How to Own a Pet Store

A pet corn snake.

Are you a pet lover looking to transform your interest into a career? Owning your own pet store might be the answer. On the other hand, it might not. Here's the scoop on what's involved.

Things You'll Need

• A budget sheet

Instructions

How to Own a Pet Store

1. Consider this: are you up to owning a pet store? Owning a pet store is vastly different from owning a bookstore or an electronics shop. You'll be selling living things--real, breathing animals. You must be willing to take excellent care of them.

2. Find a suitable location for your store. Obviously, high-traffic areas are the best for business, but they cost the most, too. Don't forget to consider the pet store franchise option at this point.

3. Decide which animals your store will sell (if you've decided to go franchise, this may not be much of an option). Will you sell dogs and cats? Fish? Reptiles? Birds? All of the above? Your needs will depend almost entirely on this singular decision. Research the costs involved in purchasing and transporting animals to your store and add them to your budget sheet.

4. Decide: what will your animals eat, and how often? Where will you store the food, and what conditions are proper for storage? How much extra should you have on hand? As stated in Step 3, this all depends on your choice of pets. Research the costs involved in purchasing, shipping, and storing pet food and add them to your budget sheet.

5. Select the appropriate animal enclosures for your animals--this is critical to their health and well-being. You'll need to take ventilation, size, and animal exercise into consideration when choosing an individual shelter, whether it's a kennel, enclosure, tank or terrarium. Calculate the costs for animal enclosure purchase and maintenance, and find out how often you'll need to replace them. Add the costs to your budget sheet.

6. Address the possibility of providing additional services, like grooming or breeding. Decide how much you will sell in terms of accessories like pet food, fish tank decorations, and chew toys. Research the costs involved and add them to your budget.

7. Look at your budget and ponder the work involved in taking care of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of animals. Is this still something you want to do? If the answer is yes, register as a business with your state (for U.S. residents; varies from state to state, though usually doable online), register with the IRS, buy or rent your chosen location, and get to work!

Tips & Warnings

• Remember, your top priority has to be your animals' health and general well-being. This differentiates you from, say, a car salesman, whose first priority is sales.

• Do not open a pet store if you aren't sure you can take good care of the animals inside it.

• Do not open a pet store if you haven't studied the arguments against them; you've got to feel comfortable about this, because once the animals are there, you are their keeper!

Resources

• Internal Revenue Service's "Starting a Business" page, with instructions on registering