Most independent pet stores in the United States don’t offer services to their customers. These services could include grooming, dog training, aquarium maintenance (personal / commercial), and delivery to name a few. Besides delivery, the other services can produce a high gross profit margin for your pet store.
Grooming can be expensive to initially set up and takes lot of space; if dogs are placed in cages after they are groomed. You could reduce the cost by offering to do a few dogs or better yet at the home where the dog stays.
Training is profitable. You need space set aside for training. This space can be used for special events to make the most of this valuable real estate.
A pet store owner that I know would make more money with aquarium maintenance with commercial accounts than profit from the rest of the store. He would spend one day a week just doing this. This day happen to be a slow day for his pet store.
Having home delivery will help with large items such as large aquariums, large doghouses, and stands for large aquariums. Many people would prefer someone else handle this. This is mainly due to reduce the risk of damage or don’t have access to a large car / truck.
Having services in your pet store can be a huge profit maker. It is also a competitive advantage against much of your competition. In fact, this is one of the best ways to compete against the Petsmart & Petco’s of the world.
In fact, this is one of the best ways to compete against the Petsmart & Petco’s of the world.
By: Jerry Robertson