ok-- coming out of left field for me- but bear with me here.

I know big breeders- Pro exotics, prehistoric pets and various others- have thier own facilty (seperate from home) that they breed in the back and have a pet store in front.

This is something I'm interested in but on a MUCH smaller scale. The only places around here that sell reptiles and supplies are petco/petsmart. There is one ghetto trashy reptile shop- guy sets his air/heat unit to 88 degrees for the whole shop (400 sq ft) -- cages have no heat gradient- nothing. animals are either obese or emaciated, mites, URI's, 9 foot burm in a 20 gallon tank (thats a sight!), etc.

There is no place that sells quality ANYTHING reptile related. and certainly no quality reptiles.

Now, I'm into a little bit of breeding, but with just the animals in my collection (including the NON-breeder animals) -- I could stock a pet store. I could also order wholesale and get GOOD cages- visionariums, animal plastics, etc. plus all the exoterra zoomed "pretty" stuff that pet owners want. and run a small pet shop.... having the "fancy" snakes for sale or just on display would bring a crowd in--- I have radio buddies that could do live broadcasts and draw in a crowd....

I have researched the licenses and such for my state and if I want to do anything BIG as far as breeding ( like over 100 babies) i have to have my own shop OR ONLY sell online. Can't run a biz out of a home in my county and as i'm in a mortgage for the next many years- I'm not moving....

sssssooooooooooooooooooo---------- I've read the thread below about all the taxes and paperwork and hassle not being worth the tax write offs but thats not why i'm interested in opening a shop. I've run a rescue for over 5 years with nearly 10K in possible write offs per year and never jacked with it. What i'm wanting to do is open a standard reptile exclusive shop where people can buy quality animals at a truely fair price (petsmart wants 120 bucks for a normal BP -- on sale they want 80 and we all know the quality of 40 balls in the equivilant of a 30 gal tank)
You cant buy flexwatt near here, you cant buy a pastel ball muchless anything "fancy", you certainly cant get GOOD supplies-- provent-a-mite, real cages- not tanks, etc etc etc....
Thats what i'm wanting to offer.....

so i'm looking for opinions on the whole process-- I know how things work regarding licenses and such but would it be worth it? could i actually make a dent in how these animals are cared for? While i'm not looking to get rich- could I make ends meet? visionariums are 90 bucks online- I buy them wholesale, pay shipping, and sell them for 120-- thats the same if not less than a 20 long tank (150-180 last i checked in one store) add with that a HEALTHY normal ball (50-75 bucks) or even better a pastel male (100-150?) ppl would rather buy my pastel for the same price as petsmarts half dead normal-- lol.

does any of my rambling make sense?
feedback? (polite, but realistic plz- lol)

I'd never try this post on kingsnake- but i've been reading here for 5 hours and its much friendlier :)

~Beth

Retail is hard...period. I owned a shop with my father, we no longer speak. It is hard for many reasons. Most people arent going to buy the high end animal from you because your price is higher than the breeder. If you do internet sales as well it will help. The hardest part is to have a good selection without breaking the bank and sitting on animals for months at a time. You need to have some bank set aside and some patience. Your main sales should be the basic animals and supplies at first. You want to do things to draw to your shop like you said radio is great. also have some display animals to draw some traffic. Get involved in community reptile stuff if you can. Good luck. Its hard but doable.

Noah is right, retail is a different world....some of us are still paying for our retail endeavors....

IMO do shows, get your name out locally as someone as a go to person for advice, animals, etc...show the other side of a coin to people besides the big box stores or your crappy shop...they have to cater to the people and what they are buying to pay all the overhead so it isn't always about the animals or the best products...just a fact of retail.

Also unless you live in a heavily populated neighborhood with a top notch security system I wouldn't tell anyone where you live, I run almost everything I do off a UPS box addy because of my location and people in general are not trustworthy.

Whatever you decide you have to make sure you are ready for insane hours and nothing but the shop all the time, even for the few hours of downtime you'll still think of nothing but the shop...getting people in, what needs what, etc....overhead on live animals can't be compared to anything.

Good luck!!!

