Could An Insect Pet Shop Be The Right Business For You?

I was doing my usual research of the “Top Ten Most Expensive…” things that people buy when I happened to glance at my television which was currently showing the Animal Planet Channel. The current show on the channel was all about insects.

This got me thinking. Insects are regularly featured in Animal Planet. Surely there must be a reason for this rather than just the mere curiosity for insects. A quick search online revealed to me that just like dogs, cat, insects and aquarium fishes, there are many people who collect insects as pets.

Not only does insect lovers collect insects as pets, but they are even treated as prized possessions. Some insects can have the status of a highly prized purebred dog or cat and as well as a highly prized exotic aquarium fish.

Would you believe that the most expensive insect is a Stag Beetle which was purchased for the astronomical price of $US 89,000? For this much money, a person in the US can already buy a top of the line car or a person in a developing country can already buy a big luxury house.

I won’t go into the details of this $US 89,000 stag beetle, there are already many articles about this expensive insect which was sold to a Japanese pet shop. All you need to do is Google the search keyword: “world's most expensive insect” and the articles would show up.

But what could be the reason why people are willing to spend as much as $US 89,000 for such a tiny thing? Arguably, the reason would be portability. You rarely see stylish women carrying big German Shepherd or St. Bernard dogs do you?

What you usually see stylish women carry around are their small dogs like the Chihuahua and the Toy Poodle. This is because these dogs are light enough to be carried around and fits well in a small cage.

This is precisely the attitude why people collect insects as pets. Because they are light enough and small enough to be portable. During my younger days, small children like me used to put the small spiders we have captured in matchboxes and carry them around.

The same goes for similar insects we happen to come across. I remember grown men selling spiders to the small children who attend the nearby school. If ever you go into the insect selling business, why don’t you try to start out by reaching small children who are very receptive to small but very odd looking insects.

I must admit that when I first saw a one inch big Praying Mantis, I instantly wanted it to be my pet. Luckily, it escaped me. Years later, I saw a praying mantis that was a couple of inches big.

This time, I didn’t want it as a pet. The sight of its noticeable fangs made me think twice of even touching it. Yet, this feeling of mine is the reverse of what other people think about when they see an insect, especially a big one.

They are not scared or repulsed by these insects, rather, they are in awe of these insects. And as the $89,000 stag beetle has proven, this sense of awe from an insect lover could be worth serious money for a person selling insects.

Here is a YouTube Video of a few of the most desired pet insects in the world:

YouTube Video: 10 Beautiful Insects You can Keep as Pets

If ever you successfully raise any or a few of these highly desired insects, you could make good money selling them. The good thing about raising and selling insects is that unlike bigger animal pets, their very small size make them ideal as small but precious products.

Many insects can survive for days in airtight containers or air ventilated containers which makes them ideal as live e-commerce products. Ants for example can be delivered in small airtight glass tubes without harming them in any way.

Because insects are small, the cost of delivering them can be very cheap. The danger that these insects would suffocate and die in properly prepared packaging and containers is very remote unless negligence occurred or an accident happens.

Amazon for example ships live ants and ant colonies, worms, and other live insect larvae. Although I tried my best to find if Amazon ships more varied insects like praying mantises, I have found none of them.

What I did find was insect raising accessories and insect feeds and some even deliver internationally. This just goes to prove that there is a thriving e-commerce business for live insects delivered by courier.

A disclaimer though, my online research mainly deals with American and Australian online insect pet sellers. Perhaps there may be other e-commerce and online sites that are more active than these two countries.

Due to their small size, insects eat way less than much bigger animals. As we know, food is one of the biggest expense for anyone involved in the animal business which includes insects. They are also not really picky eaters but are mainly scavengers.

Insect would just about eat anything that is edible. They are even known for eating rotting food and waste from other insects and animals. This is one of their greatest advantage if you are keeping them as pets or are raising them to be sold.

As scavengers, insects leave almost no waste edible food lying around. They are also well known for cleaning after themselves. Insects are in fact known for being very clean organisms. If we compare them to big animals like dogs or even small puppies, they are more ideal to keep at pet shops.

