I have a dream

[saltymarine]

I dream that in 8 year from now I will be retiring and I want to open my own fish store(military retirement so not much money). I have had a fish tank of some sorts (saltwater/freshwater) for 17 years now. I have done everything there is to do in freshwater and I am 2 years into the saltwater trade. My question is this....

Is there any profitable trade in opening up my own fish only store? Have any of you tried this? Could I really open up my own business doing something I love and be able to pay my bills at the same time?

 

[MadManMac]

Go to WetWebMedia.com they have some great articles and information about getting into the pet trade. It is really tough from what I hear, I too want to open a LFS but with kids I do not see it happening anytime soon.

 

[Florida8]

I can tell you here in florida there are LFS everywhere... BUT no good ones. Not one left that I feel good buying from. I think if you run a good, clean practice with employee's with knowledge you can make that dream real. Educate yourself & start planning now.

Kimberly

 

[fishfreek]

Sucess is always what you make of it. As Kimberly said in many places LFS's are a dime a dozen but a GOOD LFS is hard to come by.

There is some significant startup money needed as you can imagen with the need to get all the tanks and plumbing setup. Thanks to the internet the profit margins are small. I always invisioned a sucessful fish store as one that goes above and beyond simply selling fish and drygoods but develops the hobbists aswell. A fish store that has informal hobbist meetings and has educational siminars on things like breeding, co2 setups, reef setups, etc.

 

[Bearfan]

Living Seas Aquarium in Park Ridge, IL is like that. I took a couple of seminars at their place.

One of the biggest problems a LFS runs into is keeping thier prices reasonable with all of the shipping costs. I can order from Saltwaterfish for about 1/3 of my LFS when I do a larger order.