Retail is hard...period. I owned a shop with my father, we no longer speak. It is hard for many reasons. Most people arent going to buy the high end animal from you because your price is higher than the breeder. If you do internet sales as well it will help. The hardest part is to have a good selection without breaking the bank and sitting on animals for months at a time. You need to have some bank set aside and some patience. Your main sales should be the basic animals and supplies at first. You want to do things to draw to your shop like you said radio is great. also have some display animals to draw some traffic. Get involved in community reptile stuff if you can. Good luck. Its hard but doable.

Good points-- I wasn't planning on having ONLY high end stuff--- Can't stock a store with only $3,000 snakes and lizards. I have no intention of selling normal balls for $20 or $150 -- I think 50-75 is a fair price. Male pastels are NOT sold ANYWHERE in this town-- I price them for 100$ or $120 in my shop-- I have a pretty educated guess that they will sell- and if i'm producing them- then my price shouldn't be higher than the breeder- as I am the breeder :) then i saved the expense of buying them. Same with other species. I have no intrest in selling the big 5 snakes- there are enough out there- I don't need to sell more burms! lol. Not really interested in Iguanas either but would I figure I would rather buy a red ig for 40-50$ than a plain ol normal green for $20-$30.... I'm guessing others feel the same.

I would be selling basic supplies-- under tank heaters, pretty water dishes, those stupid log things everyone likes, etc. I plan to have basic animals- to an extent, I really dont want to sell green iguanas, but I could do reds, I would have normal ball pythons, as well as higher end stuff. regular boas, as well as rainbows, dums, blood pythons, etc etc etc. I also want to have visionariums and quality cages-- I don't think I'll get away with not selling tanks- but I can limit the amount I have available.



Noah is right, retail is a different world....some of us are still paying for our retail endeavors....

IMO do shows, get your name out locally as someone as a go to person for advice, animals, etc...show the other side of a coin to people besides the big box stores or your crappy shop...they have to cater to the people and what they are buying to pay all the overhead so it isn't always about the animals or the best products...just a fact of retail.

Also unless you live in a heavily populated neighborhood with a top notch security system I wouldn't tell anyone where you live, I run almost everything I do off a UPS box addy because of my location and people in general are not trustworthy.

Whatever you decide you have to make sure you are ready for insane hours and nothing but the shop all the time, even for the few hours of downtime you'll still think of nothing but the shop...getting people in, what needs what, etc....overhead on live animals can't be compared to anything.

Good luck!!!


Lol- I can see what you are saying about retail being about sales v.s. quality-- that is my biggest fear. I don't want to lower my standards of quality animals just to make good sales. As for insane hours- I'm good with that- I do that now- lol. In 3 yrs or so, my little kids will be in school and gone all day-- leaving me to work at the shop. I will have 2 teenage step kids that will be needing and wanting jobs. They are 12 and 18 now and are constantly over here helping clean cages, asking questions, learning, etc. and they are very excited about the idea. Beyond that I have other family support. My mom is running a home daycare for my kids right now- once they are in school she won't be doing the daycare all day-- she has already said she would pick up all my kids from school and bring them to the shop or watch them till we close up.

As for ppl knowing what I have and where I live- nobody knows where I am and I plan on keeping it that way. We have a monitored security (and fire) system as well as a house full of german shepherds-- if you get past all that- you can have the animals lol. (and god forbid you try and steal the cranky snakes lmao)

I can do and plan to do shows- probably starting next year. Our table rent is like $50 bucks for a 2 day show. If i do shows regularly for the next 3 years and open a shop- I can be advertising the shop AT the shows (lol). The people that come to our shows and sell are mostly from out of town or out of state- i'd say 3/4 come from kansas and ark.... then the rest are local and don't have much of a selction-- either way high end like carmel burmese and lipstick sunglow boas, 300$ leos, etc. or standard green igs and skinny imported normal balls. *blah!*


Any other things you can think of? good? bad? other things I should consider?
Thanks for the input so far-- I took notes lol

~Beth

What would the difference be in selling red or green iguanas????
There still the same just a different color.Personally i dont think they should even be sold as pets.
You would probably be better off with your own bearded dragon colony.
I can almost garuntee that half of the iguanas you sell,if they dont die from the person you sell them to,then you will see the iguanas back at your store 4ft long and mean.
I donno maybe its just me but i think iggy's in general shouldnt be sold at shops period.
Have you seen the number of iggy rescues out there????There is a great deal of them for a reason.:cheers:

What would the difference be in selling red or green iguanas????
There still the same just a different color.Personally i dont think they should even be sold as pets.
You would probably be better off with your own bearded dragon colony.
I can almost garuntee that half of the iguanas you sell,if they dont die from the person you sell them to,then you will see the iguanas back at your store 4ft long and mean.
I donno maybe its just me but i think iggy's in general shouldnt be sold at shops period.
Have you seen the number of iggy rescues out there????There is a great deal of them for a reason.:cheers:

Agreed- I'm set up to house 6 adults for a reason-- I've HAD that many at one time... Thats why I don't want to sell the big 5 snakes-- I can easily house 12 snakes over 12 foot-- for a reason.

Ok- I'm adding the igs to my list of NO-No's

I plan to have a wide variety of beardies-- what he opinion on chinese water dragons? they get big too so i'm not sure...

~Beth

They dont get that big.But again its one of those animals that you will pretty much only be able to find WC or CH.And if you were to get them i would say be ready for mouth rot etc.
The more Captive bred animals you can get the better.They may fair a higher price depending on species but in the end it will cut down on losses and vet bills.
Are you going to be set up to have a quarantine room also?
Also it would be nice to see a store handing out more then just generic care sheets.
Really i would stick to species that are more forgiving to human errors.
Plenty of desert species out there as far as the four leggers go that make more then suitable pets.Some can be handled and some cant.But at least with a majority of the desert species you dont have to worry as much about night time temps and humidity levels etc.

...forget the whole idea.
unless your gonna be in a high rent, high traffic, metropolitan area, a specialty niche-type shop is just a wet dream.
breed your critters, do shows, retail sucks big.
good luck,
ck

It's a tough ride - lot of lost sleep - it can be done. We have a small Ma and Pa specialty shop that has reptiles and frogs and stuff like that. The shop pays it dues purely on feeder sales - that's where the money is really at. It's always well kept, everything looks good and clean, but holy crap it's a lot of work - 7 days a week.... there are no breaks and no vacation time etc.

Animal sales are a bonus - but supplies and feeders are the cash makers. If that's your dream, work towards it, step into the shallow end first and see how the water feels. Some make the mistake of just diving right in.

It's a tough ride - lot of lost sleep - it can be done. We have a small Ma and Pa specialty shop that has reptiles and frogs and stuff like that. The shop pays it dues purely on feeder sales - that's where the money is really at. It's always well kept, everything looks good and clean, but holy crap it's a lot of work - 7 days a week.... there are no breaks and no vacation time etc.

Animal sales are a bonus - but supplies and feeders are the cash makers. If that's your dream, work towards it, step into the shallow end first and see how the water feels. Some make the mistake of just diving right in.

That is the part everyone over looks is the cost of the cleaning supplies alone...snakes in racks do well but don't do to much for sales.

Feeders, crickets and rats and mice are where it's at...

And not to sound bad but if your 3 years before the little ones will be in school that is a hard road to travel with ones that need the at home help at that age...the older ones no problem....then you have school and private sports the kids will want to do which doesn't seem like much but I know from my own kids during the summer they have softball practice 2-3 times a week and at least 2 games every week...not bad but that is right in peak business hours...people shop the most from 6-10 pm...your hours have to reflect the customers needs....and you can forget about getting anything done before or after hours at a store because if people know you are in there they will do everything short of breaking a window to get the feeder crickets they need....in turn means more help because you will have to deal with customers who want to just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about reptiles...LOL

My best advice would be to get your feet wet by finding a local small shop of any kind and shadow them for a couple of weeks...gas station or grocery would be best that you can talk them into letting you just observe the business...you'll see the hours they are the busiest and that is when you will want to make sure your open...

Just covering the basics of my own business. I have been in the retail reptile business for OVER 30 years. I enjoy what I do most of the time, BUT I have not had a serious vacation in a long time. I started out with a 400 sq ft store and worked another job for the first 6-7 years of my business' existence plus worked the store 7 days a week. My store is now almost 7000 sq ft. I feel lucky that I generally have weekends off and only work about 40+ hours a week. LOL I have had some very bad times & some very good times. I regret some of the decisions I made over the years and what it's cost me personally but personal set backs can happen no matter what you do or where you work. If I could do it over again there are some things I would change but I would do it again. The best thing I can offer is be honest, and don't look at everything with $ sign. Some people have gotten very rich in the pet trade but a lot more have lost their butts. Plan well & grow slow.