This is because unlike dogs, cats, birds and other animals, we don’t have to periodically clean their cages because of the waste droppings they leave in their cages. The smaller is your pet, the easier it is to clean up their waste if they ever leave one.

As previously discussed before, insects are so small that you can practically carry them with you anywhere. You can have a mobile shop and sell them anywhere the law permits you. Even if you have a brick and mortar pet store, you can stack a lot of them even if you have limited shelf space.

You can even put them in plastic boxes meant for food and sell them together with a bit of soil and their food. As also previously stated, a lot of insects can survive in airtight containers for quite a long time.

Insects are also well known for reproducing a lot. Insects are in fact food for many types of bigger animals. Even insects eat other insects. This is the reason why insects are not only sold as pets but as animal food and also as fish bait.

People who have bigger pets like reptiles and birds are known to buy insects to be used as food by their bigger pets. If you own a pet shop or have sold a bird or a lizard for example to someone, it could be worth you while to offer them insects also as food for their bigger pets.

Since insects are for the most part very small, it could be very difficult to capture them for the purpose of selling them. Not all insects can be ideally bred in captivity. The only way for some of them to become pets is if they are captured in the wild.

This is the reason why I see some “online pet insect shops” adopted the preorder strategy. They leave a form in their website for people to submit their orders for a certain insect. Let us say that an insect pet collector likes to have as a pet an insect that only thrives in a certain part in the world.

Let us say for example that the insect this collector is after is a sand burrowing beetle that only lives in a certain desert. An online pet insect shop located near that desert or have access to that particular desert may regularly stroll across this desert looking for such an insect.

If ever they find the insect, they would then inform the inset collector that they have now such an insect for sale in their shop. This selling strategy not only frees them from the burden of having to raise an insect, but it enables them to already get a willing buyer.

This strategy is especially adoptable for insect sellers who live in forested areas and other areas which abounds with exotic insects. Given that not all insects live for a long time, like maybe in months only, having access to forested areas is a definite advantage for people living in rural areas.

There is a huge variety of insects. I for example have mainly grown up personally seeing only insects that are colored green, brown or black. Imagine my surprise when I say in a souvenir shop a slender beetle colored light blue encased in resin.

Although it was a bit much for my budget, I bought it. What I felt must be what other people who only saw for the first time in their lives what is for them a very rare item. But there are other people more enthusiastic than me.

They actually have a wishlist of insects that they want to collect. That is why if you own an insect pet shop business, it would be worthwhile to ask your customers or anyone who would care to fill up an insect wishlist to fill one.

It would be also worthwhile to know how much they are willing to pay for such insects. This would enable you to try to catch or get your hands into only the insects that are worth your effort.

You might even end up being a middleman between an insect collector and another person who sells insects.

I have seen big forest cockroaches selling for as much as $US 90. I have seen small praying mantises sell between $US20 to $US40 each. There is wedding website that sells a dozen small butterflies for $US 50.

As can be seen, even not so rare and probably commercially raised insects can still amount to a lot of money. So I would advise that if you see an insect lying around that is particularly uncommon to you, try to capture it without hurting it and see if there is anyone willing to take of it by buying it from you.

Before this article ends, it is perhaps noteworthy to mention that although insects are small, they could still leave you with a nasty bite or a sting. They may even be poisonous and could be very lethal.

It is advisable that before you go insect hunting or raising with the purpose of selling them for a profit, you read first which insects could be dangerous for you to handle. Insects especially the small ones can end up as pests if they escape their enclosures.

You might become legally responsible for all the damages done to objects or the health damages done to anyone as a result of your negligence in properly taking care of your insects. Think first if it is worth your while to raise insects.

Though not as common as conventional pets like dogs, cats, birds and aquarium fishes, there are a lot of people who also keep insects as pets. The smallness of insects is a definite advantage because this enables them to be easily raised.

Because people who keep insects tend to be collectors of a variety of them, it is worthwhile to ask for these people’s insect wishlist. This would enable you to be on the lookout for insects which could be profitable for you to offer them.

Enclosures Business for Pets and More