psimitry
New member
So this has been kinda brewing for a while now. And now since Paul has apparently left, and since AZSB really got on my bad side the other day by closing early (it was 6:40 and Marcus was locking up as I pulled in. As soon as Marcus saw that someone was pulling in, he bolted, never looking back), I thought I'd finally type this up.
So yeah - AZSB has definitely seen better times. It's kind of a shame too because AZSB was looking up to be my favorite fish store there for a bit. But it looks to be in sharp decline, so I think I'll try to write about it a bit, sort of give it a "what they did wrong and right" and try to relate that to the rest of the East Valley stores that seem (for the most part) to be in a general state of decline (disclaimer - this obviously comes from an anecdotal, customer perspective. I don't claim to be an expert on the aquarium store industry).
As far as AZSB goes though, here's kinda what I've always thought they did wrong:
1. The TV. It's not so much that the TV they had was a bad thing in and of itself, but it was the most outward symbol of the entire staff's lack of commitment to the store. I've worked in extremely slow stores at extremely slow times, so I know that despite what some people say that "there's ALWAYS something to do!", I don't really have a problem if there really isn't anything to do.
Except that at AZSB, there was some really obvious things that really DID need to be done. Really basic things like removing pricing on livestock tanks for items that were sold and writing it for new livestock. There were times that I would go in there and pricing for fish that had sold weeks ago were still there, and pricing for new fish wasn't - all the while Paul or whoever was working was sitting there watching TV.
2. Loss of Jack. There's no doubt that Jack barely new what he was doing when it comes to the aquarium hobby and I'm sure that was frustrating as all hell for him. BUT there's no doubt that he had an enthusiasm for helping people out. Even if Jack was in a bad mood, he was always friendly, always wanted to help and always followed up on things he committed to. Which brings me to:
3. A complete and utter lack of followup. This usually came in the form of Paul. As much as I really liked the guy, he seemed absolutely incapable of making sure that things got done. He always promised things and very rarely delivered. When I wanted a Sapphire skimmer for my skimmer, Paul told me that he could have it in several hours if I called and told him I wanted it. So at one point I did.... and it never showed up. A couple of days later I go in, talk to Jack, and he digs around, calls Paul, and it was never ordered. Jack took care of it and made sure that I got it.
Another good example was when I was looking for a Four-line wrasse. Paul told me that he could absolutely get ahold of one for me, and that he would put it on his next order. No problem, right? Wrong. It never showed up. I offered to pre-pay on one. Nope. Eventually, I was told that they're just really rare and that they couldn't get ahold of one.
I bought one from Aquarium Arts a few days later (he actually jumped on me last night. RIP little dude )
4. Pricing Overhead in that store was high, I'm sure. It was a good location with a decent amount of space. When the store opened, pricing was OUT. STANDING. You could buy buckets of ReefCrystals cheaper than I had ever seen them anywhere else. I actually considered moving back to Tropic Marin Pro for a bit due to how cheap it was there. Livestock was priced excellent, just in general, everything was cheap.
I remember talking to a buddy of mine after it opened that the pricing was awesome, but there's no way it could last.
How right I was.
Over the span of the next year, fish that would normally be $40-50 at some stores were $80-100+ at AZSB. The price of salt nearly doubled and the price of dry goods also rose sharply in price (the best example I noticed was the filter cartridges for my Biocube rose from $10 for a two pack to $15 for the same pack). Oddly enough, I don't think their liverock pricing ever rose from the excellent price it started with.
I get that items are never going to be as cheap in a retail outlet as they are for an online store. It wasn't so much that I had an issue with their rising pricing, it was the AMOUNT it rose, and I have to believe that if they rose pricing so sharply in order to pay the bills, it very likely cut down on the volume that they were getting (eventually, even though it was about 15 miles away, I started driving over to Aquarium Arts despite the fact that AZSB was less than a mile away).
5. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow! The types of items carried at AZSB changed WAAAAAY too often. Key here is the availability of food. Paul got me hooked on Laguna food when he suggested I try it out. One of his selling points to get me coming back for it was that AZSB was the only place in the valley it could be obtained.
Only AZSB was no longer carrying it. Why? Well at some point, Paul told me that AZSB owed the company who makes Laguna some $$$. <sigh>
In addition, things like PE Mysis was available only occasionally, and often times it was either in cubes or flatpack but not both.
6. "Premium catch fees." What. You mean that despite the fact that you put the cost of the fish on the tank itself, you're going to charge me more for it because you were dumb enough to put it in a display nanocube??
