The Viability of Independent Pet Stores in a Major City Full of Chain Stores
Advisor: Danny Tejada
Internship Location: Pacific Aquarium & Plant (Remote)
Onsite Mentor: Dr. Chubaryov
For my senior project, I will research pet shops across New York City to compare how chain stores perform against locally owned stores. I will use research, online resources, and interview businesses. Pacific Aquarium & Plant, a store that I frequent, will be my on-site remote placement. In addition to that store, I plan to interview leaders at local PetSmart, Petco, and Brooklyn Pet Supply. My goal is to interview/research one every 1-2 weeks over the coming weeks and summarize the information I gather on each before comparing the resulting data.
I aim to review the store's annual revenue, available goods & services, tax and bill costs, and consumer satisfaction. Extra details that I plan to consider include whether the business is local or part of a chain, how long it has been open, and whether the space is owned or rented. My ultimate goal with this project is to determine whether it is viable to own a locally owned business in an environment with chain stores, and to understand the work involved in owning a store.
Project Blog
Week 0: A BIG Mishap
Hello reader,
My name is Sean Familant, a student from BASIS Independent Manhattan Upper. I've been at BASIS for about 7 years now, having attended it since the start of 5th grade. Throughout my time at BASIS, I've had to push myself in various ways, but I'll keep myself from saying more, as I don't want to bore you with all of that.
Instead, I think it's best if we talk about my senior project. Obviously, this post, despite being for Week 0, has been posted much later than the others. The reason for this delay is what this post is titled: a big mishap. Before we get to that, I'd like to talk about my senior project a bit. I was unsure as to what I wanted to do for a senior project at first. Being given autonomy on the topic was both a blessing and a curse. Fortunately, with the help of my counselor, Mr. Tejada, I managed to decide on a project idea: breeding fish.
You may be spitting out your proverbial drink (maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration), but I assure you, I'm completely serious. Ever since I was a kid, I've been around the hobby of fish keeping, and it's been a pretty serious interest of mine. In middle school, after much begging and helping my dad with his tank, I managed to convince him to get me my own, albeit it was a small one. Over the years, I kept various things in said tank, including a killifish, a betta, and a snail. Once COVID-19 hit, I, like many others, lost a lot of motivation for the things I loved, including fish keeping. Maintaining my tank had become more of a hassle than anything, so I disassembled it once the fish I had in it passed away. With that, I had temporarily stopped my experience with fishkeeping.
Then, the pandemic loosened up. Around this same time, I began high school. With that, I had rekindled my love for fish keeping. I can't quite remember what got me back into it, though I want to say it was my discovery of aquascaping. Aquascaping, for reference, is the practice of replicating nature by creating bioactive fish tanks. Regardless, I knew I was interested in trying fishkeeping again.
After over a year, and I do truly mean it took that long, I managed to convince my parents to let me set up a larger, more personalized fish tank. Instead of taking up space in the living room, I wanted this one to be in my room. Conveniently, I had totally coincidentally just renovated my room, which left a totally random, not-at-all-intentional empty space where a fish tank and a stand would fit perfectly. As you can guess, negotiations were successful, and I had gotten my hands on a 40-gallon tank by the end of freshman year.
After rediscovering my love for fish keeping, I've kept it up. I still have that same 40-gallon in my room. While I was looking for something to watch on YouTube, definitely to find inspiration for my senior project and not just have something on while I ate dinner, I saw a video from a channel called SerpaDesign (who is awesome by the way). In that video, Tanner, the channel owner, discussed how his fish were breeding in large numbers. A light bulb went off in my head. That was it. I was gonna breed fish. Fast forward a few weeks, and the mishap happens.
The school wasn't able to let me run my experiment on site, and there wasn't anywhere else I could do it on such short notice.
By then, it's already been roughly two weeks after I'm supposed to have already begun my project. Admittedly, I was burnt out. I had just gotten through final projects for my capstone classes, and senioritis began to rear its head toward me. Thankfully, thanks to my dad constantly bringing it up (which certainly never got old) and my school's encouragement, I was able to pivot and change my senior project instead of having to drop it altogether. Now, my senior project has a clearer, more straightforward goal. Instead of trying to breed fish, I'll be investigating how local businesses, specifically pet shops, compare to chain stores. I figured I'd keep it related to my original project somehow, hence why I picked pet shops.
I plan to research various pet stores throughout New York City and New Jersey, and possibly other states in America, and compare the locally owned ones to the big name chains by what they sell, what their upkeep is like, how the store/location performs relative to others in the area, and whether there are any patterns, etc. I will do some interviews for this. My goal is to research a store every one to two weeks, recording data along the way, and be able to display trends and observations by the end.
I look forward to keeping you updated on my journey with this project, and I hope you're excited for it as well.
Weeks 1-2: Slow and Steady Wins The Race
It's been 3 weeks since the start of my senior project, and thankfully, some progress has been made. Honestly, at the start of the senior project, I was worried I'd fall into the trap of being too in over my head. This worry mostly stems from considering the time constraint. I'm happy to say, however, that this is not the case.
Now then, let's talk about where I'm at. As a quick refresher, my goal has been to compare the financial workings of various pet stores throughout New York City, my hometown. By now, I've managed to compile a table of the major product genres found, with the most popular ones being pet food, tank equipment, live pets, and toys. All these tracks pretty well.
One interesting thing I've begun to notice is that the smaller, locally owned businesses carry a more varied selection of a few products, whereas the larger chain stores seem to carry a wider range of items, but with less diversity. My hope is that by next week, I'll be able to go more in-depth on how prices fluctuate and potentially research more about what goes on behind the scenes in product management and shipping.
I'll admit I still have a decent amount of work cut out for me, but I look forward to getting it done, especially now that I (potentially) am done with all my classes. Regardless, I'll be sure to keep you posted about this, and I hope you enjoy.
Week 3: Sticking to The Script
Hello!
It's me again! Over the past week, I've worked on some of the questions I'll potentially ask in my interviews. With the help of my advisor, Mr. Tejada, I've given more consideration to the topics I want to ask about. Doing so has admittedly been a bit tricky. On one hand, I want to ensure that I collect enough information to draw parallels and patterns. On the other hand, however, I don't want to stretch the range of my topics too far. If I were to do so, I could end up with a bunch of different information that doesn't tie together very well. Another thing is that it's difficult to ascertain how much a business would be willing to share.
Because of these factors, I've decided to categorize my questions by the following subjects: taxes, employment, location, brand deals, and bills. For quantifiable answers, I'll graph them to show how they vary between chain and local businesses. Examples of such answers include the number of employees hired per year, the number of locations owned, etc. As for unquantifiable answers, they will be evaluated separately.
Another thing is that I may interview multiple locations within a single chain, depending on the details of an individual location's response. As I stated earlier, I want to ensure that the data sources are varied enough to provide accurate information. I will also consult pre-existing resources, such as a business's online store, 10-K reports, and 10-Q reports. Doing so will allow me to develop data that is missing or incomplete.
I look forward to getting into the more in-depth parts of this project. Seemingly, they're right around the corner! I hope you guys are excited for it as well.
Week 4: Reviewing Public Forms
Hello!
Over the past week, I've finalized my list of questions to ask and researched the publicly owned pet stores here in New York City. Thanks to the SEC's EDGAR database, I have managed to access the 10-K forms I mentioned in last week's post.
I'll briefly outline the 10-K forms before I get into their contents. The categories used in a 10-K form are business issues, financials, and executive positions. Every year, a 10-K form must be filed by a publicly-owned company. Thus far, I've reviewed the 10-K filings for two chains: Petco and PetSmart. The 10-K form I got from Petco is from April of this year, whereas the most recent 10-K I could find from PetSmart was filed in March of 2014. Due to the company going private the following year, this is the latest available 10-K from PetSmart.
While I have yet to schedule an interview with a company, I do think I've covered decent ground thus far. I'll be sure to share anything that I come across in the following weeks as well.
I know this week's post was a bit short, but don't worry; I plan to include more details as I get more information, since the 10-K forms don't have everything I'm looking for.
Keep giving your best, and I'll see you again next week.
Week 5: Finalizing Questions and Interview Scheduling
Hello, once again!
I'm back this week to talk more about how my senior project is going! I happily announce that I have made more progress with interviews, and I've finalized my set of questions. I'll list them below, using the categories I mentioned in a previous post.
Taxes and Bills:
How much money is taxed from the business/company per year?
What is the distribution of the sources for the taxed money (income, salary, etc)
What sorts of bills are the company/business paying for?
How much is spent on bills per year?
Employment:
On average, how many employees are hired per location?
Do employees undergo any sort of training?
If so, how expensive is it per employee?
What is the average salary of an employee?
Location:
How many locations are owned/rented by the company?
Are large numbers of smaller-sized locations prioritized, or are there fewer locations but with a larger size?
What is the average revenue per location?
Products
What types of products are sold?
Are the majority of products owned by the same brand, or is there brand diversity?
Where are live fish sourced from?
What is the distribution of sales by product category (fish food, tanks, filters, live fish, etc.)?
Now then, as for the interviews, I've reached out to three locations in New York City thus far: the Petco at 2475 Broadway, the PetSmart at 1107 Broadway, Suite 101, and Pacific Aquarium and Plant Inc. at 46 Delancy Street. So far, no location has responded, possibly because each message was sent by email. Thankfully, each of these locations is relatively close to where I live, so I intend to visit each in person and ask them. If worst comes to worst, I'll have to rely solely on information from the SEC.
