Petsmart is wonderful.

Nathane959

AC Members
Mar 4, 2005
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Springfield
After reading a few hateful posts about Petsmart, let me set you all strait.
As much as i dislike big corprate pet shops taking a big part of the market, Im glad we have a Petsmart here in town. The Petsmart here in Springfield Mo is a pet adopting MACHINE. I mean this place adopts dogs, like you would not believe. Everytime you make a purchase with a credit card/debit, the card reader asks you if you want to donate a dollar to help a homeless animal, and works miracles with the surrounding countys no kill shelters and humane societys. Every weekend they line the shelter dogs up outside the front of the store, and adopt almost all of the dogs they bring in.
The shelters come from all over Southwest Missouri, and rotate weekends on a regular basis. The Petsmart here also holds dogtraining classes right in the middle of the store. lol. I think its just fanstastic what they do to promote good ownership, treatment, and healthy lives of dogs.
This is the only pet shop chain ill support, the rest of em arent worth a ****.
As for the fish, i buy my fish at the LFS Cichlids and Salt. If you havent noticed, Petsmarts prices on aquatic equipment are outrageous, the have a huge markup and arent competitive prices at all. Ive traveled 4 hours to pick up fish and equipment in Tulsa Oklahoma.
 
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They are very good about the adoptions of cats and dogs....no doubt about that....but some of them could do better in thier fish dept. Depending on the manager and who ever is in charge of taking care of that dept....the quality varies from store to store.

The petsmart near me has an OK fish dept....but it's not as good as the PetCo up the street...which has very well maintained tanks that are clean and tidy and a joy to look at. You very seldom see any dead fish floating in thier tanks and they have them decorated as well, not just the plain blue background. I always compliment the fella who cares for them every chance I get.
 
I agree Petsmart is awesome for cats and dogs. But are just plain horrible for fish. I always see dead fish in virtually every 3rd tank, their employees don't know jack about actual fishkeeping and so often I've heard them using just underhanded sales tactics. Once I heard them convincing someone who used well water that they needed dechlorinator.

You know what's sad though. You mentioned PetSmarts markups on equiptment, they are the cheapest in Spokane for aquarium equiptment.
 
Actually Petsmart will match any prive on thier website. A guy i know works there and he told me that. Ive done it. Alot things are ALOT cheaper but still not cheap enough for me. Just bring a printout of the item off of thier website and theyll give you the discount. :) Yeah, youre right , most of the time they dont know jack **** , but then again what do you expect ? lol. For cheap prices on things, go to www.Bigalsonline.com. He guarantees the lowest price on the net. If you find anything cheaper bigals will match that price and take another 10% off of that. :thm:

Man, theres so many dogs running loose around here. Its really sad.
Im originally from Wisconsin, when i moved down here, I was like what the **** ! Its really pathetic people dont know how to take care of thier animals here. Unscroupulous people dump dogs and puppies in the country all the time. They rarely ever tag em, so if you find a stray, you have no idea who it belongs to.
its really heartless, so thats y im all for Petsmart here. Its awsome.
They are like, WERE GONNA ****IN DO SOMETING ABUT IT ! I love that.
Ill never buy another dog again. Always adopt. I have 3 little ones, all adopted. i
Is this a fish forum ????? lol
 
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As much as I hate to shop at the big chain stores also, I have to give my local petsmart credit as well...they do the adoptions on a regular basis and have well maintained tanks. They even volunteer info. when I've bought fish, (asking what size tank I had for the clown loaches I bought, telling me that bala sharks can be aggressive, etc.)

It just goes to show that the individual stores can vary greatly, regardless of the good or bad stories you might hear about them as a whole
 
Nathane959 said:
Af. If you havent noticed, Petsmarts prices on aquatic equipment are outrageous, the have a huge markup and arent competitive prices at all. Ive traveled 4 hours to pick up fish and equipment in Tulsa Oklahoma.

thats dum becouse of the money u wast on gas goin there to save alittle when ur actully losing alot on gas
 
YAH! I go to the springfeild petsmart and they are a pet adopting machine! Sadly though the fish department at Springfeild Mos Petsmart sucks! I watched a few people and their kid come in look around and let their kid point to every fish he wanted. I doubt they even had a tank. They ended up with a crab, a kuhli loach, a redtail shark, a common pleco,and an angel fish, I think. The employee didn't care. I bought another corydora and a balloon molly. The employee that helped me knew how to tell the sexes apart(not hard) but thats about it. I really wish all pet stores knew what they were doing instead of just selling fish to bad homes. O'well thats life:-( I guess.
 
I got a great deal on an aquarium and stand combo at Petsmart, but their employees have really discouraged me from ever wanting to do business with the store again. Oddly enough, I've only had one poor experience with a Petsmart employee in the store, and she didn't even make me want to skip out on the place.

Their fish departments are pretty bad as far as the fish are concerned, but they've had some nice ornaments and wider selections than department stores and some LFS I've been to.
 
Does Petsmart really match ANY online price, or just their online "specials" prices?

I have heard that Petsmarts do match their online prices, so I strolled into my local Petsmart looking for a filter or something (this was a while ago) and the clerk turned me down, which I had expected, so I asked for the store manager... who told me that they're only required to match the website's advertised specials.... NOT every item on the website.

So how do I get them to honor their online price for a Filstar xp3 for example??

:D
 
It's not a Petsmart problem

it's largely a staffing problem.

When a LFS hires staff they hire a person to deal with fish, and fish only. Therefore, your chances of dealing with a knowledgeable individual are fairly high.

When Petsmart, Petco, WalMart, etc hire staff the new employees ideally either know tons about all departments or are only working in their specialty department at all times. In reality this simply doesn't work and overall the average customer ends up staff that are mostly mediocre. You might be lucky and run into the employee who specializes in your favorite animals and their needs, but you might just as well end up with someone who doesn't know a great deal about your darlings.

Now, before I go out shopping I do my homework (mostly here), so when I enter a store I know exactly what I'm looking for.And I'm (grudgingly) patient enough to wait until I find the right fish. Like that Yoyo loach I've been waiting for since late September .... Maybe I'm too cynical, but in the end every retail store has one goal: to sell you something, whether you need it or not. I simply don't want to fall prey...

Here I have (at least, these are just the ones I visit) 3 Petsmarts, 3 Petcos, 4 WalMarts and a number of LFS to chose from when I need/want something. Hardware get bought at the best price, lately that's been Walmart or the "used" corner at one LFS. Food tends to come from Petsmart because there's one on my way home. Plants and fish come from wherever they and the tanks look the healthiest.

I've managed to run into completely ignorant (Bettas can't be in more than 1 quart of water, they freak out. - What are otos? - We don't have java ferns... no, those are "tropical" ferns) and highly competent employees at the very same local chain store. Yes, some chain stores have their fish in deplorable conditions. Unfortunately, so do some LFS. I went to one particular LFS on a recommendation and their saltwater side looked great. But when I made it to the freshwater tanks I was appalled: dead fish, ich, you name it.

It all depends on the individual clerk/store, generalizing just plainly doesn't work.
 
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