Bye Bye Pet Shop

[lostcarpark]

I spent the day helping my sister move out of the pet shop she's been running for the last couple of years. She had a quite successful first year there, but then a couple factors conspired against her in the last year. The first has been almost continual road works in the town where she was based, so lay a gas pipe line through the town. This has had a significant impact on her passing trade. The second was, unsurprisingly, the economic downturn. She's been negotiating with her landlord to reduce the rent, but he's only offered a 10% reduction, which was not enough to keep the shop viable.

However, it's not the end. While her sales through the brick-and-mortar shop have been steadily declining, sales through her website (which I set up for her) have been gradually rising. It's not yet at a level that would sustain the losses the shop was making, but it has certainly been a significant proportion of her business for the last while. So we hope we can continue to build up the online business despite not having a brick-and-mortar store.

So (and apologies for the blatant plug) come visit us at http://www.brendaspets.ie.

Comments

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

That's a shame that she's had to close the shop, but good news that online sales are rising - I certainly hope that increases. I'll mention the website to a few Dublin friends who recently got a new cat.

[xipuloxx.livejournal.com]

Are you aware that it claims to be a "friendly onlune pet shop"? Tut tut, poor proofreading there! ;-p

Sorry to hear about Brenda's woes, and I hope the website goes well. I'm afraid I probably won't be buying from it, even assuming it can interact ok with us UK types, as the only thing I'd be getting is cat food, and I don't get enough of that to make it worth buying other than from a local shop. Still, I wish her well!

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for spotting that - we'd just updated it last night.

She can send stuff to anywhere one the island - overseas the shipping gets too expensive.