advice on opening a home based store

I think all good suggestions so far. My only minor caveat is that an LLC does protect you personally, that's what its designed to do. In fact, when you get into corporations, there are more issues with fiduciary duties. You can also customize an LLC to almost anything you want, provided it's in the LLC agreement. It's only when you start intermingling finances of the LLC, or corporations for that matter, with personal finances when you get issues and possible claims of breaching the corporate veil. If you do it right, you won't have problems. But I suggest doing your research, as you seem to be doing, and choose what corporate entity will work best for you.

 

I wouldn't want strangers in my house. You'll have to either move/build/add tanks in a common area. Or people will have go into a private area where your tanks are.

Also I doubt I cmwoukd go to someone's house for LFS. Having said that a guy I get a lot of corals from does this. But I meet him at a coffee shop to make the deal. Ha

 

I live in Tallahassee and am pretty close with one of the owners of a LFS do you want me to put you in contact with him?

 

YES PLEASE!!!

 

And we have no reef clubs near us except in tally or Atlanta. I'm trying to get a club started here to kind of gage the area to see but so far there is a want for a new store with better selection and care

 

There are several decent LFS around me, including That Fish Place in Lancaster, PA. When I recently got back into the hobby, I visited a few of them to gauge their livestock and selection. I was also trying to buy a Vortech MP40 and a large acrylic mag float. The one store had a decent selection of fish, everything seemed healthy enough and it looked like he had good filtration. His coral selection was ok, nothing special though. What annoyed me was that he was a Vortech dealer, but had none in stock. He only had empty boxes on the shelves. I get they may not sell a ton of them, but they offered to order me one, which to me, made no sense as I could just as easy buy one off line. I would have actually paid a bit more to have it immediately.

The other store actually didn't have many fish at all, but that was intentional. He specialized in coral and had a great selection. He had some equipment and a few basic fish, but had tons of coral including rarer types. I was speaking to him about it and he said there are many stores which sell fish and coral, but none that specialized in coral.

My point is that you need to find a niche. Whether it's having tons of different equipment; fish or coral, focus on something and be known for that. Also, if you become a dealer/wholesaler, have the items in stock. That one experience turned me off.

 

agree about ordering different types of equipment, why would I wait on you when ebay can ship it same day. Im really leaning twords more saltwater Fish with some nice coral tanks to sell out of. We have diehard predator tank owners down here that have no selection for rare-er livestock such as different types of lions, frogfish, sharks, ext.

on the opisite side of the spectrum there are also coral nuts that drive to Tallahassee regularly to buy different exotic coral frags.

Also just found this out today but the LFS here sells RODI water for .50 cents a gallon.... seems high to me

 

The LFS gives out RO/DI free here.

I'm doing a 2 hour drive on Monday out to Seattle just to take a peek at a new store that supposedly has some unique corals in it. I think you're on the right track.

 

The guy who owns my local fish store started out in his basement and his livestock came from frags of coral he owned and stuff he bread.

 

Iv thought about putting a nice shed in the backyard with insolation, heat, AC ext and trying it out that way