Valley Village Means Business! There are many great ways to EAT – PLAY – LIVE in Valley Village. Our community is full of unique and special businesses — restaurants, boutique shopping and specialized services that you don’t find in other neighborhoods. This week we speak with Garrett Cunneen, co-owner of the Village Pet Supply:
Garrett, how was your business established? My business and life partner Jeff Simko have always loved animals and we thought it would be a fun business to open. Although we had owned our own businesses before we had never done retail. We have a friend who owns a very successful pet store in Los Angeles and he loved his job. We really just dove in head first and just figured everything out as we went along. It was quite a learning curve. Neither of us had ever even used a cash register before.
Honestly we were just throwing the idea around for a few months and called on a few “for lease” locations in North Hollywood when one day we were driving down Laurel Canyon Blvd. and saw a “for lease” sign on our current location. It was next door to a vet, so we thought we just had to do it. It all happened quickly! Once the lease was signed we just jumped in and figured it out. The hardest part was figuring out our POS system and entering the thousands of SKU’s into our computer. Many sleepless nights with red wine.
Are you or were you a Valley Village native yourself? We currently live in North Hollywood, but when we opened the store we were living in Studio City. We love Valley Village and especially like that we are the only pet store here. It is in a little pocket that is far enough away from Ventura Blvd. and the thousands of pet stores that reside there. Every time we see a “for lease” sign on Ventura Blvd., we joke and say it is either going to be a pet or pot store.
What has doing business in Valley Village meant to you? The best part of running Village Pet Supply is our customers. I can’t tell you how nice all of our Valley Village peeps are and many customers have become dear friends. Jeff and I actually love going to the store on Saturdays just to see our customers and their dogs. Our friends wonder why we always go to the store on Saturdays and the answer is “because we want to!”
When a customer comes in for the very first time, what type of customer are they? What are they looking for? What experience do you provide? Most first time customers are people that have been driving by the store for a long time and finally pop in because they have a question about nutrition. Their cat or dog might be tired of the food they are feeding or have an allergy or ailment and they want to know what we could provide. They want to solve a problem.
What is the most desired product, or is it so broad that you can’t say “just one?” The most desired product is better quality food for both the dogs and cats. We carry lines that the big box chains don’t and can’t buy. We are also firm believers in raw food or if there are budget constraints at least getting some raw food into your dog or cats diet. We see many animals with pancreatitis and diabetes. Just like humans if we eat processed food everyday with no raw foods we end up with these diseases. Jeff and I are very healthy eaters. We want our dog Goose and cat Dexter to eat just like us.
Your relationship with the local community of merchants, is it helpful? We LOVE the Valley Village community. People that live here are very down to earth. We don’t do advertising because word of mouth is so powerful these days. We have 5 star Yelp! reviews and that has helped tremendously.
What are your hours of operation? Our hours are M-F 10:00 AM-8:00 PM and SAT. SUN. 10:00 AM-7:00 PM (we might be extending these hours soon!)
Any closing thoughts? We just love when our customers say “we just love coming here”…we try to keep a good vibe with good music and friendly chat and our customers really praise us for it. It is a good feeling!
Also, we are big believers in constantly rotating inventory. You will always see new product at our store. We go to alot of trade shows to find interesting product. We feel all the pet stores on Ventura Blvd never change the inventory. We used to shop these stores and never found anything new. It is like a treasure hunt in our store every time you come in!
Village Pet Supply | 4838 Laurel Canyon Boulevard
Phone: 818-579-4434 | Web: www.villagepetsupplyla.com