Reef Keepers Aquarium Inc.
Clayton, N.C.
Bill Gately, Owner

How’s business going?

Not too bad. It’s been pretty good lately. It is what it is. It’s hit or miss right now. No, winter is generally a busy time of year. It will slow down by tax time, but…

What’s new?

I went to MACNA[Marine Aquarium Conference of North America], and picked up Vortec and Reef Nutrition. Vortec is moving pretty well. It’s an expensive product, so it’s not the easiest thing to sell, but when you can show someone what they’re getting from it, they tend to buy it.

As far as animals? I’m a hobbyist, so my store is full of everything you want. This isn’t your typical fish store, in the sense that, I don’t buy anything out of California. I’m very picky about where I buy the animals from in the first place. If they’re husbandry slips, I’m the one who loses.

Dead fish don’t sell very well. 

What types of livestock do you sell?

I sell saltwater only, I may branch into freshwater in the future, something I thought I wouldn’t want to do, but there seems to be a calling for it. 
The hot corals right now, the acans [Acanthurus spp.] have fallen off so I’m buying those cheap.

The chalice corals, they’re hot right now, everyone’s getting top dollar right now. You can’t get them cheap. Actually, I got a shipment [of chalice corals] in from Drs. Foster and Smith, they were pretty stunning, they don’t start that way, you have to give them some time, they were pretty cheap.  --EM

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Prehistoric Pets
Fountain Valley, Calif.
Tim O’Reilly, store manager

How’s business?

Business has been slow, without question. Sales have been lower than we would typically expect, especially through the holidays. Foot traffic is also significantly lower, especially following the holidays. Given the economic situation in the world right now people didn’t have the money to spend or, at least, they didn’t feel comfortable spending. I don’t think they wanted to tempt themselves by being out and about. It just really dipped [during the holiday season]. Usually we have a big spike in sales and traffic at that time—and we did—but not to the level we normally see. For our store, and in this industry, it’s been going on for some time, but its just been a gradual increase over last couple years.

What are you doing to compensate?

We’ve had to make some changes. We now have a sort of zoo in our store, where people can pay to come back and see animals they couldn’t see anywhere else. And we’ve introduced a more entertainment-based side to that so they can go back there and have their picture taken in a new photo booth we built. We have a hands-on section where they can get a mini presentation with reptiles back there ,so we built some new displays to incorporate more animals in a smaller section so people can kind of absorb that quickly. Then of course we’ve tried to market ourselves in terms of pricing.

What is your bestselling reptile?

Ball pythons.

What are your thoughts on the proposed legislation regarding exotics, specifically snakes?

We are actively involved in a letter-writing campaign and we’re trying to get meetings with our California senators on that as well. We’ve been communicating that out to our customers so they know. We’re encouraging them to take action, absolutely.  --JMB

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Pets in the City
St. Louis, Mo.
Amy Pizano, owner

How’s business?

Knock on wood, excellent. I know that as of Oct., Nov. and Dec., when [my husband] was doing the books, he said that they were our best months ever.

We’ve gradually been doing better and better since we’ve been open.

What’s new?

There’s not a month that goes by where I’m not adding something new. This month we bought a second freezer and added two new lines of raw.

We just did a renovation of our grooming and self-wash room, and we’ve got two new groomers on top of that.

My neighborhood has the second largest Mardi Gras celebration in the country. The week before Mardi Gras, we have the largest pet parade in the country, documented. So we’re building up to that [right now]. I’m not a boutique, but we really pull out everything for Mardi Gras.  --KI