Yeah, so that one ended pretty quickly, but unfortunately so did the display tanks.
-------------------------------
So that's kind of everything that they did wrong, what did they do right?
1. Their corals. Though occasionally overpriced, AZSB's coral selection is quite simply the best I've seen for sale at any store in Arizona. Note, that it's not the best looking coral I've seen at a store, but all of the best looking corals are always in a tank labeled NFS. It's awesome that AZSB always had really good looking corals in their tank and they were for sale (even if the prices were rarely marked).
2. Their fish. One of the things I've always loved about AZSB is that you could always expect to go in there and find fish that you didn't often see at other LFS'. Not that theirs were the extreme exotic monstrosities that you saw at ATR at it's height (more on that in a bit), but that they were always in a range that you couldn't find at say Petco or whatnot, and they always looked in good shape.
3. their drygoods selection. It's strange actually, how I am continually going into this store and finding things that I didn't know they carry. Granted, they really need to advertise their dry goods a bit better, but I don't really know what they could feasibly do with their limited floorspace.
4. Paul as knowledgebase. Say what you will about Paul (and I did. ), but the man knew his stuff. When my tank was in mid-crash last November, he was able to talk me down from the metaphorical ledge, and get me to examine and diagnose my tank properly. We were able to figure out what was going on in my tank that was causing problems (in this case, a shattered glass heater) and get it fixed. I lost a few things here and there, but a was able to save a lot more.
-----------------------------------------
Suggestions for improvement:
So if Paul has left the store, and the remaining owners (not sure who that is at this point. AFAIK Jack left, Paul left... who's remaining?) want the store to improve, there's a few things that I think could really improve the store.
1. Commitment to the business comes, the TV goes. It seems obvious to me that the people who are currently in the employ of AZSB do not have the discipline necessary to have a TV in the store for downtime when there genuinely is nothing to do. It's simply too much of a temptation. This isn't a slam on the people who are there - I wouldn't have the discipline either. I'm WAAAY too lazy for something like that.
BUT, with a renewed commitment to the store and making sure that everything is done properly, I think that it could vastly improve the ability to make goods and livestock really move. Make sure that every fish in the store is properly labeled with a species and price (and preferably a date of arrival). Make sure that all of the food is properly priced in an easy to figure out method, rather than the random assortment of bar code stickers that is currently there. It's little things like that that make people buy.
2. Drop pricing as much as possible. I realize that in today's economic climate, it's tough to justify spending money on an aquarium when things like eating and paying the rent are necessary. Lowering pricing would help offset this. I don't expect to be able to walk in and get grand opening pricing, but at the same time, I don't expect to walk out and feel like I've just been mugged.
3. Once the TV is gone, START STOCKING TANKS IN IT'S PLACE. Seriously. Tanks are expensive as all hell, and keeping them in-stock is rough. But I think that they are an absolutely essential part of running an aquarium shop. Not that I'm advocating keeping in 7 240 Gallon tanks at any given time, but how about a couple 29's, a 55, a 90 and a 125? Likewise, it's dumb to have a (roughly) hundred square feet devoted completely to employee relaxation. It may sound like a good idea, but putting it up front where customers first walk in the door makes it seem like it's laziness.
4. Get new employees. It's really sad that the people who know the most about aquariums in the aquarium shops are really just kinda jerk-ish. It's plainly obvious that people like Marcus and Skip (ATR) know an absolute TON about the hobby, but they've also come off to me as really arrogant at times.
So yeah, I'd get new people, novices included. People that are actually excited about the prospect. And I'd almost recommend some type of uniform for the crew working. Something like "Red shirt = newbie, but can easily fish out a fish out of the tank for you" and "Blue Shirt = experienced aquarist."
5. Get the hours back up. So when the store opened, it was open until like 9, right? Then suddenly it was 8, now 7. It may be that it's not worth it to keep the store open that extra hour from 7-8. But y'know what? You pay your employees what.. $15 an hour? Max? The additional shop lights would cost what... $2 (the others are already on timers and run anyway)?
So let's assume that the operating cost for running that store is an extra $20. Well, I know I went in the other night expecting to buy about $50 in food and possibly livestock, so it wouldn't have been a completely bad idea. That and since, they would be the only fish store open after 7, it'd be a draw for people to come in.
