Looking for help with start up

[Fishy04Business]

Hi all,
Thank to all you regular posters here, I can see there is a wealth of info to digest.
Please bear with me here as this might get long:
I am a long time hobbyist who like many of us has been dabbling in some set up, some maintenance, basement propagation ect ....
I am now working on setting up a "real" store. I am already self employed and in the upcoming year plan to transition so that this will be my primary/only business. I see the focus as being installation set up and maintenance anchored by a store front where customers can come to pick out livestock, make equipment upgrades and purchases etc.
The area that I am in is a fairly affluent sea side community with many high end resorts, country clubs, restaurants as well as multi million dollar ocean front homes. The only reason I point that out is to back up my next statement: I am not interested in being the "low ball" guy, I'm sure you all know the one I'm talking about.... the rusted van, the muddy boots..... :roll:
I have my location (700sf retail with 2000sf warehouse behind)
We are also what I consider to be "well funded"

This is where my plea for help comes in is there anyone out there with a similar business that would be willing to share things like:
service rates, delivery charges, installation policies, What clause did you omit from your original service contract, what does your service ticket/report look like, what did you find to be the most profitable use of your square footage?
Of course I would treat any info with the utmost of professional courtesy and confidentiality, Id be happy to chat first about location and target markets to ensure that we did not have a conflict of interest.
Thanks In Advance
Happy and profitable reef keeping
FB

 

[JennM]

You can send me a PM if you like... I'll share what I can

Jenn

 

[Fishy04Business]

Thanks Jenn
I mean really Thank You!
I posted this before reading very many posts on this forum now that I have spent hours reading, I sincerly was thinking about editing or deleting my post all together for fear of being flamed. Seems like start-ups or "new kids" on the block are not too welcome in here or maybe there is just some underlying tension that I'm not aware of.
Sending PM
FB

 

[Anonymous]

Most start-ups that have posted here in recent years have been about starting businesses other then B&M (etail, wholesale/etail, etc), which your talking about. You'll find most here support new B&M's.

BTW, I laughed my rear off about the rusty van and muddy boots comment

 

[JennM]

It's not that people here don't like new folks to the industry, but we *can* be pretty protective about our suppliers - such as they are, there are very few good, clean sources for fish.

We've also seen a LOT of Johnny-come-lateleys who have seen a fish invoice, think that all we doing is bending our customers over because of the perceived markup, so they're going to come along and sell at bargain-basement prices yadda yadda, because they have no concept of how much it costs to set up, stock and maintain a shop. That or they are going to start a sideline garage business to undercut the legitimate retailer.

There IS a difference.

If you're interested in a legitimate storefront operation, I'm sure that many here will help - we might not do it very publically. Since you are not located anywhere near me, I don't have any problem sharing a few bits of information, but I will bear in mind that no matter where you are, you may end up competing with me for the "best" livestock...

Still, where dry goods wholesalers, operating costs and contract lingo are concerned, I'm sure I can probably help you a bit... nothing wrong with sharing that kind of knowledge, lest it help somebody avoid some of the pitfalls...

Example: With people whose tanks I service, if they opt to shop anywhere else for fish, it voids any warranty I offer on the fish I sell. Learned this the hard way when somebody whose tank I was slowly stocking for them, couldn't wait any longer for a "dory fish" and went someplace else and bought two ich-infested nasty emaciated baby blue tangs... needless to say the whole tank became infested and the customer got pissed at ME for not offering up free treatment and running to their house as soon as I learned of the problem (!!!!) ... AFTER they tried to cover their error by treating it themselves (glad they didn't buy copper... reef tank!).... if they had called me right away when they realized they had a problem we might possibly have saved more of their fish. They lost the 3 fish they bought "elsewhere" and one or two of the ones I had sold them. We saved the rest though... however the blame game might have been avoided with the right wording in our maintenance agreement... or not... something tells me the personality of that particular customer meant it wouldn't have made a difference - still my butt would have been covered if it had been spelled out clearly from the beginning. One of the fish they bought was a coral muncher... that would have caused other problems too...

Jenn

 

[Fishy04Business]

Thanks for the responses,
I can certainly understand the reluctance to help out a potential e-tailor. Believe me I see and understand the problems they cause, drygoods for instance: as a B&M store you are often perceived as a "rip off" if your charging a dollar more for a pump over Mail order. It's almost at the point that dry goods need to be a "loss leader" or use buying power to increase your margins.
Funny thing about basement/garage business hurting the LFS. For years as a hobbyist I have been helping friends and clients (of my other business) set up thanks in their homes and offices. These tanks in most cases would be set up and stocked with items that came from the LFS(s). I would then take care of some mantaince and help them become keepers if interested. These people in turn would shop at said store and support it. Despite my reasoning and pleas, this particular store (the only one within 90 miles) continually orders sells and kills untold numbers of Elegance, Goniapora, Dendraphila, C.C.stars, feather stars....etc you all know the list. Or sells butterflies lions etc...to reef owners. Before I new it I had a whole system (basement) dedicated to "orphans" and recovering corals.
Long story short in this case anyhow it's the B&M store that perpuated a basement business and ultimately another B&M.

