Owning a LFS

[Lingwendil]

I have been keeping and breeding fish since elementary school, and had a side gig in high school doing aquarium maintenance for businesses and hobbyists with larger setups. I made a great relationship with a local breeder that opened his own business primarily to sell high-end discus and angelfish (in addition to the usual freshwater community fish, and limited dry goods) in a small downtown shop. I sold him fish and volunteered around his shop on the weekends to learn the ropes and open my eyes to how an LFS actually works, and he farmed out any requests for tank service to me with some profit sharing between us. I quickly learned that there is a ton more work than the average guy would realise- and much of it isn't even aquarium related. Lots of your job will be customer service, janitorial, bookkeeping, stock lists and shipping/receiving product.

I moved away from my hometown and that store after high school and after settling in the new area for two years ended up the aquatics manager of a full-line mom and pop pet store that focused primarily on birds and fish, and I was the fish and reptile guy, with several employees under me. I had some of the most fun of my life working there, but it also was very hard work when you weren't immediately bagging fish or talking to customers. I found that it didn't limit my enjoyment of the hobby but it definitely affected my taste in products and livestock. It was also fun to set up interesting displays that you don't have the time or space for at home.

My 100% first priority advice to you is not to go in blind- find someone willing to talk to you about their business. Volunteer some hours to help out and see for yourself what it's all about. If anything it will give you helpful experience in deciding how much you intend to limit the scope of what you want in your shop to get a better idea of what to plan for.

 

[pirate2876]

The real money is in servicing. Tank maintenance can run from $60-$700 a visit depending on the tanks. You can get wholesale price on fish and supplies as well if you have a business license and so forth.

 

[Seabiscuit]

Thank you for all that valuable information. I do plan to sell dog stuff, as I am a big dog person. I also completely understand what you’re saying about online retailers, however I am based in the UK and online fish suppliers are few and far between so from my knowledge most people in the UK still use the LFS compared to how it is in America. Thanks Again though - Noah

Did not know that most people in the UK still use LFS's. I was just at my LFS here on the coast in Northern California. The people are soooo nice there. Well, their saltwater stock selection could be way better. I've been trying to buy a certain fish for months and every time I've gone there it's out of stock. I decided to buy it online. Their reef display tank is very nice but their tanks with items for sale have poor water quality and their coral frags are really looking drab. I'm still reading all of these posts, but so far my best recommendation would be to get a job as an assistant manager or even intern for free as an assistant manager to get some hands on experience with running a pet store. I wish you all the best in your endeavors.

 

[ADAM]

@Noah Hemingway forgot about the grooming business. I’m not sure if all are the same but I know the two we service both seem to have a powdery residue on the air filters and inner ducting that had an odor similar to the dogs after grooming. If you incorporate the grooming and aquatic into the same store I would be certain to have the grooming area separated from any of the other business areas with good air filtration on any common ducting connected to the grooming area.

Best of luck!

 

[Tired]

That's probably the dander. I don't think the dander itself would be harmful to aquariums, but trace amounts of flea treatment could potentially be a major problem, if enough of it were to get over on hairs and the like. Certain flea treatments can actually harm animals in ponds and rivers that a recently treated dog gets into. Be careful with that stuff.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I was (still am?) seriously looking into opening a saltwater only fish/reef store up until this pandemic hit.

I did a lot of research and can tell you a few things:

1. You better love the hobby - because there is not a lot of money in it -and you will work long hours. If you think you are going to "get rich" - think again.

2. The margins (profits) for equipment, especially the good stuff (Red Sea, EcoTech, Neptune, etc.) is terrible - I mean really terrible.

3. You have to find a good fish wholesaler that you can really trust - a lot of horror stories from owners that I could actually get to talk to me - and most were about fish wholesalers.

4. Current LFS owners are not your friend when they find out you are seriously thinking of opening a competing store.

Lots of other stuff too... but you can sort of get the idea...

