The owner of a Croydon pet shop that has been on the market since spring last year has cut its asking price by more than a third to secure a sale and enable him to retire.
Ken Burgess, who first put Burgess Boys Pet Centre, in New Addington, up for sale last spring, has instructed his agent, Blacks Business Brokers, to reduce the price to take over the lease from £95,000 to £59,950.
Ken, a former Pet Care Trust board member, acquired the business in 1979 following a successful career working for multinational corporations. The premises had already been trading as a pet and garden supplies shop for 20 years when he bought it.
After 40 years of trading he has built Burgess Boys, which was named in honour of his three sons, into a £250,000-turnover business. The shop employs two full-time and three part-time members of staff and incurs a rent of £22,100 per year.
EXCELLENCE AWARD
Burgess Boys Pet Care Centre is fully licensed to sell small animals, birds, reptiles and fish. Over the years it has become a fixture of the local community, hosting a children’s painting competition and regularly providing work experience placements to students and the wider community.
Burgess Boys Pet Care Centre has been recognised for its commitment to the community and recently attained a Croydon Business Excellence Award. It is rated the top pet shop in Croydon by Google.
The pet care centre, which operates a loyalty card programme, is used by its many regular customers as their first port of call for animal health advice. It has featured in an episoide of the BBC children’s programme, ‘My Pet and Me’, which is regularly repeated on the CBeebies channel.
BOARDING SERVICES
The business provides nail-clipping, delivery and holiday boarding services, all of which could be expanded further. It recently upgraded its computer system and website, providing scope for a new owner to develop the shop’s existing online sales into a full-scale ecommerce operation.
According to Ken, who is a City and Guilds examiner in Pet Store Management and a former board member of the Pet Care Trust (now known as the Pet Industry Federation), the shop’s staff are highly trained and will be able to provide a seamless transition when a new owner takes over.
The premises include a large covered storage area and rear driveway. Ken says that, were he not planning to retire, he would consider converting these to provide additional services such as grooming and hydrotherapy.
