Here are 10 quite diverse pet business ideas to provide some inspiration if you are thinking about setting up a small business
Or indeed looking to make some extra money on the side from your interest
If you love animals and have pets yourself then the thought of building a business around your interest could well be a very appealing one.
Lots of people have pets.
They may have a dog or a cat,
Or something more unusual such as a terrapin or lizard,
Or they might keep fish in an aquarium indoors
Or in a pond in their garden
But they all have some key things in common where you can provide a service or fulfill a need:
- Their pets will need looking after when they are away
- They will need equipment to help manage their pet day to day
- Their pets will need feeding
- They will need information on how to care for their pet
- They may need information on how to choose their pet
- They may need information on how to train their pet
Can you see the possibilities here?
There are some fantastic opportunites for anybody who has an interest in pets and animals to start a pet business
Especially now the internet has expanded the reach for small business owners
Here are some great pet business ideas that anybody could start a small business around
10 Pet Business Ideas That You Could Start Today
There are huge pet business opportunities here to provide some sort of service to pet owners (or potential pet owners) both physically (providing a pet-related service to your local area) or globally via the internet by setting up a home-based pet business.
You could even think about combining a couple of these pet business ideas
For example, you could start a dog walking service and then start blogging about how you set up a dog walking service
So let’s start our pet business ideas article there:
Start a Dog Walking Service
Of all the pet business ideas that are out there, then a dog walking service is probably the most obvious one.
A dog walking service could be invaluable to those dog owners whose dogs need a long walk once or twice a day but do not have time to provide it
You could provide a dog walking service to people in your area, especially if you live close to an open area such as a park or field.
You could expand your business by catering to multiple customers at a time – and the exercise would do you good as well!
This could be an excellent start-up business for teenagers looking to earn their first pay packet, which is an alternative to the regular newspaper delivery job,
This business is also easily expandable by taking on more customers,
Or walking a couple of dogs at a time.
Here is an article on how to start a dog walking business
Start a Pet Sitting Service
People need to go on holiday but often they cannot (or will not) take their pet with them.
You could offer a pet minding service for the holidays with facilities for all kinds of pets – from goldfish to rabbits, cats, dogs.
As an alternative idea, you could offer a service where you feed pets for owners in their own home (you will need to prove yourself trustworthy though!)
You could specialize or generalize – this could be a very good business to run during the holidays and if you have the facilities and space you could run it all year round
Start a Pet Grooming Business
Owners like their pets to look their best. That’s why a good and reliable pet grooming service could do very well.
You could offer all aspects of grooming from a wash and haircut to toe and claw clippings.
You could offer your services from your own premises or as a “mobile service” operating from clients homes
Note that if you are serious about this business idea you are advised to study and qualify in your chosen area of expertise
You could also sell accessories as a nice little side business, which leads onto another of my pet business ideas,,,
Start a Business Selling Pet Accessories
In past times if you wanted to start a pet accessory business you would need a proper “bricks and mortar shop”, stocked to the hilt with pet accessories,
Often these stores would also sell the pets themselves
These days you don’t have to start a full-blown pet shop.
Instead, you could start a pet accessories business small on a platform like eBay or Shopify
The beauty of such a business is you could drop-ship – which means that you take and fulfill orders and you have an agreement with a supplier to fulfill the orders on your behalf.
You make a profit on anything sold over and above the wholesale price
As an alternative consider setting up an online Amazon store as an affiliate marketer.
Amazon commissions are quite small – to start off with around 2% – on any products bought through your affiliate link,
However, there are many small businesses built affiliate marketing through Amazon, and it is a business model which is well worth looking at
Start a Drop Shipping Business
Start an Affiliate Marketing Business
Start a Business Building Hutches or Kennels
This is possibly the least obvious of our pet business ideas
But if you are good at woodwork or constructing things, why not consider starting a business building dog kennels or rabbit hutches
Or homes for other pets?
You could offer “standard” catalog kennels as your base offering, but then also offer premium bespoke custom-built ones.
They could be indoors or outdoor kennels and hutches – the sky really is the limit and owners are often prepared to pay significantly for the comfort of their favorite pet.
Start a Business Making Pet Accessories and Treats
If you are into arts and crafts then one area you consider getting into is pet accessories such as
A good place to sell such products is on Etsy
Or a specialist site such as Not on the High Street
Or even a bigger online retailer such as eBay or Amazon
Here are some example of things you could make and sell
- Collars for dogs, cats, rabbits
- Coats and other “pet clothing”
- Pet treats
- Pet Toys
You could even go offline and sell your products at local car boot sales or fetes.
Or (if your products are good enough) strike a deal with supply local shops
Start a Pet Training Business
You may think this is just for dogs (and you will see examples of such businesses in local parks up and down the country) but you could also learn how to go about “training” other animals and offer advice to pet owners
Examples of pet business ideas around pet training could include:
- Dog training (the obvious one)
- Advice on toilet training cats
- Dietary and food advice for any range of pets
Start Blogging About Your Favorite Pet or Animal
Blogging about your pet is one of the pet business ideas you might not have thought of
You could set up a website or a blog offering tips and advice on your favorite pet.