6. In-store only weekend sales. I really think that the stores that do this have a good thing going. Make it known to your regular customers that you have in-store sales going on on the weekends. Say... I dunno.. 1-2 items on a deep discount. These specials wouldn't be in the newsletter (something I imagine that most people, like me, delete without reading anyway) and people have to come in to see them. I think that this would encourage a lot of impulse buying.
----------------------------------------------
So now that I've ranted about AZSB for a LOOONG time now, it's time to really talk about the general decline of stores in the East Valley.
For example, WHAT HAPPENED TO ATR? The last time I walked in there, I felt like I had walked into a friggin' ghost town. Half the coral tanks had water in them but very few corals, half the fish tanks had water in them but were empty. The shpw-sized exotics of old were gone and replaced with (in my opinion) petco caliber specimens. Their food selection has gone down to pretty much nothing, their liverock is even more insanely overpriced than it once was.. the place is simply a disaster. This doesn't hugely surprise me since I was told that Skip stopped managing the place and is now some sort of on-site aquarium maint guy.
Pets Inc. isn't all that much better off. Sure, they have a decent selection of fish, but all of their corals are very "meh" and overpriced, and it's clear that the store's focus is very much on freshwater. Not a whole lot to say about them. Their tank selection is definitely second to none is one thing I will definitely say is very nice about them.
Aquarium Arts is, in my humble opinion the best store in the EV right now, but even they're not without their faults. Their fish selection is in my opinion, the best I've seen for diversity and pricing, but their inverts are rather... unimpressive. They have a ton of tanks for their inverts but they're usually sparsely populated with the unimpressive specimen here and there, or with a sickly looking anemone, or something else you could just as easily pick up at Petco. Their coral selection is also less than stellar. I've simply never been impressed with their corals. OCCASIONALLY you go in there and find an interesting frag, but usually you walk in there expecting to find brown corals with brown polyps mixed with some brown. It's just not impressive. A shame too because they have some really nice coral tanks (not to mention their show tank which I've always thought was amazing).
I have yet to visit Arizona Ocean (or however it's called) so I can't really comment on it, but Reptiles and Reefs was a joke (at least it was the last time I was there with no signs of improving).
So yeah - EV stores seem to generally be declining. What's up with that? Is it the same across Phoenix?? I've heard good things about some of the central phoenix stores but never been, and it's a shame to see some of the best stores out here just go down from what they used to be.
Thoughts?
So yeah - AZSB has definitely seen better times. It's kind of a shame too because AZSB was looking up to be my favorite fish store there for a bit. But it looks to be in sharp decline, so I think I'll try to write about it a bit, sort of give it a "what they did wrong and right" and try to relate that to the rest of the East Valley stores that seem (for the most part) to be in a general state of decline (disclaimer - this obviously comes from an anecdotal, customer perspective. I don't claim to be an expert on the aquarium store industry).
As far as AZSB goes though, here's kinda what I've always thought they did wrong:
1. The TV. It's not so much that the TV they had was a bad thing in and of itself, but it was the most outward symbol of the entire staff's lack of commitment to the store. I've worked in extremely slow stores at extremely slow times, so I know that despite what some people say that "there's ALWAYS something to do!", I don't really have a problem if there really isn't anything to do.
Except that at AZSB, there was some really obvious things that really DID need to be done. Really basic things like removing pricing on livestock tanks for items that were sold and writing it for new livestock. There were times that I would go in there and pricing for fish that had sold weeks ago were still there, and pricing for new fish wasn't - all the while Paul or whoever was working was sitting there watching TV.
2. Loss of Jack. There's no doubt that Jack barely new what he was doing when it comes to the aquarium hobby and I'm sure that was frustrating as all hell for him. BUT there's no doubt that he had an enthusiasm for helping people out. Even if Jack was in a bad mood, he was always friendly, always wanted to help and always followed up on things he committed to. Which brings me to:
3. A complete and utter lack of followup. This usually came in the form of Paul. As much as I really liked the guy, he seemed absolutely incapable of making sure that things got done. He always promised things and very rarely delivered. When I wanted a Sapphire skimmer for my skimmer, Paul told me that he could have it in several hours if I called and told him I wanted it. So at one point I did.... and it never showed up. A couple of days later I go in, talk to Jack, and he digs around, calls Paul, and it was never ordered. Jack took care of it and made sure that I got it.
Another good example was when I was looking for a Four-line wrasse. Paul told me that he could absolutely get ahold of one for me, and that he would put it on his next order. No problem, right? Wrong. It never showed up. I offered to pre-pay on one. Nope. Eventually, I was told that they're just really rare and that they couldn't get ahold of one.
