New member here, want to say hi

My name is Richard, I own a pet supply store in Hayes, VA. I have only been in business about 6 months and have learned more than I thought I would. First, I want to make clear that even though I own a pet store, I am not here to sell anything, or to advertise.

My wife's and my philosophy for a pet store is simple, all the animals we have here are our pets until we sell them (and after only 6 months, we have already adopted 3 pets that won't be sold). Also, to distinguish ourselves from other pet stores, we beleive in being highly knowledgable about what we carry. It is just my wife and I right now, and we cannot know everything and won't try to, instead, we try to find knowledgable people to advise us; so, here I am.

I found this forum while trying to help a customer to figure out why her cornsnake died. I have not sold any in here yet, but I have been studying them and I can provide for them here in a safe and healthy way, but I am unfamiliar with the multiple variables and odd questions that can arise. I wanted to introduce myself first, and I will post the particulars in the most proper forum I can find. Right now, I cannot offer this forum anything except room for improvement, but as I learn more about different pets from my customers, I will offer my advice.
Thank you.
Richard

Welcome! It must be a challenge to run a pet store. It sounds like you two have the right philosophy. Well if you look around you will find that many people here would rather not buy from places like petsmart and petco, and it is always nice when the 'mom and pop' stores have knowledgeable staff and take good care of their animals. I have mixed feelings about pet shops, I usually look around at how clean it is, what substrate the snakes are kept on, and whether the people seem to know much about the husbandry and feeding needs. If you sell normal, amel, snow and anery corn snakes, it will be harder to compete with the big box stores, so it might not be a bad idea to specialize in harder to find morphs. Good Luck!

Jenn,

Harder to find morphs are going to be more expensive, so not sure that is the route to go. I know our Petco stores around here are dang expensive.

The local little reptile shop I got to tends to have snows, normals, crimson (that one was only $29.99) and anerys. They recently bought themselves a pair of Sunglow Motleys and the first clutch (which was an accident) resulted in three Sunglow Mots. They charged me $59.99 for the only one that they were thinking about selling.

If they can buy wholesale lots or breed a few of their own of the more common ones, they would be able to keep the price under Petcos and offer a much better solution. The local store is cheaper on somethings, more expensive on others. I need to remind him to check on aspen bedding again.. he's still not selling that.

Welcome to the Board and good luck to you, your wife and your store!

Weebonilass said:

Jenn,

Harder to find morphs are going to be more expensive, so not sure that is the route to go. I know our Petco stores around here are dang expensive.

The local little reptile shop I got to tends to have snows, normals, crimson (that one was only $29.99) and anerys. They recently bought themselves a pair of Sunglow Motleys and the first clutch (which was an accident) resulted in three Sunglow Mots. They charged me $59.99 for the only one that they were thinking about selling.

If they can buy wholesale lots or breed a few of their own of the more common ones, they would be able to keep the price under Petcos and offer a much better solution. The local store is cheaper on somethings, more expensive on others. I need to remind him to check on aspen bedding again.. he's still not selling that.

Welcome to the Board and good luck to you, your wife and your store!

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I don't know, I was thinking along the lines that they could probably approach a breeder and acquire a nice little wholesale lot or something. I guess I was thinking in terms of 'stuff I'd like to see in a shop' but nothing wrong with carrying the less expensive ones too!

You could buy Kathy Love's cornsnake book, and Don Soderberg's cornsnake book (and stock them in your store!) and that will get you most of the basics.

Something I look for in stores that sell snakes is that they have clean water and that they aren't housed together. My local snake store keeps the babies in small jewel boxes, just bigger than deli cups, in a display case, but they have a decent layer of aspen to burrow under and their own water bowls. I'd rather see that than a bunch of babies together in a 10 or 20 gallon.

Richard, Good on you for coming here looking for information, and best of luck with your shop.

One suggestion....
I know you have already adopted 3 of your pets for sale (occupational hazzard, for sure!), but I suggest you make a corn snake (one of) your shop 'mascot.' Set up a viv for it just as you would advise a customer to do. This will have at least 3 benefits for you; 1) you'll learn a lot about actually having a cornsnake, cuz, well, you will actually have a cornsnake, that you can pass on. 2) while other snake species have differing requirements, if you get cornsnakes down, you can use that as 'baseline' snake knowledge, and then learn the differences from that baseline to teach customers about other species' needs. 3) I bet you'll get increased sales because (I believe) a lot of folks have trouble visualizing a good set up, and since you'll have a shining example right there, people will emulate what you have.

Awesome!

And welcome! I'm new myself.