Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

So anyways I was brainstorming ideas for my pet store and I came up with the idea to ask a existing grooming and animal day care business to share a building with me so that it would bring in customers to my store as well as theirs...this way customers could come into my store and get all of their pets/supplies and also drop their animal off for the day or get their pet groomed at the same time.

Does this sound like it would be worth pursuing?

Now my other question is, in your business plan they say that you need to research the industry your going into, trends, demographics and you have to include graphs and what not...well to purchase a report like this on the pet industry online it is between $300-$7500, where do I have to go to do the research myself so I don`t go broke before I even start the business?


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"What we do in life echoes in eternity."
       -Maximus Decimus Meridius-

Well I for one am ALL about diversifying the use of our available space. Here`s a perfect example. My wife and I own a hair salon and one night a month we have a gallery night. I remove all the station mirrors, chairs, etc and allow a selected artist to display their art work. Some of the sculptures and artwork stay up at the salon for sale throughout the month and we get a commission for each sale. This also serves as fresh art in the salon and keeps it trendy. Another bonus is that we get exposure to new clients coming in for the gallery. Then we also host meet & greets every Tuesday evening. We invite clients and their friends to come up and get free services to try out and have a few drinks, oh and of course meet other clients. Were constantly looking for ways to utilize the space we’ve paid for in unique ways in hopes to energize our main business the salon.

My point here is why not diversify what your already going to be paying for, the more you can expose your building in different ways allows you to leverage those areas across your main use. In your case I would agree with it but be careful because that’s another separate business and it sounds more like a partnership. Hosting something like a dog birthday party or some other event gets customers to come back in and doesn’t require a full staff for working all the while exposes your store to new customers. Plus it’s only a once in a while kind of thing. Although I could see you offering this a perk service, say I spend $100 at your store or accumulated X amount of punches on punch card I get a free doggy make over or free nail clippings.  One thing I think would be nice is a Doggy Day Care for puppies, when we had Rex it was a bit difficult to train him and deal with him being caged while were gone for 8 hrs at work. If I could have dropped him off and knew he was in good hands and being trained…..I’d pay for that.

Overall when it comes to pet stores the NUMBER ONE thing I look for is a knowledgeable staff, and I mean everyone. At least if they`re honest, just tell me you don’t know or direct me to who might, don’t feed me a line of crap! I’ll walk right out if the person seems like an idiot, period. I have a reef tank and dealing with salt water animals is expensive and can be catastrophic if you place the wrong creature in the tank, believe me I listened to the wrong person once and it cost me nearly 500$ in animals needless to say I’ll never go there again!

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He who gets greedy like a pig, gets slaughtered like a hog!

I know many Petsmarts have grooming centers integrated in their stores.
I don`t know who else might. I`m not so sure that`s quite a new concept.
Also, groomers and pet day care places often sell pet products. Your idea
to share retail costs with another business is a good idea but I question
the pairing of your ideas. Stores with grooming are successful because
it`s out there but then again, it`s already out there. Maybe it`s not where
you live though.

I don`t shop at Petsmart. I go to a locally owned and operated pet store
that has dog bathing for customers to do themselves. Big tubs,
shampoo, brushes, hair dryers, the works. You wash Fluffy yourself so
your bathroom at home stays nice. Great service! They also have a pet
and people cafe with wireless internet so that dog owners can sit with a
latte and browse the web while Fluffy chews a bone or plays with other
dogs. It`s an extremely busy place with a very successful business model.

Ask yourself, what other kind of business could you integrate into a pet
store besides another pet service? By offering something for pet owners,
the ones with money, you may keep them in your store longer with their
dog. That can equal more sales. I think the cafe is a good idea but I
know many communities have bans on combining food service with
animals hanging around.

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Home Sweetest Home - Poster-Style Home Portraits
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Steve Lowtwa

Re: sharing space.  It`s a good idea to save money and invite a non competing person to share the rent.  Then you can also cross promote your services to each other`s clients.

Re: adding graphs to your business plan, you can also keep it simple.   Call up other pet stores. Bigger ones like PetCO. to the corpate office and see if they have any research available, also you could go online to the small business administration and see if they have any statistics about your niche industry.  Check online at survey companies and see if they have information on your topics.  Kat 

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