Petropics
Charleston, Ill.
Mike Corray, owner

How’s business?

We’ve been okay. The last two months, I’ve been slightly over my numbers from last year. Those are the first two positive months of growth I’ve had in the calendar year 2009

It continues to be likely that a majority of it is price inflation, but in these times, I’ll continue to count it as sales growth, nonetheless, and consider it a success.

What’s new?

I’ve trimmed my inventory and eliminated slow movers, and I’m stocking fewer SKUs. But then I’ve done multiple facings of better sellers, and in general [I’ve] reset the store to just simply give it a fresher look.

Like everyone, these harsh times have caused me to rethink everything I’m doing. Things are tight, and if doesn’t sell well, it goes.

You used to be able to stock the same products year after year after year, but the pace of innovation and new products and the expectations of consumers demanding the latest, greatest…the pace of change is just incredible, and it’s pretty hard to deal with as a sole proprietor.  --KI

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Anonymous
Store offers products for dogs and cats, as well as a self-service dog wash, professional grooming and fresh-baked treats
Illinois
(store and owner name withheld)

How’s business?

Business has been very strong. We opened our second location in January and that store has been trending very well for a brand new store.

My existing store is five years old and year to date we’re up 35 percent, and that’s on top of double digit increases from every year growing. We moved two years ago but we’re in the same location we were last year. Customer traffic is up 25 perecent.

What trends are you seeing?

Nutrition continues to grow. Raw food is growing quite quickly, very quickly. All-natural nutrition continues to grow faster than our store is. I’m getting great growth out of toys and collars and leads. Beds start to peak in the fourth quarter so November/December is really the peak of our bed business (gift-gifting time).  --JMB

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Anonymous aquatic specialty store
Delaware
Store manager (name withheld)

How’s business?

Slow. But September and October are slower times of the year. It’s kind of typical for aquatics. Against ’08, we’re flat—not below. January and February of this year were slow; we knew it was going to be low. I think back-to-school and Halloween to a certain degree affect our sales. At least for September, I know back-to-school plays a part in low sales, and probably also a bit of October. And then I suppose people are heading into how they’re going to spend money for the holidays. We’re down for the year, but if we could take out the first couple of months, we’d be flat.

Are you doing anything new?

We’re revamping our website, and we just opened up a Facebook page for the store. We’re also trying to get some grassroots marketing going for the business. We’re partnering with other businesses for coupons in a gift bag. And we’ve upgraded our aquarium and pond portfolio. We’ve only just started hardcore on a lot of this about a month ago, and so we’re only seeing a little bit of results so far. I hate to say it this way, but the Internet’s free so we’re taking advantage of that. I don’t think we’ll ever do another direct mail again. I mean, why pay $3,000 to mail something out to customers when we could just email them about it for free? We’re also working on a new referral program. We don’t know how it’ll work yet, but it’s something we’re working on figuring out right now. One of the specials we think we’ll have will be some sort of tank upgrade incentive program like $1 per gallon will be towards getting a bigger tank.

What’s selling well?

We carry all types of fish. As far as freshwater fish go, the standards are selling typically well as always: the tetras, danios and grommies. For saltwater, coral frags are really popular. I think it’s because people can spend $15 for a smaller piece of the coral than the larger $50 or $60 alternatives. We’ve been selling quite a few. People are doing smaller reef tanks, like the Nano tank. We’re selling more of the smaller tanks than larger, but that’s typical. But, we have actually installed quite a few of the larger 100+ gallon tanks, as well—mostly to medium-sized businesses. What we don’t sell as many of are the medium-sized, 50- to 75-gallon tanks.  --LH