The perfect LFS

[themadblimper]

I like how all of the little kids who saw finding nemo ran out, bought a tank and kept clowfish (For less than a month.) People should do some research on the specimen(s) they wish to buy BEFORE they buy.
And as to this thread, my local That Fish Place does a good job in informing its customers. Much better than Petsmart or Petsco. If you want a specific fish, go to a specialized breeder. They know exactly what they're doing.
Unfortunately, it is the responsibility of the buyer to keep his fish properly. Fish stores cant waste time explaining to all of their customers on what should go where and what to buy. Once that fish leaves the store, it is the owner's responsibility.

 

[nomadofthehills]

I live on LI. It's all in how you sell them something. If you tell them the fish is going to die......they don't care. If you tell them they're going to have to constantly come in and spend money on replacement fish....that's another story.

What part?

I used to work at Petsmart in Huntington. I tried manny an aproach, but most of the people in Petsmart are very rich. The thrifty ones go to selmers where they can make a deal.

 

[Ghostshrimp55]

That's true for mega stores like Petsmart and Petco and Petland Discounts. I wouldn't say that all LFS's just sell the fish and leave it at that. Like I said, especially for non-chain LFS's, repeat business is key. If they're dolling out bad experiences because all they care about is bagging and selling fish, they're probably not going to be around for long. If they are, they're not going to look as nice or have as much money to spend on people who know what they're doing.

Example. My LFS is a pretty nice looking place. They have well kept tanks (For the most part......their plants tend to suck) and they have some pretty knowledgable staff that don't try to push products on people. I could have been sold a bunch of chemicals to treat what I thought may have been fin fungus on my angels since they weren't healing from their run-ins with the nippy danios that used to occupy my tank. Instead of selling me 20+ bucks of medicines, they sold me 3 bucks worth of salt and it worked like a charm.

On the other end of the spectrum, there's a store a little bit further away from me that looks like absolute garbage. They have a lot of common fish and a lot of sick/dying/dead fish. They're in business still because they sell fish that are dirt cheap. Their staff knows absolutely nothing (they even had what looked like a 14 year old working there.........not sure that's legal). Anyway, after looking around for all of 5 minutes, I decided that I needed a shower after being in there and left without a purchase.

Eventually, and it will probably take a long time for this to happen, experiences like that will cause that store to shut down. I don't recommend that place to anyone who asks me about it. I send them to what I have labelled as my LFS because of the customer service and education they provide.

 

[nomadofthehills]

Yeah. Unfortunately, even though they are not in the majority, moronic customers are the ones that tend to stand out the most in memory. Another reason why they suck.

I felt they were the majority

 

[Ghostshrimp55]

What part?

I used to work at Petsmart in Huntington. I tried manny an aproach, but most of the people in Petsmart are very rich. The thrifty ones go to selmers where they can make a deal.

I live in the Setauket/Port Jefferson/Stony Brook area. My LFS is a place called Magic Isle.............can I say that without being labelled a schill?

Anyway, you're at a disadvantage being in petsmart. Because that place has the reputation it does (and I don't mean the one you worked in, I just mean the chain in general) people feel somehow empowered to make decisions on their own, no matter how uninformed, because it's a grocery store-like atmosphere. How could someone who works in a "grocery store" possibly know what they're talking aobut?

And, you said you didn't have that many repeat customers. Think about this for a sec. What if they came into petsmart, were so adamant that they knew more than you, bought the fish they wanted and it died? They're not going to remember that you told them not buy it. They're going to remember that some kid (sorry, I'm assuming that you are younger, at least that you were when you worked at petsmart) told them something about their fish and it died. The next step, assuming they don't just give up on fishkeeping, is that they then say, I'm going to another pet store where they know what they're doing.

Again, that's assuming that they even try to start up again (or fix whatever went wrong with the fish they got at the store). I'd wager that the people who are just starting out in the hobby who have a bad experience with one of the major chains are more likely to give up on fish, or never return to that store, than those who start out in one of the smaller LFS's. That's just a hunch based on the sheer volume of people that must pass through a place like petsmart everday. To have very few repeat customers says a lot.

On the down side, those places do well because of volume and low overhead so, no matter how bad they are, they are hard to beat.

 

[Ghostshrimp55]

I live in the Setauket/Port Jefferson/Stony Brook area.

I just want to relate to you, Nomad, on this one. I felt the same way about the people in my area. You want to talk about obnoxious? But, looking back on my experiences in the retail days (working through college) these were a select few. The vast majority of people weren't that bad. Like I said, it's hard to see the good for the bad. When customers are bad........they are baaaaad and they leave such a bad taste in the mouth that that's all we remember some times.