For now, this is all I have to report on. Hopefully, there will be more to share next week, as I'll have gone to each location by then. I hope you continue to follow along!
All the best,
Sean
Week 6: First Interview Finished
Hello yet again!
I'm back this week with some great news; I was able to conduct an interview. I had an interview with Mr. Cho, manager of Pacific Aquarium and Plant, located at 46 Delancey Street in Manhattan. During my visit to the location and my interview with Mr. Cho, I got the following responses:
What makes up the list of bills/licenses/permits paid by the business?
Utility bill, insurance bill, rent, Class P permit, Sales Tax Certificate, General Business Certificate, Animal Facility Permit.
How many employees are hired at the location?
Five.
Have the business's employees undergone any sort of training? What sort of traits are prioritized when hiring/training?
Employees do undergo training. Knowledge in fish keeping is the main priority.
Is this the only location owned by the business's owner?
Yes.
What types of products are sold?
Aquarium Equipment:
Aquariums
Filters
Pumps
Nets
Brushes
Conditioner
Starter
Supplements
Fish Food
Aquarium Features:
Gravel
Soil
Sand
Wood
Stones
Organisms:
Shrimp
Crabs
Fish
Frogs
Plants
Coral
Anemones
Fishing Equipment:
Lines
Hooks
Bobbers
Weights
What brands supply the products sold?
Hikari, Aquavitro, Seachem, Berkley, Aquarium Solutions, API, Danner, Aquatop, Tetra, Weco, biOrb, Aqualife, Fritz, Fluval, UN Systems, Zoo Med, Marina
Where are live animals sourced from?
Globally, most are imported.
Any questions I've mentioned in previous posts that aren't featured above were likely omitted based on Mr. Cho's responses. I'm very grateful to have had my interview with Mr. Cho, and I highly recommend visiting Pacific Aquarium and Plant if you're considering fishkeeping. I have a tank of my own at home, and I got the fish in it from their store. As for what I have planned over the coming week, I'll be busy with studying for my math final (wish me luck), but I should be able to get some work done on the project. Hopefully you'll be there to read it!
Week 7: Drafting
Hello!
I'm back this week to give an update on what I've been doing over the past few days. It's not a lot, but I have started drafting the paper for my project. I've decided to aim for around 2000 words on the paper, which should amount to approximately 5 pages, since my presentation needs to be roughly 15 minutes long. Once I've finished my paper, I'll begin making the slide presentation, since I've figured it'll be easier to do them one at a time rather than both at once.
The rough timeline for this project is as follows: finish the paper by the end of May, and then finish the presentation around the first week of June, with a full draft completed weekly. I'll be doing weekly updates for how far along I am, since I won't have much else to write on, so there may not be much new content. I also intend to give another look at the forms from the EDGAR database I've mentioned in previous posts, as well as go over the 10-Q forms I mentioned in Week 3's post, to ensure I've gathered enough information from them.
As for what I've done so far, I currently have the following thesis: "Large, chain fish stores in New York City have a tendency to lean toward more commercialized, widespread goods, whereas locally owned stores prioritize the fish and build their catalog around them." This thesis likely won't be my final thesis, but I'm using it to get a foundation for now. Speaking of the foundation for my paper, my intent is to examine how diverse the selection of goods is within each store, measured by both the number of brands and the number of goods (both in terms of volume and type). The idea is to demonstrate how businesses vary in their product selection. As I stated before, my goal is to have my first draft finished by next week, so I'll be leaving an update on that in the next post. I hope you'll stick around for it!
Week 8: The First Draft
Hello!
I'm back this week with good news; my first draft is finished! I will admit there were a few small hurdles along the way, though, including a splitting headache and writer's block. Despite these setbacks, I managed to push through and finish most of what I was aiming for. All I have left to do now is continue refining and polishing what I've gotten down so far. I will say that one of the aforementioned hurdles that I encountered was significant, which is that there wasn't a lot of stuff on the administration side of things for me to use from my interview with Mr. Cho. Granted, I was expecting this to happen, considering the company that owns Pacific Aquarium and Plant is privately owned. I will say that this has influenced my paper and made finances a bit more difficult to write about.
I also believe it to be reasonable to assume that other privately owned businesses will be equally unwilling to share financial information. As such, I've decided to stick to writing about the things I can write about that are publicly available. This mainly refers to the products that are sold. To be clear, this is not to say that I won't be writing about the financials of publicly owned businesses. I still believe that I can include them in the paper in a way that is cohesive and fits with what I'm discussing. Comparisons in that regard will likely be kept to between public fish stores, unless estimates are used.
Despite the setbacks, I look forward to continuing my work on this project. Doing so has been a good way to keep myself busy now that I don't have any classes left. I'll be back next week with the second draft finished, so I'll be seeing you then!