paradigm shift.... the way we look at the business end of the hobby
- Thread starter Mgamer20o0
- Start date
Great thread MG, I agree 100%. People need to look at it from both sides, they want the 17 yr old part-time sales clerk to know everything about every fish species, and interrogate every customer about their setup. Or they want a store that only employs very knowledgeable fish people with excellent quality and selection, which of course is great, but how many of those exist, especially in some areas? And it is incredibly difficult to get a small business like that going no matter what your knowledge or dedication, and most of them fail. I agree that despite the misgivings I have about some chain store fish sections, without some of these stores the hobby would not be what it is today. In order to run a successful business, especially starting a new one today, you have to make some compromises in the name of making money. If you don't make money, you are going to close, and it is people's livelihood on the line.
I frequently tell people that I'd drive a much nicer car if I'd just bag them up the fish they point at and go on with my day. The truth is really that I might actually get to pay down my overdraft and not struggle with how to pay the bills while I try to spread my love of the hobby to everyone I touch. I'd managed stores prior to opening my own. I did realize what it is like, but I honestly thought the rewards would offset the frustration. The jury is still out on that one 
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Barbie
.Barbie
Good on ya Barbie! It sounds like you do your best to take care of the fishes needs. IMO that must be the main focus. If we are going to keep these lovely creatures, often taking them from the wild and their natural habitat for our own enjoyment, then we must be prepared to do whatever it takes to supply their needs. Business/money be damned! I can't accept the reasoning that in order to meet the bottom line you sometimes need to turn your head and ignore what you know is right. There are many fish shops that do it right and still make a profit. If a person is not savvy enough, or just not willing to do the work, they should find another business.
There is no way to make every customer happy all the time. From the know-it-all that won't listen, to the unknowing/uncaring customer trying to appease the children, and the caring customer that seeks to improve his hobby.
Keep the prices low enough to move stock means marginalizing profit. That doesn't leave much room to pay wages to someone that is worth their weight in gold. It means relying on the kid or retiree that needs to earn a buck, or the unskilled mom that needs a few extra bucks for the bills. At all of the box stores I have visited and the LFS, the common denominator is few are skilled workers. Why would a skilled person seek a minimal wage job? They wouldn't. Raise the prices to cover knowledgeable staff means loss of business due to exorbitant prices.
Bottom line is that you can't have it both ways. Now the onus of proper care and knowledge is back on you and then you complain that the store doesn't know jack. Wait! If you are capable of reading this, you are capable of accepting self-responsibility in this hobby. Why do you want to put your responsibility on someone else? A forum is not a research site as such. It is full of people with different skill sets and levels of experience. That means you are still going to get the wrong answer somewhere along the way. Does anyone know what a library is? It is a building full of knowledge available to you. Some of that printed wisdom is as wrong as the chain store is but that doesn't stop it from being a library does it?
So when you come across incorrect information you rant and rave about it being wrong. Try teaching instead of ranting. Try sharing instead of shouting. Try researching instead of depending on someone else to provide all the knowledge that is your responsibility to learn. Most of all accept your responsibility for your hobby.
Keep the prices low enough to move stock means marginalizing profit. That doesn't leave much room to pay wages to someone that is worth their weight in gold. It means relying on the kid or retiree that needs to earn a buck, or the unskilled mom that needs a few extra bucks for the bills. At all of the box stores I have visited and the LFS, the common denominator is few are skilled workers. Why would a skilled person seek a minimal wage job? They wouldn't. Raise the prices to cover knowledgeable staff means loss of business due to exorbitant prices.
Bottom line is that you can't have it both ways. Now the onus of proper care and knowledge is back on you and then you complain that the store doesn't know jack. Wait! If you are capable of reading this, you are capable of accepting self-responsibility in this hobby. Why do you want to put your responsibility on someone else? A forum is not a research site as such. It is full of people with different skill sets and levels of experience. That means you are still going to get the wrong answer somewhere along the way. Does anyone know what a library is? It is a building full of knowledge available to you. Some of that printed wisdom is as wrong as the chain store is but that doesn't stop it from being a library does it?
So when you come across incorrect information you rant and rave about it being wrong. Try teaching instead of ranting. Try sharing instead of shouting. Try researching instead of depending on someone else to provide all the knowledge that is your responsibility to learn. Most of all accept your responsibility for your hobby.
That whole money be damned thing would be much easier to swallow if I didn't work 18 hours a day to be in constant fear of losing my house if I can't pay the loans. You know, the loans I got to let me open a store with healthy fish and quality advice and loyal customers. The same loyal customers that regularly show me ads they printed from online and ask me which ones they should buy.
