How to Set Up an Online Pet Shop

In the U.S. alone, the online pet industry is a 40 billion dollar industry. Having an online pet shop can be lucrative, fun and quite inexpensive to start. A love of pets and an understanding of pet owner’s needs are recommended.

• Prepare a list of what you’ll sell. Decide whether to specialize and sell to a niche market, or to create a store that provides items for many types of pets.


• Start working on your website. You can purchase a pre-designed online pet store template or build your own from scratch. Think of how you can service your customers best with an eye-catching, highly organized and easy to use site.  


• Contact wholesale companies to get information about wholesale prices, suggested retail amounts and minimum orders for the products you would like to feature on your website. Consider doing business with companies that will drop ship your products; especially for larger items, this can be very convenient and save you storage costs.   


• Choose how your customers will pay you. You will probably want to set up an account with PayPal.


• Decide how you will ship your products, and how much you’ll need to charge for shipping and handling. If you will be shipping larger products yourself, it is a good idea to have a relationship with a shipping company who will pick up from your point of business. Also, make a plan for how you will handle customer complaints and refunds. Plan to ship quickly and always give more than you promise. Start this from the beginning and you soon will build a list of repeat customers.


• Once your website is set up, you will need to draw customers to it through advertising and online marketing techniques. A website needs to be maintained to produce results. You can add relevant content to your site, use social networking, be a guest blogger on pet related site or offer an affiliate program. Put the work in, enjoy the journey and soon you will be making a nice income from your online pet store.