The best way to start a blog is to go “niche”,
The first step in going niche is to focus on a particular animal
My advice would be to niche down and go for a particular breed that you may be knowledgable about
Or maybe start a blog that addresses a specific problem that pet owners face
Here are some examples:
- Start a blog on providing information on different dog breeds so that potential owners can make informed choices
- Start a blog on how you trained your dog in 30 days
- Start a blog talking about fish care, or offering dietary advice
- Start a blog about your adventures with your Cockapoo
- Or how you got your cat to do tricks and appear on Britain’s got Talent
You can monetize your blog in a number of ways:
A very popular way of monetizing blogs is to review products
For example, if you were in to tropical fish, why not review the latest aquariums and recommend the best one?
Here are some further examples of how you could monetize a blog around pets
- Recommend relevant products which pay you a commission for selling them (affiliate marketing)
- Create and sell your own e-book or video
- Place “pay to click” adverts on your blog and get paid when someone clicks
- Run a paid-for newsletter
- Sell advertising space on your blog
- Sell your blog
- Any combination of the above that makes sense!
Here is an article on how to start a blog
Write a Pet-Related eBook
With the rise of the internet, electronic media, and book readers you do not need a publishing deal to publish your own book.
Indeed, it is actually quite easy to write your own eBook and sell it online – either as a Kindle eBook or as a PDF for download
In fact, this is probably one of the easiest pet business ideas to start up as there are literally no overheads
Write a book based on your knowledge of your pet, or carry out research and publish your findings.
For instance, most people that keep Koi Carp know a thing or two about them.
And if that is you why not use your knowledge to write a short eBook on Koi Carp
- how to keep them
- how they breed them
- how to buy them
- 20 things you need to know …
The beauty of writing an eBook is that it does not have to be very long and can focus on the solution to one specific problem or question that needs answering
I have a free eBook on how to make money with short, “one problem ” reports
Here are some other ideas for a “1 problem” eBook
- How do I toilet train my dog?
- I want my dog to be vegan?
- My dog keeps barking at the postman – how do I stop him?
- How do I care for my pet’s teeth?
- What aquarium should I choose for my tropical fish
If you concentrate on providing solutions to common problems then your short eBooks will sell
Start a Pet Related Forum or Online Community
And finally, why not consider starting a pet based forum or community on a social site such as Facebook
That way you can get your community to be self-answering and people can share common problems and get answers from the community itself
Forums do require a degree of moderation and are not easy to get going, but you could ultimately monetize with adverts running on the forum, or through selling products of your own to forum members
10 Pet Business Ideas: In Summary
I hope I have given a little inspiration as to how you could go about starting your own business centered around pets and animals.
An additional (very powerful) approach is to take your idea one step further and combine ideas – and even break into the “make money online” niche
For instance – let’s say you started a blog that focused on all the knowledge you have built up looking after your Koi carp
- You could monetize your blog using affiliate products (affiliate marketing)
- You could further monetize your blog by developing your own information product (eBook or video or membership site) (creating your own product)
- And if that is successful you could then develop an information product on how you made your (niche pet business idea) successful
One great example of doing this is theflooring girl.com
In the first instance, Debbie has developed a very successful website focussed on her knowledge of flooring
But then Debbie has taken it one step further and now runs an offshoot business which explains how she setup her blog and made it successful (which is how I first got to know about her)
And whilst her second business refers to her original flooring business, this business can be applied to any niche
Although the above is not related to pet business ideas, the principles for success can be equally applied
I hope I have given you food for thought on which of the pet business ideas you could get involved in – and also some ideas as to expanding beyond that in the future
Oh, and I bet you could think of many more pet business ideas if you tried !
Here’s a visual summary
If you have been told often enough to capitalize on your love for animals and have decided to do just that – well done! There is a huge market for dog grooming services and your affinity with animals will make you imminently suitable for this work.
You can open a salon or get yourself a mobile trailer fitted out to groom dogs; these trailers are prefabricated and fitted. You just have to hook it up to your car and off you go. Before you take off you have to first get trained; there are professional standards for
http://Www.doggroomingforum.co.uk that should be adhered to. Know what you want and do some research to find a training school that will satisfy your needs.
The success of your business depends on the quality of the service you provide. You have to constantly be aware that there are numerous dog grooming businesses out there, which have an edge over you; they are already in business and you are just starting out.
Get stuck into working out a business plan which will provide you with a clear road map of where you want to take your business. Find out about prices, competition, insurance, advertising, licenses, equipment, location, space and more. Find out as much as you can while you are under training, then you will be ready to hit the ground running when the training is over and you are a certified dog groomer.
Pricing can be a bit of struggle to start out with. If you go too low your profits will suffer and people will mistakenly think you are no good. Too high and your potential clients will run for the hills. The internet is the best resource you have to find out about prevalent prices in the market. In actual fact you need to work out the costing for the business and then fix your prices and as this is something you learn at training school, you can work with the pricing information you have.
Once you establish the business and it is on its feet so to speak, you need to take a diversion in terms of going on a journey of knowledge gathering. Start making time to attend dog shows, trade shows focused on grooming, exhibitions and seminars. Subscribe to dog grooming publications and trawl internet sites for information. Join dog grooming forums and keep abreast of new product launches. This is one of the most valuable services you can provide your clients.