It's easy to be idealistic about it all when it's not personally affecting you. From my standpoint I take NO wage from my store and I've been doing it 2 years now. That's a lot of work for what we all know is never going to equal a worthwhile return. I wanted to build something that could afford to pay me minimum wage so I was doing something I loved for myself, instead of someone else. I'm already so busy I can't keep up with everything I'd like to, yet there's more bills than cash flow at the end of most months. I just thank god my husband has a good job that can pay our household expenses and quite honestly wonder where I could make enough at a regular job to pay off the loans instead. It would be a lot less work and frustration!
This is all coming from someone that loves this hobby very much and does everything she can to promote it and support the local clubs and what not. I have 1600 gallons of water in my house that I can't bear to tear down, so I maintain those on my days "off", also.
I do realize my case is not the norm and most people start a store assuming they can make a living at it. I knew I couldn't, as someone that had already been in the industry, but boy does it smoke you to know you have $3600 in overhead to pay every month to HAVE that store and be there for people that will save $20 after picking your brain for an hour and buy their stuff online.
Barbie
I feel for you Barbie, really! I don't mean to oversimplify or trivialize your predicament, and I truly hope things get better financially for you. It's great that you put your heart and soul into what you love. I love keeping fish too but I struggle with my own conscience for the reasons that I said before. I think if we're going to keep fish in a little glass box for our own pleasure, their well-being needs to be considered more important than our pleasure and their needs met as best we can.
What bugs me is not the employees who are so often underpaid, under-trained, and uninformed. that i can understand, and that's why i do my own research.
my biggest issue is with the OWNERS of the store (Mom & Pop) who don't know anything. now, if i lived anywhere near barbie or her store, you bet your butt i'd go there. but i don't like going places where the owner of the store is going to argue with me that the brightly colored, big-tailed, gonopodium-laden guppy i'm attempting to purchase is actually a female, (finally i had to just say, "okay, i don't care if it's male or female, i just want THAT one") or that yeah, i can put this goldfish in a 1/2g bowl and it won't get any bigger and it'll do just fine. i mean seriously, if you don't even care to do enough research to learn about the product you are earning a living selling, why sell it? find something that actually interests you and become an expert in selling that. even with the goldfish thing, seems to me like it's just bad business sense - the guy could make maybe $15 selling a bowl, a fish, and a plant or some gravel, or he could say, well goldfish get this big, and need a 30g tank, a heater, filter, etc... and either the people will buy that stuff, or they won't, and he might lose that $15. but if they do buy the bowl, and the fish dies, and the one after that - well, they're just not going to come back because either they are sick of the hobby altogether or they start to learn (from places like AC) and realize the guy was a flat-out liar/idiot.
and as i type this, i mean exactly the kinds of situations i am describing. there will always be differences of opinion over filtration, chemical additives, cycling methods, compatibility issues, etc.., but that is what they are - differences of opinion. not knowing a male guppy from a female guppy, or saying a goldfish will not grow when you already sell much larger ones in your own store are serious problems when they are coming directly from the person whose livelihood depends upon selling fish and fish supplies.
my biggest issue is with the OWNERS of the store (Mom & Pop) who don't know anything. now, if i lived anywhere near barbie or her store, you bet your butt i'd go there. but i don't like going places where the owner of the store is going to argue with me that the brightly colored, big-tailed, gonopodium-laden guppy i'm attempting to purchase is actually a female, (finally i had to just say, "okay, i don't care if it's male or female, i just want THAT one") or that yeah, i can put this goldfish in a 1/2g bowl and it won't get any bigger and it'll do just fine. i mean seriously, if you don't even care to do enough research to learn about the product you are earning a living selling, why sell it? find something that actually interests you and become an expert in selling that. even with the goldfish thing, seems to me like it's just bad business sense - the guy could make maybe $15 selling a bowl, a fish, and a plant or some gravel, or he could say, well goldfish get this big, and need a 30g tank, a heater, filter, etc... and either the people will buy that stuff, or they won't, and he might lose that $15. but if they do buy the bowl, and the fish dies, and the one after that - well, they're just not going to come back because either they are sick of the hobby altogether or they start to learn (from places like AC) and realize the guy was a flat-out liar/idiot.
and as i type this, i mean exactly the kinds of situations i am describing. there will always be differences of opinion over filtration, chemical additives, cycling methods, compatibility issues, etc.., but that is what they are - differences of opinion. not knowing a male guppy from a female guppy, or saying a goldfish will not grow when you already sell much larger ones in your own store are serious problems when they are coming directly from the person whose livelihood depends upon selling fish and fish supplies.
