Have you ever had a small child walk into your store and say, "This store stinks," to his/her parent? If you haven't, congratulations! You are among the few.
For most pet stores, the nature of the business is dog food sales, live animals and a lot of other interesting fragrances. This leads to noticeable smells — unfamiliar smells that are not comforting to your customers.
There are a lot of ways to modify that smell. Some stores offer popcorn, which masks the pet smells really well. The other benefit is that there is popcorn for the customers. Other stores use automatic air fresheners, which will cost a bit of money over time. They can make your store smell perfect, but you run the risk of mixed floral and mouse urine, and that is awful.
My favorite solution for "stinky pet store" is baking pet treats in a toaster oven. But, let's start at the beginning ...
Controlling odor is an excellent place to start before masking odors. Male mice are some of the most pungent-smelling critters you are likely to house. Two tricks seem to help more than a little: horse-stall bedding under whatever bedding you currently use and a drop of pure vanilla in the water bottle. This will make you happy indeed. The extruded horse bedding will work for all your mammals as well, reducing that urine smell.
I've found the best way to keep a fish room from having that "fish room" smell is keeping lids on all the tanks. This one thing will often reduce the smell by keeping the moisture levels down as well as all the things that will stop growing outside the tanks — on the walls, behind racks, etc. — a dry fish room is a less smelly fish room.
Keeping the dog and cat food (as well as any other strong pet supplies) smell down is always a challenge. Heat exchangers or "energy recovery ventilators" will constantly take the air from outside and bring it inside your space while holding on to the heat or cool air. The system works pretty simply by using countercurrent air flow to exchange the energy between outside and inside.
This device is efficient compared to a dehumifier and will likely reduce ambient humidity levels to a point where your windows will not gather water in the cold of winter. The cost is also low — you can find these all over online to get the right size for your store.
Assuming you have the cleanest store ever and the fresh air is just not cutting it, plants will filter air and you can sell them. Pothos and spider plants do well in large terrariums (or growing in windows) and make your store look great. Pothos makes for an excellent fish tank filter that is widely used by hobbyists in
Still not good enough, and you don't have any desire for a popcorn maker? Try a dry, peanut butter cookie recipe. Roll out the cookie dough and cut bone-shaped cookies. The smell of a single peanut butter dog cookie will make your store smell like a person's home. Having your customers feel at home will help your bottom line, and the puppies will remember where they get fresh treats.
I happen to like a crispy peanut butter cookie from time to time, do you?
