Anonymous pet store
New Jersey
Owner (name withheld)

How’s business?

Sales are up about 12 percent, but profit is down because we’re mainly selling food and that margin is down. I think it’s definitely because of the economy. We’ve been here 47 years, and this past year has been unusual to our typical sales. People today are only coming in for the necessities. They’ll come in, buy a bag of food and leave. They’re in and out whereas they used to come in, buy a bag of food, shop around a little bit, maybe buy some toys for the pet and so on. Our sales are great; we’re bringing in more food lines to try to bring in more customers. But profit on the food is low because there’s a low mark-up on food. We’ve been at it like this the whole year. Some sales are 30- to 40-percent but it’s definitely a lot more of food than anything else. We sell all supplies and livestock, too, but they’re just not selling the way they used to. And I’ll tell ya: We’ve had the store here 47 years now, and there’s a Petsmart going in less than a mile away. We’re not too happy about that.

Are you doing anything new?

Definitely. We’ve been selling sweatshirts, T-shirts…things with the city’s name on them to celebrate the city. We also brought in a key machine. And we’re having success with all that. You just got to come up with anything creative you can think of and do whatever you can do to improve sales. We don’t do anything online; we’re primitive that way. I’d love to do it, but it would just be too expensive for us right now.

Do you sell livestock?

Yes. We sell everything but dogs and cats. But everything is slow right now. Rabbits are the only thing that’s been consistent.  --LH