The aquarium trade in Calgary is in line with the retail market in general. The retail market here is going through a incredible growth phase tied to the increase in disposable income most people have. If you look at the growth figures it's almost unheard of, most retail operations are seeing 15% to 30% same store revenue increases for the past 3 years. Edmonton is similar but not really seeing the sectors growing due to demographic differences. SW tanks are largely a white collar person's type of hobby due to the costs involved, although that is changing as equipment gets less expensive and better making smaller tanks easier. There are a lot of new stores in Edmonton this year.
My current job has been driving me nuts lately so I've been looking at what opportunities are available in the aquarium trade. Working full time in retail isn't going to pay the bills and I don't really want to have my own store for a variety of reasons, mostly the capital involved in starting one. The wholesale idea is something I've looked at bit but there are some hurdles.
Most retailers split up their purchases between the big wholesalers and some direct buying from collectors with most of the direct purchases being from Caribbean / Florida sources. Buying direct from the Pacific is difficult here, there are no direct flights from the major shipment points and losses can be quite high. There are two ways to do it, you try and go direct and hope you have good luck with the flights between Vancouver and here or you buy from a transshiper that re works the bags and gets things on their way ASAP. Both solutions have their problems.
For someone to establish a wholesale operation here you would have find a way to provide value for the local retails above what the major suppliers already do. Those operations are all in LA and Florida right next to the airports. They get stuff faster and have many shipping options because those airports are major cargo transhipment ports. Your transportation costs are going to be much higher. If you are going to be selling to local places you are going to have to get pretty close to their prices. You could be a bit higher as hopefully you can deliver with less shipping stress than a purchase from LA and less chance of stuff getting lost but IME the loss rates on shipments from LA is already pretty low provided the airline doesn't screw up so there isn't much room there.
So if you could get just about every major store in Alberta to buy about 25% of their stock from you you could probably do it but you wouldn't be making much money (IE paying the mortgage) for about 3 years, maybe 4. it doesn't look very good to me.
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