MHO - don’t do it.
Before you consider opening a tack store, you and your husband need to go work in one not belonging to you.
That way you can see if you like the work, people, business, etc. Also you can see if the tack store is really making money.
If there is one not near you, you need to commute to one to work.
rmh_rider, Accountant
I used to work in a tack shop. I remember the owner used a site called Shopatron - other tack shops could place orders of what they needed, and retailers could ‘bid’ for the right to send out the item. If you had it in stock and you were the closest tack shop, you would get the purchase. I believe that’s how it worked. I never used the site, but I glanced around at it. It’s a great resource for seeing what customers are looking for.
Tour tack shops around your area to see what’s popular. The midwest, where I am, tends to be a year or two behind the east coast in fashion. (Maybe it’s different in certain wealthier equestrian areas like Chicago, but that’s a general rule). So if you buy the cutting edge equestrian fashion, you’ll end up sitting on it for a while.
The business takes a lot of start-up capital. I’m not familiar with western brands, which I’m assuming you’ll be buying. The place I worked was a Dressage boutique with a lot of the higher-end brands. It was a matter of knowing what the consumer wants and what isn’t currently catered to.
This tack shop doesn’t carry feed. There’s usually about 30 saddles in the store, with 1/2 or more being consignment ones. Saddles sit for a long time, and aren’t a good place to start. Maybe you could work out a deal with a saddle fitter for referring people who ask? It’s going to tie up less money than trying to stock all the different brands and sizes that people will consider.
Know your brands very well. I know that many of the brands carried in the store I was at had an expected mark-up that you needed to follow if you wanted to continue to carry their products, and other tack shops, at least in this area, can be vicious about watching what you’re pricing things at to make sure you obey that.
Have all of the basic horse supplies, plus things like poultices and horsey-health items that people won’t want to wait and order through a website or somewhere else. A lot of people go to SmartPak or other sources, but you should carry some of the popular, often-used supplements.
Horsey gift items sit forever, as a rule, they’re not worth stocking.
One of the best ways to sell product is to buy a trailer and go to the local shows. This tack shop owner travels around to Dressage (as well as Eventing) shows and clinics every weekend from the middle of April until the middle of October. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s a good place for sales, as people will realize they suddenly need certain items, or they’ll have free time to browse around.
I’m going to caution you against starting one, however. This one barely makes by. I’ve sat in the store for hours sometimes, without seeing a single customer. Some days we only made $200 or so – and that money can come from a few pricey items. The tack shop owner has one part time employee, herself, her husband, and her mother who all work the store. She hasn’t ridden her horse in 6+ months because she’s always working the shows or the store on weekends, plus she works full time at another job. I can’t speak for her, but she has expressed regret for ever opening the tack shop at times. It’s a huge commitment of money and time. There is at least 80-100k dollars worth of product in the store, and it’s not a big place.
My advice from working at three different tack stores, is carry minimal new saddles. They don’t move, and as was stated earlier, seldom will a customer find one that fits both horse and rider off the shelf.
Really get an idea what people in your area use on a regular basis, what they would order online, or what they’d be willing to get by running down the road. We see a lot of faces a couple times a week because it is convenient to run in to grab fly spray when they forgot it when they picked up feed two days before.
Check out what opening orders are for some vendors. You might be required to dig in too far with one company, and end up with stuff still sitting around three or four years later. If you are going to carry feed, find out what the minimum is for a delivery. Are you going to sell enough to warrant getting a semi load in if that’s required? How long will it sit in storage before you sell it? Hopefully not more than three months, since I think that is about max shelf life for feed.
It is tough to compete with the online stores, they don’t need the number of people on the floor for customer service or the kind of building to display everything a shoppable manner. We get it hammered into us that exceptional customer service is what keeps people coming back. Have what customers want, know your inventory through and through to help them find what they need.
My advise from OWNING one is be prepaired to not have a life. When I wasn’t at my regular job my business partner was at the shop and vise versa.
I lost alot of family time because of the store. Not that I minded because it was a great venture.
Our price lines were low mid and high so we had prices suitable for everyone and for the economy at the time. We were a complete line and the only thing we didn’t sell was feed because in our midwest rural area there are tons of feed mills.
We had english and western tack and only very little english. Hats, helmets,
shirts, jeans. What did the best for us were gift items and western BOOTS.
We sold boots like crazy. Couldn’t keep enough of them in the store.
We always made sure we had a pony saddle in the store. If the one we had sold we would order another one. We had alot of catologs that customers could look through as alot of the saddles we had we only ordered one color if customer wanted another color we had catalog to show the other colors.
Actually muck forks and buckets did really well for us too. We didn’t have any employees so we didn’t have to worry about any benifits. Either family members or friends kept store open when we couldn’t.
We were closed on sundays but open the other days and stayed open till 6:30.We also did alot of business with a saddle maker. If someone brought in a saddle they needed fixed we would make a once a week saddle run to take saddles and other tack to be fixed and to pick up what had been fixed. People loved this as they didn’t have to take the time to go there themselfs.
Saddle soaps, fly sprays vet wrap, hoof picks and reins went out the door pretty much on a weekly basis. The gift items we had ranged from horse coloring books and horse crayons, to stationary and western cards, book markers also went well for us and western christmas lights for christmas trees
along with ornaments.
I would start out small then expand as your clientel expands but have enough variety to start out.
We eventually ended up selling out because the store had consumed our lives.
I did however help another person get hers up and running a few years after we closed ours and she did very well with hers to.
