Letter writing to PetsMart

[NeonJulie]

Liveaquaria also states that Otos should be kept in tanks larger than 30g. Clearly they have some difference of opinion whereas most people have no qualms about putting it in a 10g or less.

That being said, this time around I'm not buying my fish from any LFS. I much more prefer to pay Liveaquaria $35 additional, (that's an extra $3.5 per fish for example), to know that it was in the care of certified, doctored veterinarians, etc. If Petsmart someday decides to raise their fish prices by 3-5, and that fish lasted me a good 4, 5, 10 years, I'd still consider it a good investment.

Also, like I said before, you can't buy a Coke for how cheap some fish are. What does that say to people? 'Oh well, if it dies, no bigee.' Knowing that I'll be spending $75 for my fish, is making me think long and hard about what it's going to take to get them healthy enough to last.

 

[H3D]

Nobody said that letter campaign to PetSmart wouldn’t work. Public relation department of PetSmart would respond to any complaint (so does any company in the world from McDonalds to Wal Mart). The complain voice on this forum is the information printed on their product tang and their care guides. The hobbyist would like to see very strict guidelines printed on these material. But the problem is that not even the most reputable authors and web sites (or hobbyists) can aggress on the requirement for keeping fish. Take a look at the example I gave about the Yellow Tang.
The hobbyist would prefer 75 gals to be the min tank size for that species but our own (aquariacentral) disagrees by stating it to be 50gal. Obviously PetSmart (or PetCo) would use the conservative numbers …. for obvious reasons. Until every expert can agree on one and only one way of keeping fish, you are bound to have different methods and opinions on how to keep these fish. Until then, all you can really do is write to PetSmart (or PetCo) and hope that they will alter their information according to our satisfaction.

Rohn

You make a valid point, however the example of the yellow tang's minimum tank size being a 50 gallon is not nearly as outrageous as a clown loach's being a 10 gallon. I assume that most of us are realistic enough to realize that these things will never be agreed upon. However it may be possible to at least get them to move in a more humane direction.

 

[echoofformless]

Roan, how can you compare the discrepancy between a 50g vs a 55g tank to one that states you can keep a clown loach in 10 gallons? That's a bit outrageous. Even if one place states 75 and another 55, it's still ridiculously different.

I'm the first person to go off about how aquarium keeping is not an exact science, but there is a great difference between arguing with people whether to keep cory by themselves or with a whole school, and telling people they NEED aquarium salt to keep a gourami. I would say that a good 90% of us are on the train of being against having salt in their tanks unless it is to temporarily treat a disease.

So yes, while you are correct that there is always room for debate, there are some things which are simply hard facts. Keeping mbuna in a min 20g tank is ludicrous. And allowing no-nothings to dispense aquarium advice (have you ever heard some of the sh-t these people tell customers??) without their being some sort of disclaimer or warning to the customer ("listen to these fisbaggers at your own risk!") is just bad business practice. It reflects poorly on the corporation.

And to address the boycotting issue - do you think our puny little nothing will make even the slightest impact? We make up maybe .8% of the people who buy fish from these places. They won't notice the difference at all.

I like buying my fish from Petsmart. They have nice clean tanks and a 14 day life guarantee on all of their fish. Plus they will price match everything I can find cheaper online - I not only get the product at the big al's price, but I don't have to pay shipping and I get it right away. That is why I care about this so much. I want Petsmart to be a place where I can feel good about shopping. And where I don't feel like I have to help every idiot non-aquarist from taking advice which is crap.

A few sentences of email is that easy to do. You send them all the darn time.

In fact, this post, and the posts to which I have addressed it, have all been much longer and more time consuming than a simple email to cs@petsmart.com would have taken.

If anything, that should convince the few of you who find this to be so pointless to just take a minute and do it. Jeez.

 

[debaric]

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.

I applaud your efforts, it makes me pretty angry too to see them get away with that. I never knew they have a life guarantee on fish. I think it would really take a TON of letters to influence some change.

 

[sully1255]

nice thread. y'all know where i stand.

as to cost of 6K--big deal. check their financials--they waste more than that every morning at the watercollers scattered across the country. POP signage--very cheap.

too cool that people are starting to talk about it. we are continually changing our site.

the response from PetSmart to a lot of people was more thoughtful this week. not sure that it was more productive.

we will post it this weekend on our site.