Jason Crumb, current owner of L&L Pets, credited four main reasons for the longtime pet store’s closure – limited distributors, declining sales, increased online shopping, and a declining economy.
Crumb bought the store, located at 621 Commercial Street, in 2018 from Lane and Lisa Holleran. L&L Pets was originally founded by the Hollerans in 1982. This year, the store turned 43 years old.
Crumb announced the closure of L&L Pets in a FaceBook post on Monday.
“I grew up coming here and I know we’ve only had it for a fraction of the 43 years, but in that time we’ve gotten to know a lot of the customers really well,” Crumb said. “Customers have been coming here since the original owners opened the store. It’s pretty cool to see people that have been patronizing the store for so long and clear up until its end. It’s definitely emotional.”
Over the past few months, three of Crumb’s distributors have closed, causing Crumb, and many other pet stores, to move to new distributors. The new distributors were overwhelmed by the influx of new customers, which led to product and supply shortages.
On top of distributor issues, sales have also been down for Crumb. People have moved to shopping more frequently online, leading to fewer in-person visits.
“More and more people are shopping online and not locally,” Crumb said. “To me, it’s more of a convenience thing than anything because our prices compared to chewy.com are cheaper, but we don’t deliver straight to the person’s door.”
When it comes to Crumb’s small business struggle, he is not alone. Lack of sales and a struggling economy have been felt by many other small businesses across the county.
“I have sales representatives that come through for different product lines and they hear the same thing from store to store,” Crumb said. “When they’ll ask me how I’m doing, I say, ‘I’m okay,’ and they’re like, ‘yeah, we hear that a lot. You’re not the only one that’s hurting. It’s a widespread issue, it’s not just a local thing.”
Crumb estimated that L&L Pet’s last day of operation will be either May 24 or 25. All remaining pets have been placed elsewhere, and Crumb is still looking for a place to keep inventory.
“We posted on Facebook about us closing and everyone’s been sad to see us go,” Crumb said. “It’s nice to see that we were appreciated and people will miss the store. I grew up coming to the store and I know it’s like that for a lot of people. It’s going to be weird to have a community with no local pet store.”
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