Letter writing to PetsMart

[echoofformless]

I am just posting this in the hopes that I can encourage all of you to write to Petsmart's customer service in order to voice our collected concerns about some of their practices.

The email address is cs@petsmart.com

I have now written two letters, both addressing basic concerns about the misinformation on their species cards (ie - claiming that several fish require aquarium salt, bad tank size advice: mbunas in a min 20g tank!!) and the fact that their fish baggers often don't know the first thing about fishkeeping and yet give out advice as though they do. There would be nothing wrong with either more intensive training, or even better - just having the people admit they're nothing more than fishbaggers and thus disclaim any liability.

I'm sure you can all think of more. But I believe that if they receive enough concerns from knowledgable aquarists, they will address some of these issues. They are not Wal-Mart. So yeah, I feel it's worth it. Hopefully you will take the few minutes.

 

[dougall]

http://www.noclownsinacube.net/ may prove to contain a little useful information also.

 

[tai95]

These grass root letter writting campains are great in therory, but I highly doubt they will work. It all comes down to cost, It's more cost effective to let a few fish die than to train their employees. With the volume of fish that petsmart and walmart sell they probably only pay a few cents per fish. They would have to lose thousands of fish per day per store to come close to what it would cost to properly train 1 person.

I know for a fact the only training Walmart associates get for fish is a couple of questions mixed with fabrics and crafts and lawn and garden. You have to take a test on a computer and need to get so much of a % correct to pass. I think there are two or three questions about fish. The one talks about compatibility, If the fish end in the same last number of their price, they are safe to add to the same tank.

 

[echoofformless]

I feel that petsmart is far different from walmart. They specialize in pets and somehow that makes me feel like they care just slightly about their well-being.

But this comes more down to cost than anything. Petsmart has a life guarantee on their fish - so everytime someone brings back a dead one, they give you a store credit. Fewer dead fish from better educated customer - less net loss for the store.

It wouldn't cost a lot of money to change the information cards to not include things like saying you can keep africans in a 20g tank. And think about it - you bring back a dead lab, that's a 10 dollar store credit. They stand to lose a lot with that wrong information.

Instead of training the employees, perhaps a notion of telling them not to give out aquarium advice unless it is something that they know about from their own expertise? A disclaimer stating that their people are mostly just fishbaggers and be wary of any advice they give? Signs directing the customers to books about the hobby, so they will be better informed and more knowledgeble in their choices of purchase? (Which will increase book sales and therefore - increase sales!)

All of this would mean more profit for the company in the long run, and would also mean a better reputation for the company among people like us. It's a win-win-win situation. I think it makes more sense for them to enact these measures than it does for them to not.

These are the reasons why I feel this letter writing might actually have an effect. But if I write to them it gets dismissed as one idiot. If lots of people do, they might start taking it more seriously.

 

[H3D]

These grass root letter writting campains are great in therory, but I highly doubt they will work. It all comes down to cost, It's more cost effective to let a few fish die than to train their employees. With the volume of fish that petsmart and walmart sell they probably only pay a few cents per fish. They would have to lose thousands of fish per day per store to come close to what it would cost to properly train 1 person.

I know for a fact the only training Walmart associates get for fish is a couple of questions mixed with fabrics and crafts and lawn and garden. You have to take a test on a computer and need to get so much of a % correct to pass. I think there are two or three questions about fish. The one talks about compatibility, If the fish end in the same last number of their price, they are safe to add to the same tank.

You should check out http://www.noclownsinacube.net/ and you will see that they are already getting a response from PetSmart.

 

[Shelby_Tempo_GT]

I feel that petsmart is far different from walmart. They specialize in pets and somehow that makes me feel like they care just slightly about their well-being.

kind of like expecting a car dealership to know how to properly change oil...

 

[tai95]

It wouldn't cost a lot of money to change the information cards to not include things like saying you can keep africans in a 20g tank. And think about it - you bring back a dead lab, that's a 10 dollar store credit. They stand to lose a lot with that wrong information.

You are not looking at cost on a storewide level. Petsmart has 860 stores. If it took one employee 1 hour to change the tags on the tanks, and that employee made $7/hour it would cost the company $6020.00. That's just to switch the tags. You haven't added in the cost of reprinting the tags, paying someone the verify accurate information, ditributing the labels to stores, ect ect.

You use the example of a lab that costs $10 that's retail, how much was the wholesale price? For the amount of fish petsmart purchases I would say ~$1. Petsmart could replace the dead fish 5 maybe 6 times and still have a profit from the original fish. Also how many people just "flush" the dead fish and go buy new ones?

You should check out http://www.noclownsinacube.net/ and you will see that they are already getting a response from PetSmart.

The responses I saw were just the run of the mill thank you for writting form letter. Every company will send you something like that if you write a letter regarding anything. I could write a letter to fruit of the loom and tell them the elastic in their socks isn't strong enough, and get a similar letter.

While I'm not saying what these big box stores are doing is right, letter writting usually does little.

 

[DaisyTattoo]

While I'm not saying what these big box stores are doing is right, letter writting usually does little.

Do you have a better suggestion? I'm not being sarcastic here but I am actually curious as to if you can think of a better way to possibly entice petsmart to change their information?

 

[tai95]

Do you have a better suggestion? I'm not being sarcastic here but I am actually curious as to if you can think of a better way to possibly entice petsmart to change their information?

Stop buying fish from them? I'm not really sure, but unless a companies bottom line is hurting nothing will usually change. You need to look at it from their perespective. If they are making money with the way things are running now why change it?

 

[DaisyTattoo]

If they are making money with the way things are running now why change it?

It is part of good customer service. Any place that has customer service high on their agenda will listen to what their customers are telling them. I hear what you are saying though. Will the letters make a difference? Maybe, but probably not. Maybe we should start picketing in front of the individual stores :laugh: