Who said an aquarium supply store must always be big? |
Jerry has many regular customers who have been coming back for 10 years. |
Jerry has almost everything any aquarist could want. |
“If the customers don’t come to my aquarium store, I will bring my store to them,” said Jerry Panosales from the beautiful town of Iloilo in the Philippines. Jerry seems to be fond of uncommon solutions for common problems, so he drastically reduced the size of his aquarium supply store and put it on wheels.
At first, most of the people thought that Jerry was making a joke and just laughed about this funny guy. But as time passed they soon realized that he was serious. They no longer doubt that he had a good idea, because it was 10 years ago that this happened. Since then Jerry has been able to supply his wife and three children with the earnings from his rolling aquarium store. He even financed a little house this way!
He has been selling aquarium fish and supplies for a decade and he has regular customers who have been coming back to him for a long time. “They always come back to me because they know I’m honest,” he says, explaining his success. And this must be true because many of the fish he sells have been bred by his customers.
He doesn’t share my worries that his fish could experience heat damage due to the warm sunshine in the Philippines. “The fish are sold a long time before the water gets warm,” he says, “,if the sunshine is dramatically hot, I still have a trick: I will fill two sets of plastic bags with water and put the fish in one set. The other set of the bags will be placed in a cool room near my store and whenever it is necessary I can exchange the bags.”
They say there is no advantage without disadvantage. This is also true for Jerry because his little store is very time-consuming. He spends 12 hours in his store per day, seven days a week. To increase his earnings a little he has a little sideline: from time to time he sells a rabbit or a hamster.
When asked whether he is satisfied with his success, Jerry agrees enthusiastically, “Absolutely I am.” I asked him if he has ever considered expanding the size of his store. “Definitely not,” he says, shaking his head vigorously. “It might be too hard for me to push forward!”