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How to Decide on a Location When Opening a Splash and Dash Pet Store

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Where Should I Open a Pet Store?

Congratulations! You’ve decided to open a pet store and are taking one of the first steps toward your grand opening. One of the first items on the list is finding a good location. Some small businesses are less reliant on where they are based. This is not the case when you open a pet store. Location is vital to the longevity of your business and opening in a bad location can lower your chances of success. This is why Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique shop locations are opened in the most suitable location for a pet store. Shop owners and the corporate team meticulously search areas of interest to find the perfect spot for a Splash and Dash. So, what should future pet store owners look for in a potential location?

Since Splash and Dash shops are a hybrid of salon grooming and retail spaces, there are variables to keep in mind when looking for the perfect location. This article will go into more detail further down, but the absolute necessities are: 1,000 to 1,2000 square feet of space, strong ingress & egress access, adequate parking for frequent visitors, 5-year base term leases with two yeas options, and no percentage rent or radius restrictions. Franchise owners rest easy knowing that as they search they have the support of the corporate team through the whole process.

Strategic Locations Include:

  • Strip-Mall style areas with high visibility & high foot traffic
  • Surrounded on all sides by a combination of businesses e.g. coffee shops, dry cleaners, restaurants
  • Close proximity to a ‘main street’ passed by at least of 15,000 vehicles each day
  • A community with 15,000 households that earn at least $85,000 annual income
  • Within a 10-mile radius of at least 125,000 people

Continue reading this article to learn precise details on finding the best location to open a pet store.

Style of the Business

Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique store models are stylish spaces. We operate on the idea that human pet spas are luxurious, why shouldn’t a pet spa be luxurious too? Store models can be described as upscale but accessible with energizing decor. The hand-picked color palette is bright and inviting. Remember, if you open a Splash and Dash, you’re opening a pet store that actually smells good, not like a wet dog! The feng-shui of a Splash and Dash is a combination of alluring decor, stylized merchandising, and amazing people!

Customer Demographics

Before you open a pet store, you need to ask some important questions about the demographic profile of your target market. The first is a question of proximity. Is the location visible from a busy street that hosts 15,000 vehicles each day? Is the surrounding community one that holds at least 15,000 households that earn at least of $85,000 annual income?

Next, you will need to know about pet ownership in the area. Pet ownership is on the rise, with 68% of the U.S. population owning a pet. Yet, some cities don’t have dog parks, have minimal veterinarians per capita, and have a high cost of living that discourages people from owning a pet. Other cities have the polar opposite of this—pet utopias. Do your research and find out what U.S. cities make the best place to open a pet store.

Foot Traffic

Marketing 101 shows us that it is much easier to meet a customer where they already are than convince them to come to you. This can be translated into tactics for sourcing out your brick-and-mortar location. Splash and Dash shops want to be near other small businesses already attracting foot traffic to the area. This is part of the business model. For convenience, a customer can drop their dog off, get some grocery shopping done or a cup of coffee, then come back to pick their dog up. Choose a location that is centralized to major foot traffic areas near non-competing small businesses.

Vehicle Accessibility & Parking

Splash and Dash locations offer a doggie valet service. Meaning we will walk groomed dogs out to their owner’s car while carrying out any products they have purchased. Think about the accessibility for vehicles to pull up to your storefront. Is there a busy parking lot or is the store right off the main street with only two parking spaces?

Competition

Proximity to a competitor is another factor to consider when you open a pet store. Some franchises purposefully open locations right next to the competition. This is not a tactic Splash and Dash uses but you will want to be aware of the various industries located nearby. Restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery stores are great! But, if a competitor is close to your shop, this will make marketing your storefront more difficult. You should look elsewhere.

Permits and Ordinance

Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique stores will not need a kennel license like a doggie daycare facility would. Overhead is also lower because shops can operate in a typical retail space—1,2000 square feet. Splash and Dash shops also need cheaper insurance packages than a doggie daycare operation.

Depending upon the legislation in your state and county, permits are handled differently. Many times it is much easier to open a pet store that also has pet spa services, than big-box operations or doggie daycare facilities. Either way, you will want to look into your local ordinance to discern what kind of permits you will need.

Infrastructure, Utilities, & Wiring

Since Splash and Dash locations offer pet spa services. This means you will need to find a building with adequate plumbing and drainage to be able to service a high volume of clients each day. The corporate team assists franchisees with the buildout—blueprint schematics and directing labor. Again, a good location size is anywhere from 1,000 to 1,200 square feet. Within this range, there is no extra space which translates to lower overhead. Also, look into the communications wiring, Is the space connected to a fiber optic network or is it wired for DSL or a T1 line? Having access to a high-speed internet service provider is important in this digital age.

Leasing & Rent Affordability

Corporate mandates franchisees find a landlord offering a 5-year base term leaves with two 5-year options. Percentage rent or radius restrictions are a non-negotiable no. As you search, you will be compiling a list of pros and cons for each potential location. Corporate helps with balancing these lists out to ensure that you open a pet store is the best storefront imaginable.

Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique puts a huge emphasis on our individual shops’ success. We view each franchisee as a member of our familial team and work hard alongside each shop to safeguard financial success and expansion!

 

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How to Best Manage Social Media Use in the Workplace

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Developing a Fair Policy for Social Media in the Workplace

As of September, 17th  2017 there are 2.01 billion monthly active Facebook users, a 17 percent jump from last year. Of these billions, 1.32 billion are daily users. Management teams and human resource officers won’t be surprised to find out that the highest online social media traffic takes place mid-week, between 1 to 3 p.m. It’s probably not a coincidence this is right around the post-lunch lull in the workday. As sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn shape our lifestyles—social media in the workplace becomes an inevitable rift.

But employers have a right to be worried. A recent survey showed one-third of the U.S. workforce uses social media for at least an hour a day at work. The same survey reported that one-quarter of American workers will pass up a job with a zero-tolerance policy on social media in the workplace. Meaning, if workers aren’t allowed to check in on Facebook, they are more likely to find another company.

A common ground needs to established.

Unfortunately, many companies are taking a reactive stance toward social media. Some are banning social media use in the workplace altogether and using internet restriction software to regulate this policy. The adverse of this is that employees are now more apt to use their mobile device to scroll social media accounts. This approach also fails to be proactive. If an employee breaks policy and posts defamatory comments, the damage is already done. Not only is this bad publicity for a company, it deteriorates trust. Even government agencies, like the National Labor Relations Board, have not been able to determine a cohesive way to regulate social media in the workplace. This leaves it up to each employer to develop a fair policy.

Why is Social media so Important?

Besides how proliferated social media has become since 2004—the birth year of Facebook—marketing techniques have drastically changed to integrate the powerful influence of social media sites. 42 percent of marketers report that Facebook is critical to their business.

Of course, the reason social media usage is controversial in the workplace is that it’s believed to lead to decreased productivity, bring unwanted publicity, and a general increase in exposure for various work-related claims. There have been a number of court cases that can point one way or another when it comes to these claims.

In 2012, an employee was fairly dismissed over threats and comments he made to a colleague who reported him to their employer. The dismissed employee likened the company he worked for to “Dante’s Inferno.” This situation happens often. A disgruntled employee takes to social media without exercising discretion. Courts ruled this employee’s termination fair. But, employers don’t always win. A waiter was fired from a popular pizza franchise for Tweeting his feelings about his supervisor. After being terminated, the young man made a two-minute Youtube video that went viral. Afterward, he had 382,000 followers on Twitter and 9-years-later, the video has over 600,000 hits. The aftermath turned into some very bad publicity for the pizza franchise.

To avoid situations like these, it’s good to be proactive and implement a fair and reasonable social media in the workplace policy before issues arise.

What to Include in an Objective Social Media Policy

A mnemonic borrowed from Daniel Handman, RESPECT is a good model for social media in the workplace. The best way to implement this is to make sure that employees fully understand the policy. This should become part of your training and needs to be written down.

Responsibility

Employees are responsible for three things: the content they post, the audience their posts reaches, and effects of an inappropriate post.

Etiquette

Information posted on social media is not always protected by law. Employees that harass, intimidate, or threaten other employees impede an employer’s legal requirement to maintain a workplace free of harassment and discrimination. Ensure that when social media is used subversively that action will be taken.

Selectivity

Ideally, social media should be used as a tool to advance a business. This is not always the case and employees tend to use the platform to voice negative opinions. When this happens, the response needs to be at the corporate level. The logistics of this needs to be spelled out—the who, what, when of how to respond.

Privacy

A good social media policy will prohibit employers from examining into the privacy of an employee’s social media presence. Matters like medical issues, leave, or identifying information about an employee like Social Security numbers and birthdates should all be protected.

Efficiency

There should be a clearly drawn line when it comes to social media in the workplace. Allowing some use during work hours is permissible, but employers need to clearly define expectations and performance of employees. How much browsing is unacceptable? If employees post about their employer, they must identify their affiliations with the company through hashtags. Using hashtags like #emp or #employee in a posting is a suggestion of how employees can identify themselves.

Confidentiality

Information that needs to be kept confidential should be clearly off-limits. Items like business plans, pricing models, client-privileged documents, etc. should not be leaked through any social media. Any postings of documentation like this can be grounds for termination.

Transparency

Involve your staff in a team meeting to have an open discussion on social media in the workplace. Not only should you have a discussion on how your company plans to regulate social media usage, but forms of social media marketing should be encouraged.

When it comes to social media policies, the bottom line should be less concerned with micromanaging and more about trust. Just as with other cases in the workplace, you should hire intelligent employees, train & pay them well, and hold them to high expectations. Inform your employees of the policy in ongoing professional development and trust them to monitor themselves. Instead of using disciplinary actions, stop the problem before it occurs. When you wait for employees to break policy, the damage has already been done. With a proactive approach—fair social media in the workplace policy—you avoid negative situations.

Corporate headquarters of Splash and Dash Groomerie & Boutique wishes you luck with writing a social media policy, and for more information on social media marketing, click here.

 

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