Last month I started explaining one way to do the feasability study required to make a knowledgable decision on where or even if to start your own aquarium shop. Two forces prompted me to revisit this topic from years gone by - it is one of the main topics I tend to receive reader mail about, and in my wanderings, I continue to be disappointed in the quality of many of the stores offering tropical fish for sale. It is my hope that by taking some of the mystery out of the process, maybe some of you dedicated hobbyists that dream of owning your own store will decide to take the plunge, and the hobby will be better for it. Anyway,...
Besides waiting in breathless anticipation for the current issue, I'll assume you spent the last month carrying out some difficult but necessary tasks - like staying focused on the task at hand when using a search engine, trying to remember just where your local library is, and making lists of all the stores, wholesalers, and Chambers of Commerce in all of the towns you consider possibilities for your future store. If you're really up on it, you even checked out some books on aquariums. Give yourself some extra credit if they were on areas of the hobby other than your main focus of interest - you may want to start a store because of your love of the reef, but you'll have to be able to communicate with betta breeders and guppy growers as well if you're going to succeed.
Now that you have these lists, you are probably wondering "So what?" And you are right. At this point they don't tell you anything but what's already out there. We definitely need some more information - like dollars and cents figures for revenues and costs, etc. The best source for much of this information is from industry trade magazines. These are the magazines that are sent to all the qualified folks in the business that tell of all the changes, trends, products, people and events that are going on in the business. They almost all put out an annual "state of the industry" survey issue that gives you the numbers you are looking for, as well as an annual directory issue that lists manufacturers, wholsalers, livestock suppliers, etc.
The best (and easiest) way to obtain these magazines is by having a bona fide distributor give them your name. This lets the magazines know you are legitimate, and it's worth their while to add you to their list. Wholesale distributors vary in their qualifications for who they will open accounts for, but in general you'll find that the closer you get to opening, the more legitimate they feel you are. Generally, you will find the larger, more reputable and reliable suppliers will require you to have a business license, a federal tax I.D. number, and a properly zoned retail store front before they will give you the time of day.
Since you probably aren't that far along in this project yet, another way to get your hands on this information is from a retailer who already is getting the magazines. If you can convince a store owner you aren't looking to go into business in his trade area, perhaps he'll give you some back issues. If you can get a job in a store, you will gain even more priceless information. It is a great help down the line if you can get into a mentor situation with someone who is willing.
What's that? The chicken or the egg? You couldn't find any retailers or wholesalers interested in helping you at this point, and you can't get the magazines without one? Oh, very well, here they are:
Pet Age
200 S. Michigan Avenue, # 840
Chicago, IL 60604
www.petage.com
Pet Business Magazine
333 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
www.petbusiness.com
Pet Product News Magazine
PO Box 6050
Mission Viejo, CA 92690
www.petproductnews.com/ppn/
At some point you are going to have to approach a distributor and begin working with them to get this whole project rolling. They will be necessary to help you determine what it will cost to furnish and stock your store, etc. Having a feasibility study in hand and knowing where you are going is one way to convince them you are legitimately going into the business, not just trying to beat the system by buying wholesale.
So, anyway, time passes, and you somehow get your hands on the trade magazines you need. Now what? Well, the next step is just some plain old arithmetic to quantify what you can expect in average annual sales revenues for stores on the list of your various trade areas.
As I work through the explanations and examples that follow, I will make this disclaimer repeatedly - "ALL of the numbers I am using are hypothetical. You will have to dig up your own numbers for this. I am making these figures up." I could dig up some of the numbers for you, but then you'd blame me if you failed. I am giving you one method - the question of the accuracy of the statistics you use is between you and your sources. Anyway, it's a cliche' that you'll appreciate this more if you do all the work yourself. (and I'll admit the REAL reason is that I'm too lazy to run down current figures again myself - I've done this before, remember?).
So, here are the numbers you need to get. Start with the number of households in the trade areas you are considering. Remember the trade area isn't necessarily the population of the town. If you are looking at a city of 50,000 which is also the biggest town for 500 miles, all the small outlying towns are also in your trade area - people come to your city to shop, especially if they don't have local fish stores. On the other hand, it is difficult to claim the entire city of Los Angeles as your "trade area" unless you really think people will drive clear across the city and past all of those competitors just to spend their money with you.
If you didn't get this number from the Chamber of Commerce information, another way to arrive at the figure is to take the total population of the area and divide it by the number of people in a "household". According to the U. S. Census, there are 2.78 or 3.141 or some such nebulous number of people per household - back to the library if need be, or just call the Census Bureau and ask them.
The other numbers you need to find from the sources above for right now are the per centage of those households that have aquariums at any given time, the average dollars per year or month that an aquarist spends on her hobby, and the number of stores selling fish in each of the trade areas you are considering. And that about fills this month's space, so I'll leave you to work on your information scavenger hunt so next time, you'll be ready to plug in numbers and finally get some answers.