you're going to get a bad rep for only having CF/WC, and most things that come in you're going to have to hold onto for longer to ensure it's healthy. As far as I've seen, all the more successfull shops breed at least BD, Leos, and either corns or boas or both, or have connections direct to breeders.

[madaboutreptiles]

for livestock i will certainly buy direct from the breeders here in the UK. Its the hardware that will cost as you can really only get good discounts for bulk purchases i.e Eurorep
everyone likes to get a good deal on their equipment so buying from the internet is the way to go but I can see this is killing the smaller shops who just cannot compete. if the small shops dissapear and the selling of reptiles on the internet gets banned it will e a big blow for the hobby

[Plutino]

I don't think internet sales can ever take over from pet shops. It'll always be hard to compete with a business that has a fraction of your overhead, but I think people understand that when buying from these online shops, unless they've developed a very positive reputation over the years, you don't know what you're getting, you don't see the animal beforehand, no advice is given in person. It's perhaps fine for the hobyists who know what they're doing and know where to look for what, but a lot of our business is from new keepers or people who want to actually see and handle something before taking it home. Need to be competitive, but I think people understand that a lot of these internet only sites order in specifically from wholesalers just to ship out again to the customer in 24 hours, with no quarentine or guarantee the animal is healthy. For equipment, I think anyone who's at all intenet savvy will look online for the best deal, and on some things it's not worth trying to compete unless you have a huge budget for startup AND a large stockroom.
Best to cover the basics of everything that the animals will need. You'll find people will want full setups anyway regardless of if they can search around online for a slightly better price. If people decide to go with ceramics instead of heat mats, or bulbs with heat and UV instead of one for each, unless you're quite large, the prices online are often about the same as what you can get them in for.

[tiffa]

there is all so webs and legs in bedminster what part of bristol are all so the is cadbury garden center and my house lololol

[ninjaboy6r]

i think webs and legs have shut down in bedminster now, they are about 5 mins from my house and every time i go there they are closed and the fone number doesent work anymore, it wasnt a very appealing shop though it was all dark and dingy and not a very good range in there so all the more reason for me to open 1 lol. cadbury is about half an hour drive from my house.