Selling fish to LFS

A

ArkyLady

Addict In Training
Nov 27, 2002
564
1
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58
Arkansas
The LFS in my town is pretty crappy, but I found another one about 80 miles from here in a bigger city that seems great so far! His saltwater stuff is a bit lacking, but then I'm not into saltwater so that doesn't bother me. He has a nice selection of great looking fish and everything was nice and clean.

While talking to the owner, he mentioned that he buys most of his fish from local hobbyist breeders on a "consignment" type setup. He pays them 50% of what he sells the fish for. So for example, breeder brings in 100 guppies that LFS sells for $2.99 and 10 of them die before selling, that would work out to be $134.00 for the breeder and $134.00 for the LFS.

Seems to me he could buy the fish cheaper from a fish farm, but then I dunno wholesale costs on fish (with shipping and all). He says that he'd rather pay more for the fish to local breeders because he gets much healthier fish overall with less hassles.

Does this seem like a legit deal he's offering? What type of arrangements have you been able to make with your LFS to sell fish you breed back to them?
 
I'm thinking that of you can get half of retail per fish then go for it.
How they pay their bills with this system is beyond me, but for the breeder the deal rocks. The LFS keeps the fish, feeds them, finds the buyers and does all the paperwork involved in keeping track of how many died?
Such a deal....
With a contract guaranteeing such a deal I'd be setting up some breeder tanks for some of the more pricey species. I would not invest in such a set-up on a promise though- they may realize what they've promised and reneg when you walk in with 20 bags of fish.
 
Over here they will only give you a third of the price. Man if you could get it in writeing then go for it. Man 50% of the money is yours thats good. How are his prices to buy fish??? This is where he might make his money people are usually willing to pay a higher price for way healthier fish. That and he saves on shipping charges.
 
fish stores always preferr local breeders rather than wholesalers, because most fish store uses local tap water for their tanks, and the fish they get usually have a high DOA rate from wholesalers, although most times they get credit for those dead fish, but it's a lot of hassle. If the store is willing to give you half of what they would sell for, then definitely go for it!
 
I assume he started this consignment type setup to make up for local breeders not having stock to replace any dead fish he may end up with. That protects him from that end of the problems.

I just visited his store again today. He still has zero guppies in stock. Can you believe he's having a hard time finding guppies of all things? Ugh I had them running out my ears a few months back lol He can order them, but he says he almost always loses half his shipment within the first few days and they are not nice looking guppies anyway (colors/shapes). He sells guppies and mollies for $2.99 (had some fancy mollies for $4.99 so may get more for fancy guppies as well) and angelfish for $8.99 small and $12.99 large.

I guess I'm going to drag out all my stuff and start breeding some guppies again! I've talked to 4 different pet stores around here (all about 80 miles away unfortunately) and every one of them said they'd buy whatever they could from me with various payment arrangements. The 50% deal is the best I've found so far, but if he backs out on it for some reason I do have other options at least. I don't care much about making money, I just enjoy raising the fish but need some way to get rid of all the extras. If I make enough to buy more fish stuff then that's just an awesome bonus!

Soo does anyone know where I can buy some good fancy guppy trios? Anyone here raise guppies? :)
 
i've had problems finding guppies around here before.... i have found the males to be not-so-hardy in my setup when i was trying to breed them. tons of LFS tho, just sometimes it seems like all of them were out. even the plain feeder ones were really hard to find sometimes. (or especially)

i sold a whole bunch of fish a couple months ago, i forget what they gave me, but it wasn't anywhere near 50%. none of them even offered consignment for money. actually most stores around here wanted anything and everything for free, there was only one i found that bought them. :(
 
whole sale fish are dirt cheap we get fancy guppies swords and molies for .08 to .10 cents each the shipping runs about the same and any store that loses %50 of incoming stock does not know what he is doing we dont even have close to those kinda losses on salt/reef stuff.we lose less than %10 and are importing direct from the farms and lots strait in from overseas not a wholesaler intown.
I've seen the wholesale price sheets all of our fish are marked up at least %500 if not %1000 and we are the cheapest around I mean we sell 8" royal plecos for 29.99 baby arrowannas for $14 and 2" angels 3 for $7.50
Sometimes a poor run lfs will lose the ability to buy from their local wholesaler(dont pay bills) and dont have enough bussness to wholesale it in themselves.
Please tell this man to quit ordering fish if he can only keep 1/2 alive thats just wrong.
 
My 2 cents worth will mirror that of Somefinnfishy. Any store that cannot keep fancy guppies (or anything easy) alive is not doing something right. And if you have a good relationship with your wholesaler, they will always give you back at least partial credit on losses. We get 100% live arrival credit as long as we call the same day. If they die in a day or two, we call, and always get partial credit at least. If we have problems with something particular several weeks in a row, we stop ordering them from one and order them from another wholesaler. We mark up about 300% on most fish. We buy fancy guppies at about 50 cents each up to about 90 cents each. Our wholesalers are about 2-3 hours away and deliver to us weekly, no shipping charges.

Again my memory fails me, but I seem to remember an article in some magazine about certain male guppies either not being hardy or not breeding well. I can't remember if it was because of overbreeding at the wholesale level or what.

If you can get them to give you 50%, go for it! Local breeders: look for fish clubs in your area or in the back of fish magazines.
 
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