I own a LFS, opened in 2018. I will give you honest advice. Enjoying the hobby and making a living running a LFS are entirely 2 different things. It all but ruined the hobby for me. It's tempting knowing that you can get stuff much cheaper than you see for sale in stores. What you don't realize is that it's cheaper because they have a whole lot of overhead and that store is how they earn a living. I don't know what you do now. I was a used car dealer and I held a good portfolio of people paying me notes each month. I had lots of inventory, paid for. Today, I have a fish store hanging on by a thread and a car lot that is pretty much just a few cars in my front yard. I lost a ton of money, more than I can measure counting growth. My wife and I run the store together and all we do is argue anymore. We are broke 24/7. Others have said the same thing. Sadly, and I wish it wasn't this way, retail is phasing out and online is what's here now. There are lots of places doing stuff online so good luck competing. There are some lucky coral sellers out there making some dough right now but there's stiff competition. I dropped $5k EXTRA on top of my regular budget of corals last summer in one month thinking I was going to compete. I ended up killing most of them with an Alk spike after holding on to most of it several months because no one bought any of it. My local buyers couldn't afford any of it either. .....Selling fish online is pretty much unheard of because of large companies making the market share. Supplies, gear, tanks, etc people are not going to buy them. They will buy online to save $0.99 or even when I price it the same or cheaper they still have it in their minds it's cheaper online. My overhead is about $2500/month and I'm in a rural area in a run-down building. We purchase about that much in product each month and barely make enough sales to cover expenses. There's no money in it. I've tried flexing to online with stuff, I can sell a little but it doesn't really help. People telling you to sell some online - it doesn't matter they're going to go with the big guys. I don't want to discourage your dream but I urge you to enjoy your hobby and not trying to turn it into a business. Do what other people do grow and sell some stuff locally (without needing a license) and just have fun with it. Pay for your goodies that way. Suppliers are always out of stock on everything. You wouldn't imagine how much stuff costs. The killer is they all have min orders and many charge freight (the rest figure it into prices) - they have minimums. So you may need something one places has, and something else another places has pretty soon you have a $5k order just to get a few things you needed. I can usually go buy tanks cheaper in Petco or Petsmart than I can buy them wholesale! If buying fish/coral in stores is expensive to you then try buying from local people selling stuff. The other thing is even though they'll hardly buy any of the stuff from you, people expect you to stock EVERYTHING. I tried stocking copepods live from Algae Barn, joined their program. I sold about 3 jars the entire time I had it. Then when the fridge was gone, people started asking for it. I tell them go to Algae Barn and buy it. I've stocked all the expensive reef lights, no one bought them. Even though I was priced same as big online stores, they bought online and not from me... You will not be able to buy the real fancy saught after corals if that's what you're thinking either. Wholesalers aren't giving that staff away to Joe shmoe. They will have you order $3000 worth of stuff nobody wants that you'll sit on forever to get one or two cherry pieces. Then all that stuff dies in your tank eventually. People like coming in looking and asking 10,000 questions like you're an encyclopedia then they walk out go home and buy online. They want you to be there - all the time- at their beck and call. People who know nothing about fish come in wanting the impossible. They want a tank with a fish and they have $20 never kept a fish before. They don't want a betta. They don't want to buy a heater. They don't want to spend more than $5 on a light and if they have to clean it any other way than empty It all out and put clean water back in, they don't want to do it. They will buy stuff, it will die and they want you to pay for it. Don't say I didn't warn you. I love my store - and that's the only reason it's open. But to be honest I'd rather have a gigantic fish room in my house and no customers to deal with. Oh, and imagine maintaining one tank. Now imagine 100x that much work because you'll be doing that all day every day. Cleaning tanks, scraping glass, vac, mix water, refill. The only money you'll make is cleaning customer's tanks - and that's even more of your own time early morning or late night after the store closes. Then when Joe Shmoe realizes he can do the same thing you're doing cheaper now you're being out-priced by someone without a store to pay for and overhead to keep up with who rides around with a $10 gravel vac and steals all your customers. People will sell corals and stuff at home in garages without a business license and run you out of business. Be prepared to drop $50k on your initial setup for a small store and be ready to spend $2500-$5500 in rent and utilities. I spent about 100k my first 2 years in business just building out the store over time and to me it still looks like crap. I did about 125k in combined sales those first 2 years, not exactly a profitable endeavor. I don't mean I bought 100k worth of supplies, I'm talking about just the cost of building out a store. I opened in a 950sq ft store and moved out 6 months later to a 3000sq ft unit next to it. Now, we're about to move again!!!! More money ........What I did with 50k in that 950sq st store it looked like a closet to me when I got done. Like a fish room in someone's house. It wasn't big enough, there wasn't anything in there to sell. I spent the next year dropping the other 50k in the bigger space on top of buying product. Now imagine making about 25% profit on the stuff you buy, if you're lucky. How much do you gotta sell to cover overhead? You better pull in 10k a month minimum in sales right out the gate (I still to this date don't turn that much) or you'll be eating ramen noodles and mingling in the unemployment line. I'm sorry if you wanted an uplifting positive story I don't have one. 10k a month is a whole lot of guppies (yes get ready for people to drive you inside for $2 guppies) that is the most annoying customer you'll ever meet and they are plentiful. I make about $.75 to a dollar on each guppy and for every 100 I buy about 25 of those die before I sell them. You need something to earn a living with - and a fish store can be a hobby that takes ALL the rest of your time. Good luck to ya. If I can give you one solid piece of advice. If you do this, carry dog stuff. Don't worry about all the other animals at first. Just do fish and have some speciality dog stuff. You won't be able to buy food to compete with anyone so don't worry about that. Carry a small selection of one brand for convenience if you want to but have unique dog stuff no one else carries - and if you can find a way to buy and sell puppies in there, that's gonna pay your rent. I tried to raise dogs but my wife is too attached to animals and I couldn't get her to do it. My dogs are loud and don't go to the store with us anymore but people still come into the store JUST to see the dogs and we have sent dozens of people to the breeders we got ours from just from being in the store (wish I had the puppies to sell them myself.) I have tons of customers that bring their dogs in with them (they do it in Petco and Petsmart) so naturally they assume we are the same way with dogs, I don't mind. But wish I had more dog stuff to offer.