Male pastels are NOT sold ANYWHERE in this town-- I price them for 100$ or $120 in my shop-- I have a pretty educated guess that they will sell- and if i'm producing them- then my price shouldn't be higher than the breeder- as I am the breeder :) then i saved the expense of buying them.

You may not be buying them, but you do have the added overhead of running a shop that most ball python breeders don't have. Anybody can produce a clutch of pastels in their basement, sell them for half of what you would, and still make a higher net profit because they don't have the expense of running a store.

I live in one of the areas that is lucky to have a specialty reptile store. The east bay vivarium has been in business for a very long time, is enormous, have a great reputation, have a great location (a nice high-end shopping area in Berkeley), and have so many animals that the place is swamped on weekends with tourists. Take away a single one of those features, and I'd guess that the store would be out of business. Even though they have such a huge customer base and do internet sales, they still sell morphs at a much higher price than your average breeder. The reason? They've got very high overhead, and they gotta get a premium price to stay in business.

I've seen a number of pet stores close recently. The reptile enthusiasts are so few and far between, that it would be difficult to maintain a successful offline business supported solely by that demographic.

What would the difference be in selling red or green iguanas????
There still the same just a different color.Personally i dont think they should even be sold as pets.
You would probably be better off with your own bearded dragon colony.
I can almost garuntee that half of the iguanas you sell,if they dont die from the person you sell them to,then you will see the iguanas back at your store 4ft long and mean.
I donno maybe its just me but i think iggy's in general shouldnt be sold at shops period.
Have you seen the number of iggy rescues out there????There is a great deal of them for a reason.:cheers:

Agreed. I would definitely add Iggy's to a "no sell" list.

The local reptile society that i am a member of runs a non-profit rescue that is overflowing from animals that grew "too big" or were "too mean". Sadly, too many large reptiles like iggy's and even boas get dumped there regularly. When people ask me if i have boas for sale, i direct them to the rescue, where i inform them there are boas there now that need homes. Of course, they don't want a full grown one, they want a small cute one. :rolleyes:

Robin
H2 Exotics

ok-- coming out of left field for me- but bear with me here.

I know big breeders- Pro exotics, prehistoric pets and various others- have thier own facilty (seperate from home) that they breed in the back and have a pet store in front.

This is something I'm interested in but on a MUCH smaller scale. The only places around here that sell reptiles and supplies are petco/petsmart. There is one ghetto trashy reptile shop- guy sets his air/heat unit to 88 degrees for the whole shop (400 sq ft) -- cages have no heat gradient- nothing. animals are either obese or emaciated, mites, URI's, 9 foot burm in a 20 gallon tank (thats a sight!), etc.

There is no place that sells quality ANYTHING reptile related. and certainly no quality reptiles.

Now, I'm into a little bit of breeding, but with just the animals in my collection (including the NON-breeder animals) -- I could stock a pet store. I could also order wholesale and get GOOD cages- visionariums, animal plastics, etc. plus all the exoterra zoomed "pretty" stuff that pet owners want. and run a small pet shop.... having the "fancy" snakes for sale or just on display would bring a crowd in--- I have radio buddies that could do live broadcasts and draw in a crowd....

I have researched the licenses and such for my state and if I want to do anything BIG as far as breeding ( like over 100 babies) i have to have my own shop OR ONLY sell online. Can't run a biz out of a home in my county and as i'm in a mortgage for the next many years- I'm not moving....

sssssooooooooooooooooooo---------- I've read the thread below about all the taxes and paperwork and hassle not being worth the tax write offs but thats not why i'm interested in opening a shop. I've run a rescue for over 5 years with nearly 10K in possible write offs per year and never jacked with it. What i'm wanting to do is open a standard reptile exclusive shop where people can buy quality animals at a truely fair price (petsmart wants 120 bucks for a normal BP -- on sale they want 80 and we all know the quality of 40 balls in the equivilant of a 30 gal tank)
You cant buy flexwatt near here, you cant buy a pastel ball muchless anything "fancy", you certainly cant get GOOD supplies-- provent-a-mite, real cages- not tanks, etc etc etc....
Thats what i'm wanting to offer.....

