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This is my first time on this site and I'm hoping to learn alot about wildlife. I've always tryed to encourage birds etc to my garden with different plants, shrubs and a pond just for wildlife.
I actually did something that I've always wanted last September and opened my own pet food shop. No animals or live food. I've got a good choice of wild bird food. Could anybody give me any advice on what is the best and what to avoid. I'm selling mealworms and alot of sunflower seeds.
There was an article in a trade magazine saying that around valentines day, its going to be nest box week. I've seen alot of different sorts for sale. Some very expensive and others that look as if the first shower of rain they would fall to pieces. I've also seen gimmicky ones with thatched roofs, that I don't like the look of. Any advice please.
I hope its not going against any rules me posting on here, but I don't want to sell anything that is going to cause any harm, I would rather lose the sale then do that.
today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday
HI AND WELCOME
What you going to charge us LOL
ray
a good laugh is better than a tonic
I've been told that my prices are cheaper then some big chains, who shall we say are "at home". With my shop being on a school run, I thought it could be a good opportunity to try and educate the little angels!!!!
i'd say for a good point of reference if you have any large garden centers near you go and visit and see what they have on offer - they will be over priced but will show you the range and quality of products that bird lovers will be used to seeing, there is a huge variety of seed types and mixes, nuts, fat balls/cakes/nibbles/stuffed things! In my opinion with nest boxes people would rather end up spending a few extra pounds to buy an attractive looking well made box than going for the cheapest possible that looks homemade, i certainly got house proud when i was choosing one! Running some kind of promotion alongside the nestbox week would be good, discount/free food with any nestbox, spend £20 on food get free nest box etc etc - maybe a loyalty card with a stamp for each purchase of bird food over £5 or something with money off on your 10th stamp etc - it is scary how much we all spend on bird food on these forums i bet you need to get people in the habit of spending all that money at your store!... hope it all goes well for you!! :o)
i don't know if you can post a link to your online shop so we can see your prices but offering a 'forum discount' code at checkout (usually only 10%) is usually the way that most suppliers reward forum visitors for regular business. happens on all the other forums I am on.
if you really want to get the schoolchildren into your shop then I would consider donating a few nestboxes to the school, maybe a couple of sparrow colony nest boxes if there are spadgers about.. or do a couple of talks to their 'nature club' and drop some colourful flyers off.
if you were feeling adventurous you could even loan them a camera nest box to really get them interested... with a live feed to a monitor in a hallway which would get a lot of the children watching it?
what goes around comes around!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/guyfrankland/sets/72157623175917620/show/