Dantimdad can relate to this as he just opened at the start of Covid and it literally took him down and he poured his all into this store and not countless hours but months to build it

 

[John08007]

Personally, I'd start by growing corals, slowly add more and more tanks, maybe branch into breeding clowns. This is something that can be done as a hobby part time, lower cost of entry. Become the next WWC

 

[CMMorgan]

I worked at my LFS for a few years and I already own a dog grooming business so I feel quite prepared

This may sound weird but could you set up a grooming studio as part of the store? Maybe you'd spark some new reefers that window shop while they wait for Fluffy to be ready?
You'd also be establishing yourself as an essential business if you had some basic food for animals. When COVID shut down all of the businesses in Florida, local PD told my LFS to get a pallet of dog food and stick it in the front of the store. He was now "essential". LOL
I learned a good bit from him on what it takes to keep a LFS alive. Here are his words of wisdom:

• Employees steal you blind - if you get an honest one, treat them well and don't let them go. One good man is cheaper than three thieves.
• The money is in the maintenance. He started out hustling every doctors office within 50 miles to take care of tanks. That got him enough cash to start his first LFS.
• Go where the tanks are. The build it and they will come analogy does not apply to reefing. He first tried to open where he lived but the residents were snowbirds. Snowbirds don't have tanks. His second attempt was to move the LFS an hour away from home where the residents stay year round and have some cash.
• Find cheap rent - reefers will find you. He is in a crappy little industrial part off the main drag. The building is half abandoned and his only other tenant is a small Hispanic food-mart that sells lottery tickets. But rent is cheap and the floors are concrete. It's not pretty but he keeps his cost down.

This guy has been around for over 15 years. He isn't rich in money but he is rich in loving his job. He has never oversold or outright lied. The most valuable lesson he has learned is that it is not about fish or coral, it is about relationships. He'd rather that I leave empty handed today but return to him for years because I trust him.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavour.

 

[HockeyRooster]

If you have experience owning or running a small business I think you could make a lfs profitable. If you have no experience do some learning. Good luck!!

 

[RVA REEF]

what do you do if someone brings their dog in to be groomed and tries to negotiate you down on prices?

 

[Pntbll687]

I work in the distribution side of things, selling tanks/dry goods to stores. I'm in several categories horse/animal health/ dog and cat/ aquatics/ and lawn and garden.

Pet stores are the worst to deal with. If it's a good size store, most owners have a "better than thou" attitude and expect you to do whatever they want, even when they know you can't. They can always "get in cheaper from so-and-so".

On the flip side are the farm/equine stores. You walk in give them the price on horse wormers and they "yes" or "no, you're .25 cents higher then the other guy". If it's yes, they buy multiple cases or pallets.

Right in the middle of those two are the aquatic stores. The owners love to talk about fish keeping all day, and still LOVE to complain about price.

If you do get this going here's my advice from a distribution perspective.

1) If you're getting a better price from one distributor, just show the other guy the invoice. Most of the time we just need proof the competition is substantially lower to get approval to match or beat the price.

2) make distributor reps work for the sale and shelf space. I'll pitch a display to someone and if they hesitate I'll throw in the "i'll even come set the display up for you".

3) Manufacturers want you to keep selling their stuff. If it's not moving, TELL THEM!! They'll usually replace it with something else.

4) not everyone is a waterbox person. What I mean is that it's nice to sell a waterbox 220 to someone, a big beautiful tank that's going to look amazing in their house. But for every 1 waterbox customer, there are 15 people willing to throw down money for a marineland 125.


To let you know how different things can be from store to store. I have two customers (both LFS, and fish only stores)

Store A - good size foot print (2000sqft), tanks are mostly stocked, carries very little dry goods because "people don't buy fry goods from stores anymore". Has probably 100 tanks set up, mostly fresh water. Open 10-7 EVERYDAY. Had to move his wife's dog grooming business to the back room of the store because sales were so bad (and this was pre covid). Has nothing good going on, can't believe it when I tell him business is up and tanks/filters/kits sales are through the roof in 2020. This store did $3400 for the year in sales with me

3mi away, ON THE SAME ROAD

Store B - 1200sqft, PACKED TO THE GILLS!! Over 200 tanks set up, probably 175 fresh water and the rest salt water. Every tank has fish, and they are LOADED. Easily $15-20k in livestock/plants/coral at any given time. They have 40ft of shelving area and it is also LOADED with products. Tets kits, small nano tanks, filters, cartridges. You need it, they got you covered. They don't carry everything, but they'll have an option for you to look at. Behind the counter is loaded with gravel vacs/heaters/pythons ect. The store is only open 11-6 Fri, Sat, Su. Tuesday and wednesday they travel for service accounts, then service local tanks Thursday and Friday as well. This store has done over $20k in sales with me this past year

 

[dricc]

It's been my experience in life that probably the best way to ruin your love of a hobby is to attempt to make it profitable. It can be done, but doing something as your livelyhood is WAY different than doing it as a hobby. My advice, be careful about what you undertake.

