Reptile shop keepers help please please please please please

DeanThorpe · #1 (**permalink**) 03-12-2006, 10:46 PM

Reptile shop keepers help please please please please please

Hiya guys,
I am going to word this the best I can but I am somewhat vacant/disstracted by our dire situation at the moment so please Bare with me.
Some of you may know me and Trese have recently become unemployed
following a Fall out with my family who happen to be our employers.

Among many other possible ideas [none of which look good [or liekly] to be honest, the thought of opening our own reptile shop has came to mind.

Please dont think I am not giving this thought and just looking for someone to tell me what to do.
Fact is, I have so much wishing through my head right now and nothing seems hopefull atall, im having trouble getting things into context.

For those of you who have opened up your own reptile stores [or anyone else who knows about the following things] please could you help me out on a few things.
Any additonal info or comments are gladly received ofcourse.

This is a desperate time for us, but id like to point out that this idea has been on the table for a while, i had just decided to wait till we had some money saved first...that now isnt looking likely so without further hesitation...

HOW DID YOU FIND SUPPLIERS FOR EQUIPMENT, VIVS ETC?
any companys you can point me in the direction of would be great.

DID YOU GO DIRECTLY TO THE MANUFACTURERS, IE ZOO MED, T-REX ETC? [or there distributors]
or did you find local wholesalers?
ofcourse goes without saying id like to know who they are lol.

HOW HAS THE MARK UP PROVEN? HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO COMPETE WITH ONLINE PRICES?

AS FIR LIVE STOCK...
HAVE YOU BEEN BUYING IN HATCHLINGS/JUVIS OR HAVE YOU FOUND PEOPLE WANT GROWN ON ANIMALS?
AGAIN, HOWS THE MARK UP PROVEN?
HAVE YOU FOUND THAT A LOWER PRICE = QUICKER TURNOVER ETC?
OR HAVE YOU FOUND THAT THE PRICE OF THE ANIMAL ITESELF IS SECONDRY TO THE SET UP?

Have you started, or do you think its viable to breed your own livestock to some extent?

HAVE YOU SIMPLY EQUALED THAT OF THE LOCAL COMPETITION?

On another note, have you got much competion in your area and do you belive that you have done/are doing better than the rest locally and can you put this down to you knowing more than the others?
better prices?
more variety?
or do you think joe public doesnt even notice?

As far as vivs go have you had a company build them for you? [any national comp you can mention] have you gone for purpose built stacks or single vivs on shelving units/racking?

Have you set up the vivs as you would at home or done it more simlistic for the shop?
have you for instance used a seperate thermostat in each viv or went more on a general principle or heated the shop instead for the most part?

If applicable have you found the customers to be impressed by large well decorated display vivs [inc animals] showing what they can achieve at home?

likewise have you found this a waste of time and resources?

again, i think i already asked...but livestock mark up ok?

Have you enforced any "prove you know what your doing" policy before selling animals?
has this lost you custom if so?

have things went better than expected?
likewise do you think yourv made a mistake?
additional details welcome ofcourse, always interested.

HAVE YOU OPENED A REPTILE/HERP ONLY STORE OR AN AQUARIUM ALSO?
EITHER WAY DO YOU THINK THIS WAS THE RIGHT WAY TO GO AND WHY?

LOCATION WISE-
Have you went for a busy, town centre location or more a backstret or residential area?
why?
hows it working out?
would you change things?
closest oposition?

roughly how big is your store?
sqft wise or other is fine

if your doing FISH also what percentage of live stock space is reps/fish.?

What have your start up costs been?
did you get a loan from the bank [biz or personal] and if so was it for the full amount or did you have your own savings?
was it very dificult to get a loan?

how hard did you have to work to convince the loaner on something i assume they knew little about?
did rep shop fit into any categorie they had or was it a big issue to get a unique plan together?

ofcourse if someone wants to let me have a peep at a business plan itd be inspirational im sure.

LICENSING-
Someone mentioned this... saying they had or would have had trouble getting suppliers until they had the license.. was this just for live stock or for everything?
any particullar companys that were harsher than others?
more info on these procedures would be nice.

less urgent points...
have you gone for all CB animals of have you found it easier/necesary to stock some WC species?

I cant read the rest of my hand writing on my notes i made so im kinda gona have to finish now although i know ive missed some stuff out...

Please help guys, im not lazy, im just in a load of trouble and im looking at my options here, i dont want to have to give notice on our house, go down and claim benefits etc and i dont think we would get much help anyway, i also dont want to have to do anything questionable

please advise me where you can.
Many, many thanks.

Dean

DeanThorpe · #2 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 04:17 AM

Dexter · #3 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 04:18 AM

Nice one Dean, you finally put the thread up. Maybe you should put up a thread in off topic and snakes to give you more exposure for this thread here

DeanThorpe · #4 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 04:23 AM

I think i best...im having no luck yet.. lol..
things are so bad right now i dont know what to do, lol, it would be no harder for me to set up a bizness [money/loan prohibiting] than to get a job in mcdonalds lol so im thinking about it... but shop owners input on the above things is vital to my decision to be honest... and im running out of time [and food]

Kellybee · #5 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 09:47 AM

Hi both, similarly to yourself we are just getting our business plan together. I have a list as long as my arm of suppliers, some of whom have agreed to open us an account prior to the issuing of a license. I dont mind giving you everything I have, there are about half a dozen people who have, with no reservation helped us loads, the very least we can do is help the next guy along the path...... We cant answer most of your questions, because we havent got to the opening of shop, but if you'd like to MSN chat just send me your details on PM

Good luck with the rest of your questions, I'm sure people will help, they have helped us no end x x

crosby · #6 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 09:54 AM

Sorry to hear about the job front Razor, I've been there and it's not much fun. I went and signed up with an agency just doing small short term stuff to keep the money coming in until I found something.

