Liz’s Pet Shop
Chicago
Liz Varela, owner

How’s business?

Business is busy. We’re selling products and a lot of foods. People still have to do the foods for their pets. We’re not selling as many birds. But as far as birds go, we’ve slowed down on selling actual livestock. We slow down [with bird sales] during the winter, because we try not to sell birds as Christmas presents. That’s a no-no.

What’s new?

We did a fundraiser for PAWs. Now we’re working on a fundraiser for Tree House. We’re being helped out by Nature’s Variety.
Nature’s Variety is the main donator for the funds. They donated 200 cases of the cans. We’re coordinating a raffle going on at the store to raise money for this. One hundred cases will be brought to Tree House. The other 100 cases we’re going to do a raffle at the store. It will be this month.

What is your best-selling livestock?

Probably the parakeet [is the best-seller]. I have bigger birds, but with the economy, the parakeets are always the best-seller. --KI

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Vermont Subtropical
Irasburg, Vt.
Peter Lowry, Owner

How’s business going?

It’s slower than usual. We mostly deal with animals we breed here. We mainly sell stuff we breed on site. I can’t complain; business isn’t terrible. Yes, I would say this is a slow time of year.

What’s new?

We’re doing some of the kingsnakes and the milk snakes, nothing with the ball pythons, Burmese pythons, nothing too big.

We got a big sulcata tortoise, something like 28 inches, which brings people around. We don’t have too many display animals; they can help to get people interested though.

We’re a bit out of the way. Our business is primarily breeding instead of running a full service shop. We’re open to people coming in as they please. 

What livestock do you sell?

We’re working with the nelsons, pueblons, which are always blotched, and kingsnakes, including an unrecognized subspecies from the Florida panhandle.

We don’t do aquarium stuff, just snakes and reptiles. I believe that fish is the main function of a pet shop, though there is a larger store nearby which we can’t compete with on the fish. --EM

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Centinela Feed and Pet Supplies
Los Angeles
Daryl Rosenberg, owner

How’s business?

Business is doing well but it’s not what it used to be. People are still spending but they’re not coming in as frequently. People are looking for deals and sales. We have big events periodically throughout the year and each of our stores has two big events per year, but we’re seeing that customers aren’t loyal to just one of our [13] stores anymore. We’re seeing huge spikes of people loading up at those events, wherever they are, so where one customer might normally shop at Westchester, for example, they’re now traveling to, say, our Pasadena store just to take advantage of a special promotion. We’ve seen this in ridiculous numbers.

How do you get the word out?

We advertise a lot. We send a monthly mailer to customers who have signed up for it. And we advertise in little local, coupon magazines. We also push promotions in-store, usually about three weeks out. Neighboring stores in our fleet will also help get the word out. And we do the same for them. Of course, there’s also our website. And [the stores] are just now getting into Twitter to let people know about specials.

When do you expect foot traffic to increase?

I haven’t asked other retailers if they’re suffering at all but for us, business is still doing well. Yes, traffic has declined, but next year will be when we’ll really see what things are going to be like. --JMB