Just about to post this sentiment. I have a local lfs . The owner is a great guy but he is struggling trying to juggle his life and business. When you own a small business you own it and it owns you.Starting a business you love as a hobby can drain the love you once had for it. Great advice from another poster. Work for a lfs and learn the ins and outs of business and see if it is for you.another great piece of advice from a poster is maybe sell corals out of the house to get your feet wet. It can be done but many fail. Not only can you lose money but you miss out on the income you could have made elsewhere during the time you ran the store. I wish you all the best.

 

[Noah Hemingway]

what do you do if someone brings their dog in to be groomed and tries to negotiate you down on prices?

This doesn’t happen to me because people know my prices are fair and I provide a good service

 

[Pntbll687]

This doesn’t happen to me because people know my prices are fair and I provide a good service

I see the negotiating of prices happen all the time at LFS where the prices are not clearly marked. The easiest way to avoid the hagglers is to make it so there is no way they can misinterpret a price on tank/sign/shelf

 

[Lingwendil]

Absolutely. Clear pictures of fish with labeled prices make a big difference. Our shop went from having prices written on the glass with paint pens when I first started to having me decide to print out pictures with a price (with common as well species names, and size/temperment) and affix it to the shelf the tank was on. Just doing this made things much more professional looking, cut down on confusion, and prevented less knowledgeable sales folks from selling things under incorrect prices. Before we did this I had actually on many occasions seen customers that I knew were knowledgeable enough to know better specifically asking for fish to be bagged up for them with the incorrect name to get a better price :mad:

 

[seacreatures11335]

I owned a Saltwater LFS for 16.5yrs 2002 - 2019. Made $50,000 a year and had two part time employees. Also did some maintenance on the side. At least 50% of my pay came from that. What do you want to know, there are so many things I went through and discovered.

 

[snorklr]

this is kinda in left field but when i moved down here i went looking for LFS's...found one with a beautiful website...when i went there the place was a disaster...it looked like the fire department had previously hosed the place down...all the drop ceiling tiles were stained and sagging several inches and the blades on the ceiling fans were swollen and decomposing...in short this place had an incredible humidity problem from all the tanks...of which 3/4 of were now empty and there were just a couple fish in the others...the owner had given up on the fish side and was now a reptile shop....so what i'm driving at is if you wind up in a brick and mortar situation make sure the hvac system is capable of handling the evaporation of all those tanks...i dont know if in a rental situation you would be held liable for mold and damage to the store....

 

[ReefingFamily]

I have been keeping and breeding fish since elementary school, and had a side gig in high school doing aquarium maintenance for businesses and hobbyists with larger setups. I made a great relationship with a local breeder that opened his own business primarily to sell high-end discus and angelfish (in addition to the usual freshwater community fish, and limited dry goods) in a small downtown shop. I sold him fish and volunteered around his shop on the weekends to learn the ropes and open my eyes to how an LFS actually works, and he farmed out any requests for tank service to me with some profit sharing between us. I quickly learned that there is a ton more work than the average guy would realise- and much of it isn't even aquarium related. Lots of your job will be customer service, janitorial, bookkeeping, stock lists and shipping/receiving product.

I moved away from my hometown and that store after high school and after settling in the new area for two years ended up the aquatics manager of a full-line mom and pop pet store that focused primarily on birds and fish, and I was the fish and reptile guy, with several employees under me. I had some of the most fun of my life working there, but it also was very hard work when you weren't immediately bagging fish or talking to customers. I found that it didn't limit my enjoyment of the hobby but it definitely affected my taste in products and livestock. It was also fun to set up interesting displays that you don't have the time or space for at home.

My 100% first priority advice to you is not to go in blind- find someone willing to talk to you about their business. Volunteer some hours to help out and see for yourself what it's all about. If anything it will give you helpful experience in deciding how much you intend to limit the scope of what you want in your shop to get a better idea of what to plan for.

This is some great solid advice and experience IMO

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

Don’t even know how I’m here...... but I will say if you also did something online ( ofc with shipping ) I and many others would be more than willing to support.