so i'm looking for opinions on the whole process-- I know how things work regarding licenses and such but would it be worth it? could i actually make a dent in how these animals are cared for? While i'm not looking to get rich- could I make ends meet? visionariums are 90 bucks online- I buy them wholesale, pay shipping, and sell them for 120-- thats the same if not less than a 20 long tank (150-180 last i checked in one store) add with that a HEALTHY normal ball (50-75 bucks) or even better a pastel male (100-150?) ppl would rather buy my pastel for the same price as petsmarts half dead normal-- lol.

does any of my rambling make sense?
feedback? (polite, but realistic plz- lol)

I'd never try this post on kingsnake- but i've been reading here for 5 hours and its much friendlier :)

~Beth


Research, research, research. That is my best advice for you. I started as an online dealer in late 2007 and I have invested quite a bit of capital just to figure out how to sell online and who my customer is. The benefit of selling online to me is that the reptile industry is a niche market. Most brick and mortar stores, not all, are limited to selling just in the town they are located in. I'm able to sell my products worldwide. I have a much larger market to sell to and much lower overhead. I'm located in Spokane, WA and more often than not I do not do a single Spokane sale. I do more international sales than I do local sales! I do 80-100 internationl orders a month and those international orders combined with my national sales are what keep me alive every month. If I were to open a store here in Spokane I doubt I could do half of what I do a day in sales as I do right now and I would have even more costs. Now where you are located in Oklahoma might be different.

I don't know how much research you have done as far as your monthly fixed costs and costs of inventory. I'll touch on the inventory you mentioned about carrying above. Flexwatt is a tough one to break into. They have 100 Feet and 500 Feet pricing for wholesale. I don't know what your start up budget is looking like or your working capital situation but to be competitive, you are looking at a $15,000 to $20,000 buy in with the 500 feet price points if you wish to carry all sizes of Flexwatt. If you just want to carry 3 in Flexwatt Heat Tape you would be looking at a $5,000 buy in to be priced competitively. The Bean Farm is the number one dealer of Flex Watt. For example you can buy a 100 feet role of 3 in Flexwatt for $1.90 a foot from the Bean Farm. With shipping you are still paying considerably less than Flexwatt's 100 feet wholesale price when buying from the Bean Farm. You could buy from them and resell but people that know about the Bean Farm will just go there to buy it.

Vision Cages are another tough one. The margins on them aren't what you think. You are looking at buying a pallet of 45 of them if you want them wholesale from Vision. I can't share the price with you but that's how many come on a pallet for wholesale. Freight comes out to about $5 per cage. More important than profit margins on Vision Cages wholesale prices is their availability. I would call LLL Reptile and ask them how long it would take to get one, just one Vision Cage shipped. I would be suprised if you were told less than two weeks. Albany Reptiles is another good one. They are a Vision distributor and everything they have is in stock and ready to ship. If you call you will most likely talk to Tom the owner. Ask him the teeth he has to pull to keep product in stock. Vision Cages are in such high demand they are almost always backed up. Here in Spokane a lot of the mom and pop shops carry Zilla brand cages that come with a sliding screen top. They retail for about $50 for a 20 Gallon. That's here though. I don't who you have for distributors in Oklahoma and the difference in price breaks. There might be better options for you as a store for carrying terrariums to resell.

Provent-A-Mite is a good product but it's one of those things where people go to their local pharmacy and buy Equate lice bedding spray instead. It's the exact same thing according to the PAN database as Provent-A-Mite with the only difference being Provent-A-Mite has some sort of approval to be safe for use in conjunction with animals and it costs about $13-$15 more depending on who is retailing it. I use it but a lot of people use the cheap stuff with no ill effects.

I only responded to what you mentioned as far as products go. I would just research and be sure to make well calculated decisions on whatever you do. I would do a 3 year financials business plan just to give you an idea of what direction to go in. There are resources I'm sure locally that will help you get started on one and they may even have a template you can download which takes a lot of the work out. I would look for a small business development center in your town. The hardest thing for me when I started was estimating my margins when pricelists are the most heavily guarded secrets out there. There were several sources of products that wouldn't give me pricing information until I was ready to go with a place to receive product.