JT international is a good place to start for a dealer for low end. The do have some mid and high they also carry american sadlery wich did well for us.
Please think long and hard about this and if you do decide to do it keep your initial investment at a minium with xtra cash flow on the side to xpand.
we have a tack store that opened a few months ago and I just found it a few weeks ago. I’ve been there 4 times in the last 3 weeks. First we needed some drawing clay, then some epsom politice, and vet wrap, then a soaking boot, then a fly mask and of course a few other items. I bet between my friends and I alone, we have spent over $4-500 there in several weeks. That’s just people I know. Because I’ve gotten to be on a first name basis with the owner, I also found out that there are at least 5 other friends who have gone there I did not go with.
The only other place that carries horse items anywhere close by is TSC and they are way more expensive than the new place. The next closest horse/tack dealer is over 2 hours away.
This new place has western and english items, 1/4 wall of bits, one small wall of salves/wraps/boots/meds/etc and about 5 saddles (some consignment, a few new). It’s crowded, but I really, really hope he makes enough of a living at it that he can keep it open!
Have store hours that fit a working persons schedule.
We have one tack and feed store here that closes every day at 5:00 p.m. and closes Saturdays at noon.
I would like to patronize this store becasue I like what they have but I don’t/can’t because of the store hours.
I live in an area where there’s not much in the way of tack, but we have a TSC and a local Co-op that carries the stuff I need in an emergency (VetRap, poultices, wormer, etc.).
So in addition to feed, you’ll need to stock the major health items, including supplements if you can. Shoes? EasyBoots or Old Macs? Stuff you don’t know you’re going to need until one day, you wake up and REALLY need it, NOW. 
Consignments are a must – to put something on consignment in my area, I drive 3 hours one way.
Consider a web presence – and update it weekly, especially if you have consignments. As for being open – people need to buy things after work, and on weekends. You probably won’t have much of a life!
Where are you going to house this tack shop? Will it be out of your barn, or will you lease/buy a shop? If so, you’ll have to think about traffic. What about overhead – electric, water, rent, salaries, etc.? How much feed will you have to sell a month to cover your expenses?
Are you comfortable with both English and Western tack – and more to the point, with the different disciplines? A roper may have different needs than a barrel racer, and a hunter/jumper rider needs different things than a dressage rider. If you don’t carry it, can you order it - and can you get it there cheaper and faster than if they ordered it online?
Are there local associations you can help sponsor in order to get the word out? Publicity is key to getting people in your door. Catch the youth groups especially. If you have anything like EquiFest or Horse Expo in your area, go and make contacts there with dealers, hand out business cards, even have a booth if you can afford it.
I’ve THOUGHT about opening a small shop in my area because there’s nothing really here – but when I look at the expenses versus the potential profit, it never makes any sense. It’s easier to make do with TSC and order online, and the once-a-year trip to Horse of Course. In fact, HOC had a branch in Wichita, but closed it several years ago and nothing has replaced it yet. Must be a reason why . . .
The enbolding is mine, because I have yet to see a tack shop EVEN ON LINE that has a better selection for men than Horse Country.
Hi @SorrelSuzy - Just wanted to know how is your business going? We are on a similar boat except we are manufacturing tack. Please share your experience so far.
How well do you know your prospective customer base? How familiar are you with the local barns and their training and lesson programs? Which trainers require which helmets/breeches/boots/gloves, etc., and how soon in their lesson programs? Do local riders prefer certain brands/styles of saddles, bridles, breeches, helmets, etc.?
Stock jods/breeches and shirts for boys as well as girls, men as well as women. At least a few things.
The most successful tack shop owner I know, KNOWS his horsey neighbors. He knows them, their students, their horses, their tastes, their preferences, and he stocks what he knows will sell as far as tack and clothing. He also gets in cool horse-themed gifts, books, clothing that is not specifically riding clothing. Toys. Greeting cards. He does not stock any feed or any non-horse items.
I would think that if a tack shop wanted to stock some dog items it would also stock some cat items because every barn has at least one barn cat, and like the feed stores that have a sideline in tack and also dog-and-cat supplies, a tack shop could have a small sideline in dog-and-cat supplies. But not feeds. Feeds draw vermin.
As to not stocking saddles, that makes sense because of the expense and the storage space, but I remember getting so frustrated with State Line back when there were in PetSmart, because they sold stirrup leathers but not stirrups, girths, or saddles. They sold reins, but not headstalls or bits. ???
[QUOTE=dominionTack;8840124]
Hi @SorrelSuzy - Just wanted to know how is your business going? We are on a similar boat except we are manufacturing tack. Please share your experience so far.[/QUOTE]
OP doesn’t even seem to have an account anymore and the @ sign doesn’t tag here the way it does on Instagram. So don’t hold your breath that the OP from 2011 will be back.
I work for a wholesale distributor/maker of tack. We travel all over and sell right off the trailer with no minimum orders- so it is out there. Feel free to pm me.
Be prepared for people to come in to your store, fondle and try on your merchandise, then order the items on-line. I wouldn’t open a tack store–either brick and mortar or on-line - too much competition on-line from the big stores.
[QUOTE=vxf111;8840301]
OP doesn’t even seem to have an account anymore and the @ sign doesn’t tag here the way it does on Instagram. So don’t hold your breath that the OP from 2011 will be back.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, it’s a 5-year-old thread that somehow got reopened by a newbie. Maybe the Mods will close it or start it afresh with current posts?
