Chain pet stores vs. LFS

personal judgement.
In terms of the everyday variety, the chain stores will consistantly stock the same kinds of fish in great quantity, so if u want the more common fishies, then thats ur choice. But, because they get so much stock, alot of them die off, and in general, IMO!!! the staff arent nearly as "informative" as the LFS ones.
Now, this is stricly me speaking. I have had my beefs with LFS. There is one close to where I work that just doesnt have the same knowledgable friendly staff as the one near to my house. And, I have had issues with them selling the fish to me and not caring about how they handle them nor the condition of fish prior to selling them. My g/f has had 5 fish die within a couple days of that place. Not because of water conditions and such, but the fish were fin-torn and beat up. Thankfully the ones that DID make it are now flourishing and are fully 'finned' again.

My opinion is that LFS are something that needs to be researched, walk in, ask questions, browse the tanks, how do the fish look? Happy? Stressed?
Chain stores just sell quantity over quality. They are good for the hardy fish

Not necessarily. Unless the lfs quaranteens the fish for a couple weeks, you may end up with sick or parasite infested fish from them too. Some lfs will put new arrivals on a 2 day treatment of some bath or dip new arrivals as a precautionary measure. Again, this works for some things, not all. You certainly want to research them and I'm with bortsamson on the quantity over quality (for the most part) but that wouldn't stop me from purchasing from the chain store.
The best advice is to get a quaranteen or hospital tank to keep new purchases in for several weeks to see if they develop anything b4 putting them in your main tank.

One thing I can tell you is NOT to buy fish from walmart. They don't have anyone the maintains the fish dept. Most of the time you will see died fish floating in there.
The LFS are a little more expensive but they usually have some hard to find fish. I your looking for something that easy to find and for a good price I would buy it at the chain store(Petco or Petsmart). But still look around to make sure they are maintaining the tank, look to see that there are no died or dying fish.
I've bought all of my fish except for the yo yo from petsmart and they are doing fine.

I look at a combination of factors. Healthy fish is a must and a reasonably clean store, and price is always a consideration as well. Which ever store I find that can do the best in these catagories tends to win my bussiness. I have given up on finding knowledgable staff. Around these parts that seems to not happen.

One other consideration...if the fish you're looking to buy is noted for being hard to acclimate (like ottos), you may want to buy them from the store with a longer gaurantee.

Agree with much of the prior posting. Quality matters, and it can be found in a chain or an independent.

I never shop for fish by cost - whether a fish costs $2 ot $5 or $20 is fairly trivial over the life of the fish and in comparison to the cost of the setup and upkeep to maintain it over its life.

Always quarantine newly purchased fish, regardless of source.

I think what everyone is saying is use your good judgement. I have peppered corys, neon tetras, and harlequin raspborra all healthy from Petsmart. One thing though is that I visited the store every day for about a week before buying what I wanted. This gave me time to watch the fish long enough to see that there wasn't any obvious problems with them. Also I purchased what I wanted the day before their freshwater delivery. Now with other fish that you might want I do recommend a good LFS. With one LFS in my area the owner drives to breeders and selects the fish he brings in. He didn't carry what I was looking for in stock, but he did find what I wanted and held them in his shop for 5 days before I picked them up.

I have never had luck with a chain at all petstuff or superpets which should at least have a minimum knowledge of fish had none. I only buy fish from lfs in my parts though I have to go elsewhere for some supplies just because of cost and selection. He only wants to sell kits for tanks with stands etc.

I've had terrible luck from Petsmart at my town. I just go my LFS I've scouted out and shopped at for the past 3 years. The Petsmart from my area actually has every tank at the same pH. The tanks are in an overflow system so that water transfers to all the tanks in a row. which leads me to believe they're keeping their African cichlids at the same pH as their SAs because they're in the same row. Not a healthy thing for the fish in my opinion, and I was curious if any other Petsmarts in your guys' and gals' areas do the same thing?