LFS Survey

I think cleanliness is important. Maybe a book section, knowledgable people employed, plants, diverse fish correctly placed, and the shelves stocked well and in an organized manner.

Understand your responsibility towards the livestock you offer.
Books.
Correctly identified fish with prices posted.
No dead fish left in- ever. No excuses. This is non-negotiable.
Do not sell diseased/questionable livestock- put a no-sale sticker on the tank.
Clean.
Plants.
Employees more interested in servicing customers than chatting amongst themselves.
Educated employees with a willingness to say "I don't know" and "let's look it up".
Education of customers included in each sale.
Parts.
No selling of gimmicky items- sell good products.

I come from a fish retail family so know full well that finding educated clerks willing to work towards educatiung consumers is no easy task. But I also live in a metro area of over one million population, and there is not one fish store in the area that I could wholeheartedly recommend. They either stink, have dead fish floating, or you simply can't find anyone willing to stop dusting shelves to help you.

If I (as a young retail clerk) had behaved as they do now my father would have $@#-slapped me into next week. Clerks are there to help customers- not to look busy and avoid helping customers. You do not have to lie to make a buck, nor push substandard merchandise in order to succeed.
Clean, healthy tanks with a fair variety of "home aquarium appropriate fish" species will work just fine. Very, very few people need to buy a Pacu.

I know you are ultimately responsible for your own aquariums but I'd like an LSF that takes more responsibilty in selling you the right fish for your tank:
this would mean having staff that ask as many questions as you do when you buy a fish. I could walk into my LSF now and a chichlid and they'd hand it over no questions asked. they'd ask nothing about my tank's size or current tank mates or water set up. that's why so many people regret impulse buys at LFSs and end up causing disharmony in their tanks. At best they have to take the fish back, at worse it results in deaths.

Another good thing would be to encourage your staff to keep up to date by regularly visiting forums like this. My LFS man is really knowledgable (21 years in business) but there's still new trends and ideas that i know more about than him because I keep reading up on the new findings on the net.

When I bought my tank, the sales guy said, "After setup, you can come back and buy fish in a couple days"....wrong! I say provide a clean establishment,
with nice healthy fish, be available to answer even stupid questions. My LFS (the one I USED to go to) is a fancy one in a mall with a huge koi pond, and a jeep with huge lizards in the middle, and a tortoise display etc........ But, try to get a salesperson to talk to you on a Saturday?!!!! But, I found an even better one down the road with a whole floor devoted to tanks, and all kinds of fishies, and what's best is, they know what they have. I was debating a chinese algae eater for my community tank, and the salesgirl said, "Oh I think a nice clown peco is a better choice for you." After reading up on the chinese algae eater........I'm glad I took the pleco. Its things like this, that will bring us back to your store. Good Luck!

The fish store by us has very smart salespeople, and there are plenty of them, which is nice. The only thing I dislke is that they only have the name of the fish and the price on the tank. I would like to see some more info about the max size of the fish, and possible other tankmates. I trust the info more if its written down, and also I perfer to do the research myself then ask only a few questions. I think having alot of info on the tank is really nice, and also its good for new salesmen to look at when they havent memorized everything yet.

perhaps a marking indicating, size of fish, minimum tank size requirement, compatibility (such as aggressive,, etc.), water temp requirement, pH, needs, salt needs (if BW or SW), if they are top/mid/bottom dwellers....

I really like my LFS, sometimes I disagree with things they say but thats just because they are a bit old fashioned. But its only two guys there who have decades of knowledge, always have time to talk to me, will order in any special requests I have, I was in there at the weekend and one guy asked if I was going to pop in next weekend cause he is going to lend me a couple of back issues of Practical fishkeeping magazine that he gets. They have my phone number so I get calls when anything intesting coms in too. They are a small business and there are two large pet stores near them but I always tgo to them because of the personalised service I get. Which is why I have spent about £2,000 so far this year with them!

So I think its good to offer a personalised service, hold newbies by the hand when setting up a new tank and they will always come back. Get to know your regulars by name. And I wish stores would get the odd unusual thing in, maybe a different intersting type of fish each delivery, cause I generally always find most LFS' always have the same general fish each time.

Impressive not for sale display aquariums - always provides people with good ideas for their own tanks.

Good selection of correctly named & priced livestock.

knowledge
knowledge
knowledge

I want someone to be able to answer whatever questions I may have when getting something new for my tank, or just starting out on a new tank.

cleanliness, as someone above noted, there never ever should be any reason for there to be dead fish floating around in a tank if you are hoping to get someone to make a purchase from you, at least have your stuff in order.

some selection, but not too much, you want to maybe have a few various brands and models of popular pumps, tanks etc. However you do not want to have soooo much stuff that someone is overwhelmed with 20 different 50 gallon tanks.

personalized service. I have worked retail grocery for 11 years and despite my lack of personal interaction (I usually am on the receiving dock, or just running around the store checking up on my vendors) I honestly know who the regular customers are and what they usually buy. Example I had a lady other day who made it into the back room where I am at and asked me something about some lunchmeat that was on sale. Well after directing her back out to the sales floor and proper location I again vanished back to my hole, an hour later while making my rounds I noticed this same lady walking about with her cart full in tow and asked her if she found what she needed, she beamed from ear to ear and said "yea, thank you very much" I think that incidents like this keep people coming back. If you sell me everything to set up a huge reff then in a week or so when I come back to stock it with fish you do not have any idea what you sold me a week ago, well then I think we have some issues.