Do Fish-shops Make Much Profit?

[timmystood]

I was talking to a mate earlier and we was dreaming about owning a fish shop! It lead me to think - 'Do fish shops make much profit'???

What do you reckon' - Does anyone have an experience in the finances of a fish shop?

 

[Fella]

Obviously it depends totally on the fish shop doesn't it? Some stores will make money, some stores won't, just like anything!

 

[OohFeeshy]

Well, a fair amount on individual fish compared to the importing price, but add on the cost of electricity, housing, water treatment, food etc, as well as any dead ones, then it goes down a bit.

 

[The-Wolf]

having worked in two diferent lfs' I can say that on fish there is not much, if any profit.
shops make their money on hardware (tanks etc) and consumables (food, filter media etc)

A great lfs will encourage customers by offering great customer service, even if that means the customer goes away without buying something on that particular visit. They are more likely to come back if they have had great and correct advice before.

 

[GaryHug24]

Since I just bought a new tank last week I was thinking of the same question. My place claims to sell the tanks at "Cost" (what ever that is) but you can be sure they are making money on filters, heaters, gravel, plants, testers, food etc, etc, etc. plus they charge a bit for water testing and declorinated water.

On the fish side of the fence it probably depends on your turnover rate. I'm sure they sell a lot more guppies and neons then large salt water fish (or at least those aisles are always more crowded) but the profit margins might be better on the salt water side.

The place I go to is GIANT and all they sell is fish and fish supplies and they have been there for 20+ years so I guess there is money to be made.

A great lfs will encourage customers by offering great customer service, even if that means the customer goes away without buying something on that particular visit. They are more likely to come back if they have had great and correct advice before.

This is the way my LFS is. I literally took up an hour of the salesmans time asking questions and going over options and he had no way of knowing if I was going to walk out the door empty handed or not. Of course I didn't (and I even left over $400 there ). Now it is the only place I will go to. They have a frequent buyer card where when you buy $100 worth of fish you get $10 off your next fish purchase.

 

[Qays]

My LFS is well over 50 yrs old, and the owners are well into their 70s or even 80s?

Very nice shop, nice fish, And im sure they would have closed down ages ago if there was no money in it.

 

[Neal]

Some fish shops don't earn any profit, they just do it for pure pleasure. There's a lfs near me that used to sell tropicals when two old men owned it, they knew lots about fish, they bought your fish and traded fish all the time. Now the shop is run by a younger man who sells Goldfish for about £4 each so he's making money, but he doesn't seem to get much/if any buisness. They sell budgies and hamsters and food for pretty much all animals, dogs, cats, rabbits etc.

Neal

 

[Teelie]

Most shops probably make at most a modest profit. I'm guessing the average is porbably enough to get by but not anything to go whoop about either. There are several in my area and they definitely mark up the price on their hardware while they keep the fish prices modest. The corporate chains though mark up the fish AND the hardware so I tend to get hardware via the internet. My Fluval 304 was literally half the cost of what PetCo wanted and about a third less than what my LFS was asking.

 

[breezer40]

I work in an LFS and to be honest we make very little if any profit on livestock. We do obviously have to make some profit to pay overheads and make it worth having a shop and this ultimatly comes from the dry goods such as eqipment and foods.

 

[Teelie]

That I know. I used to work at a shop myself and I buy most of my stuff at the LFS but on the more expensive items like filters, I go for the cheaper alternative, which is usually the internet. I did however buy my 55g, stand, hood and lighting from there and not a chain store so I split the difference.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

In most new buisneses, you will make a loss the first year, aim to break even the next, and make a profit the third.
From what i have gathered, most lfs make the most profit on the things like tanks and tank eqipment, while the fish hardly make any profit. Plus fish can be very unpredictable- you may lose half of them to a bad shipment, or half of them may come in with whitespot or get it days after settling in, so you could lose vast quantities of fish before you get to even sell any.
Marine fish from what i have heard are relatively profitable, but then again marine tanks are difficult to mature or get stable for the fish particually in a lfs enviroment when the stocking levels are changing all the time and the risk or getting desease is high.

You will also need to attend to your areas needs- in a large town or city, you will face more competeticion, and people will want more different and exciting fish. There may already be a resident large company lfs or two in there making it far too difficult to start up your own first time shop.
You also have to consider the type of people living in the area- fish keeping in general, is an expensive hobby if you want to do it right, and from my observations most people that are in fish keeping are middle class with average or higher than average incomes.
In a small town though, where most people go to the petshop for things like buying food for their furry pets, you won't be able to sell £30 fish very easily.
I dunno...

Why do want to own a lfs? To start up your own or buy a current one? Do you want to breed fish etc?

 

[timmystood]

Nah, it was just a wild fantasy and it got me thinking - do they make profit!!
I guessed the dry goods would be more profitable!

Who knows what the future holds though, I would love to have my own fish shop! I would make it a speciliast shop selling mainly oddballs!

 

[jarmado]

i try to help out my favourite lfs by giving them free frys..

 

[catxx]

my LFS does a lot of custom builds for rich people (it's based in a very expensive part of London) i think thats where they profit most. but they need to, the rent on their shop is about £70k-£80k a year, (about £1500 a week).

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah it's pretty unlikely you'll get massively rich from it, think it's something people do mostly to work for themselves and for the love of the fish.

but if you give good service, have little competition and get a loyal clientele then I'm sure you could live quite happily off it