Can't help on the actual points raised your post but have you tried contacting a reptile shop to have a chat with them? If you can speak to a good one and explain that you are not setting up in direct competition to them then they may be open to talking to you and helping with your questions.

della.g · #7 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 10:35 AM

Right i'll try to give you some pointers but i'm probably not the best person to help you on some things but here's my imput.
I am the manageress at The Tropical Team in Gateshead. The owner is Tom Halvorsen who is an importer, so we kind of are our own supplier of livestock as before we opened as a shop we were already a wholesaler.
I can point you in the direction of dry goods suppliers but i would do this by PM. Where are you? (location) i might know some local wholesalers.Dealing with the manufactuers direct is'nt very easy we found.
Online prices are always cheaper IMO because most online shops usually don't have the same overheads.Lots of people are happy to pay a little more if they can walk into a shop and look at something before they buy.
i find you have to stock animals at different sizes but i would say more of the hatchlings and juveniles as people usually want to see the animals grow.
I don't believe in the "price things as cheap as possible" If someone can't afford an animal priced at what it's worth then they can't really afford to keep it and the people who know they can get stuff cheaper already will be buying their stuff privately from breeders and classifieds and would only buy from a shop if it was something they can't get elsewhere.
Breeding your own livestock is a great idea if your shop would'nt have to suffer because you are busy with the breeding. Mark up on some things is better than others it just depends on whats available near you already.
We have quite a bit competition near us but i think if you are pleasant to people and not arrogant or pushy then people will just find who they get on with better and usually stick with better. Don't worry about how good other shops are doing if you know that you are doing the best you can.
As for viv's then we have a selection for our displays. It's always good to use what you are trying to sell. For instance we use quite a few exo-terra vivs and we find thats what we sell the most of. If you keep animals in the shop in the same type of vivs you sell and they look happy and healthy people will want it the same as yours.Setting up the vivs the same as you would at home is probably not quite what you would want for every viv as it's sometimes very time consuming trying to check all the animals are doing ok when you have lots to check so we usually decorate the vivs maybe less than you would at home but still making sure the animals have everything they need to be healthy and happy.We use a space heater as well as thermostatically heating the vivs individually. Heat the room to the temp that is good for the lowest temp requirement animal. Then individually for each animal in question.A few well done display vivs always looks nice and gives people an idea of how it could be for them.
Make sure you know that the person buying the animal knows what they are doing and supply them with a care sheet so they can refer to it just telling people is'nt enough as they usually forget with the excitement of their new animal.Have a good selection of not too expensive books and try to advise people to buy the book first if they are going to pay over £100 for a setup/animal then they are usually willing to spend £5 on a book. Some people obviously should'nt keep animals and they usually make it pretty obvious as soon as they speak to you. It's up to you wether you still sell them something or not.
No i don't think opening a shop was a mistake but don't set your expectations too high then you can't be disappointed.
We do both reptiles and tropical fish as this was what we did anyway and don't regret it. Don't cram loads of stuff into a small space only keep what you comfortably have room for.
We are in a warehouse on an industrial estate so we have no passing trade at all so we rely heavily on advertising which is'nt cheap. Why? because it was the only place big enough to do what we wanted.
You can always improve and it's good to see thing expanding with the business. Our closest opposition is about 5 mins away by car. We have a good relationship with the owner and we do compare prices now and again but don't do the "price war" thing.
We do fish as well probably use 70% space for fish and 30% for reps but remember our shop is a warehouse so we have lots of space.
We spend a lot of money setting up but already had the wholesale business so we used a lot of the things we already had and it still cost thousands and to be honest we've never really added up a total spend yet.
You could apply to the princes trust for a grant or go see the bank manager and see if they can offer you any help but you will need a business plan for any of these.
Without a valid pet shop license it's pretty much impossible to get any pricelists from anyone so personally you need premises first and then apply for a license.
A mixture of CB and WC but mostly CB.
Think about things properly don't rush into things. If you don't do it properly in the first place it costs you twice to put things right. Start small and grow with time. Don't try to run before you can crawl. Prepare yourself for lots of hard work, long hours and a boat load of stress and good luck.

Hope thats some help.
Della

nicky · #8 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 11:57 AM

have you looked in andyb5's post, give him a bell.....

steelblue · #9 (**permalink**) 04-12-2006, 06:03 PM

cant help a lot on the shop running front, but the one thing i would mention from a customers point of veiw:

Go for CB wherever possible!. Myself and a few fellow rep fans tend to boycott the WC stock. a shop close to us stocks only CB, some of which he breeds himself, but mostly sourced from local breeders. hes both popular and successful. Sadly, one of the other more local shops near me seems to stock a lot of WC, which puts me off visiting from the outset. Just an personal ethical veiwpoint, but certaily worth bearing in mind from a business point of veiw.

DeanThorpe · #10 (**permalink**) 05-12-2006, 01:39 AM

Thanks for your replies guys... been a mission today.

We only have one shop in Ipswich, its a rep/tropical fish, mammal etc and they have been there a long time [ive been goin there 13 years] and have grown quite a bit recently, they arent very good though, thier level of care for the reps in particular is bad.

We have lots of ideas, thansk for everyopnes input, we will keep asking questions and be in touch with various ppl for advice in the comin days.

Many thanks again
Dean

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