Jenn, I did read that story in another post and it's exactly the type of problem I'm interested in guarding against. Another nightmare I see is setting up a new system and losing it a month later to a pump failure, a pump that you sold them, who is responsible for cleaning up and restocking that mess?
Ok this post is long enough
Thanks
-FB-

 

[Fishy04Business]

BTW, I laughed my rear off about the rusty van and muddy boots comment

LOL I just noticed this.
Honestly that was not just a joke, in researching my start up I've found someone like that around here. He charges $40/hr you can tell his clients by the oil spot in their driveways.
I've run across this in another service business and found that a great way to combat it is to charge double, drive a new van, send in only clean cut bonded and insured guys. Also the "show" is important ...Know their other pets names, the kids names, spend the extra 10 minutes to put down protection for the floors, and always always leave the job site in better shape than when you went in.

 

[JennM]

Thanks Fishy....you've jinxed me now...

Have not had (here it goes) that happen where a system is wiped out by a bad pump I've sold.

Don't sell Rio pumps though....

I try to have safeguards... powerheads on a separate circuit etc., in systems we set up. That's a bit of a safety net, "just in case".

I know about the muddy boots guy too... we've got one here, and I've seen him here and there -- I don't know if he knows who I am to see me but he knows who I am since I've scooped a few of his disgruntled clients.

$85 a month to come in, top off, wipe the glass. No testing, no water changes, undergravel filters and 4" crushed coral beds... incompatible fish, cc stars in "reef tanks" with specific gravity of 1.014 and why did all that coral die??? Nitrate and phosphate off the scale.... geeze louise! Then he'd make off-colour jokes and annoy the customer... then when they let him go he called her 50 times... no exaggeration. NUTS!

Honest to God I need to send him a thank you card because a trained monkey could do a better job. It's easy for me (or now my technician) to go in there and clean it all up and make it gorgeous... sadly though it often costs a bit to get things put right... add that protein skimmer, take out the undergravel and crushed coral bed... but in the end the customers are happy

The sad thing is, there are plenty just like him who can throw a magnet sign on their car or truck and set up shop as a maintenance person. And while maintenance types get razzed here regularly, that is a part of the service I offer, and I'm proud of the work my staff and I do. It's an art form to create and maintain a marine tank. People who do half @$$ed job of it cheapen us all.

I have a foundling home in my shop too, for things that were bought by unsuspecting hobbyists. When that happens, I try to encourage them to research their purchases before they buy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Jenn

Jenn

 

[Fishy04Business]

Sooo.... good ole "muddy boots" made his way down there too

I've noticed that maintenance businesses take a bit of a hit around here. Maybe because there are so many muddy boots type? It seems to me that 1st rate shop and 1st rate service/maintenance would be the only responsible way to go. After all as a hobbyist one of the thing I found most frustrating in the beginning was that it was so hard to find a store with any real world experience. Someone that not only sells equipment but has set it up and had long term success with it. For example skimmers when I bought my first set up the store had visi-jet or seaclone when I asked why they didn't carry any of the brands I saw in the magazines, ER, ETSS, PM etc. I was told they were a waste of money. But then again this is the same store that still tells their customers that metal halide is a gimmick and still sells watts/gallon.
FB

 

[JennM]

Well there are a few reasons why the "hose sucking algae scrapers" take a hit.

For one, when wholesalers let them shop there, they can undercut the legitimate storefront, because their overhead is the rusty van, versus a full-service shop. Because they have no storefront or "public" facility, their skill level can vary greatly too... and many of them have made their way into the spotlight, speaking for industry concerns, when they really only scratch the surface of what it means to be "in" the industry.

You said it yourself... the quality of some of the *cough* "services" out there is atrocious at best. Muddy Boots does not have to have an animal protection licence in Georia, but I do. I'm subject to surprise inspections, especially if there is ever a complaint filed. It would be hard to prosecute a "service" person under those same statutes, if all he does is clean a tank every couple of weeks -- since really the owner is ultimately responsible for it. Doesn't matter that the person paid to have a "professional" take care of it... people blindly trust and get screwed but ultimately it's the fish/corals/inverts that suffer needlessly.

Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent service-only companies out there, but just as the lowest common denominator tends to tar all LFS with the same brush, the same applies to service people.

I think some of us LFS types get annoyed when service-only folks try to tell us what's wrong with our industry... and we get annoyed when folks who aren't in the industry at all try to tell us what to do too, since neither has truly walked a mile in our shoes.

Jenn