Good news-

As I had hoped my decision to discontinue the racks has helped to force some action.  Today I pretty well closed a deal which would solve the problems I faced, lack of space and manpower without substantial increase in costs.  I found what I hope to be a very good solution- someone I already work with on some other projects who has plenty of space and some manpower.  While not at all “reptile people” they do have good machine expertise and I think will be able to do a very good job.  I will continue to sell the racks and they will build/ship them.  It is also in the plan to build up an inventory, something I did not have the space or manpower to do, which will greatly improve our already pretty good turnaround times.  The eventual goal would be almost immediate shipment of most rack orders.  I know- crazy talk!  We will see.

As of now I am wrapping up the building of all orders I took in over the past couple of weeks.  We hope to have that pretty well done by the end of next week.  Then the not so fun task of moving a CNC router and other support stuff to the new location.  While that should be a 2 day job you know how that goes!  We should be up and running again mid February or maybe a little sooner!  Once all of that is done and the new guys get comfortable with how this all works I hope to expand the line a bit and also bring back the cages.  One thing at a time though.

After looking at the numbers for the past year I have found that the racks are putting me in an uncomfortable position.  With the slowing economy we have actually held very steady on rack sales, which has been great.  The problem is other aspects of our business are expanding greatly, many of these we could not even foresee as recently as 6 months ago.  We can either expand our space and overhead greatly, and the racks simply will not cover that added expense, or something has to go. So while the rack business is a good, profitable one it is not one that fits into my current situation any more.

As it stands right now the rack business would be a good opportunity for the right person and I am open to discussion on purchasing it.  The “right person” would ideally have access to 600-800 square feet and at least a decent amount of  building/fabrication savvy.  I do not mind training and getting someone set up but I simply do not have the time to dedicate to starting from scratch.  I would rather not sell it than sell it to someone who will not do a good job of it and maintain a reputable name.  After all, a CNC router is a fun toy to have around.  I will find something to do with it!  If this sounds like something that would interest you I can be best contacted by email at sales@reptilebasics.com.

Thanks for all of the years of support and we will be around for many more years to come.  I am partnering with another very reputable name in the industry a little later this year on a very big and very exciting project.  Stay tuned!

Rich