I bought one from Aquarium Arts a few days later (he actually jumped on me last night. RIP little dude )
4. Pricing Overhead in that store was high, I'm sure. It was a good location with a decent amount of space. When the store opened, pricing was OUT. STANDING. You could buy buckets of ReefCrystals cheaper than I had ever seen them anywhere else. I actually considered moving back to Tropic Marin Pro for a bit due to how cheap it was there. Livestock was priced excellent, just in general, everything was cheap.
I remember talking to a buddy of mine after it opened that the pricing was awesome, but there's no way it could last.
How right I was.
Over the span of the next year, fish that would normally be $40-50 at some stores were $80-100+ at AZSB. The price of salt nearly doubled and the price of dry goods also rose sharply in price (the best example I noticed was the filter cartridges for my Biocube rose from $10 for a two pack to $15 for the same pack). Oddly enough, I don't think their liverock pricing ever rose from the excellent price it started with.
I get that items are never going to be as cheap in a retail outlet as they are for an online store. It wasn't so much that I had an issue with their rising pricing, it was the AMOUNT it rose, and I have to believe that if they rose pricing so sharply in order to pay the bills, it very likely cut down on the volume that they were getting (eventually, even though it was about 15 miles away, I started driving over to Aquarium Arts despite the fact that AZSB was less than a mile away).
5. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow! The types of items carried at AZSB changed WAAAAAY too often. Key here is the availability of food. Paul got me hooked on Laguna food when he suggested I try it out. One of his selling points to get me coming back for it was that AZSB was the only place in the valley it could be obtained.
Only AZSB was no longer carrying it. Why? Well at some point, Paul told me that AZSB owed the company who makes Laguna some $$$. <sigh>
In addition, things like PE Mysis was available only occasionally, and often times it was either in cubes or flatpack but not both.
6. "Premium catch fees." What. You mean that despite the fact that you put the cost of the fish on the tank itself, you're going to charge me more for it because you were dumb enough to put it in a display nanocube??
Yeah, so that one ended pretty quickly, but unfortunately so did the display tanks.
-------------------------------
So that's kind of everything that they did wrong, what did they do right?
1. Their corals. Though occasionally overpriced, AZSB's coral selection is quite simply the best I've seen for sale at any store in Arizona. Note, that it's not the best looking coral I've seen at a store, but all of the best looking corals are always in a tank labeled NFS. It's awesome that AZSB always had really good looking corals in their tank and they were for sale (even if the prices were rarely marked).
2. Their fish. One of the things I've always loved about AZSB is that you could always expect to go in there and find fish that you didn't often see at other LFS'. Not that theirs were the extreme exotic monstrosities that you saw at ATR at it's height (more on that in a bit), but that they were always in a range that you couldn't find at say Petco or whatnot, and they always looked in good shape.
3. their drygoods selection. It's strange actually, how I am continually going into this store and finding things that I didn't know they carry. Granted, they really need to advertise their dry goods a bit better, but I don't really know what they could feasibly do with their limited floorspace.
4. Paul as knowledgebase. Say what you will about Paul (and I did. ), but the man knew his stuff. When my tank was in mid-crash last November, he was able to talk me down from the metaphorical ledge, and get me to examine and diagnose my tank properly. We were able to figure out what was going on in my tank that was causing problems (in this case, a shattered glass heater) and get it fixed. I lost a few things here and there, but a was able to save a lot more.
-----------------------------------------
Suggestions for improvement:
So if Paul has left the store, and the remaining owners (not sure who that is at this point. AFAIK Jack left, Paul left... who's remaining?) want the store to improve, there's a few things that I think could really improve the store.
1. Commitment to the business comes, the TV goes. It seems obvious to me that the people who are currently in the employ of AZSB do not have the discipline necessary to have a TV in the store for downtime when there genuinely is nothing to do. It's simply too much of a temptation. This isn't a slam on the people who are there - I wouldn't have the discipline either. I'm WAAAY too lazy for something like that.
BUT, with a renewed commitment to the store and making sure that everything is done properly, I think that it could vastly improve the ability to make goods and livestock really move. Make sure that every fish in the store is properly labeled with a species and price (and preferably a date of arrival). Make sure that all of the food is properly priced in an easy to figure out method, rather than the random assortment of bar code stickers that is currently there. It's little things like that that make people buy.
2. Drop pricing as much as possible. I realize that in today's economic climate, it's tough to justify spending money on an aquarium when things like eating and paying the rent are necessary. Lowering pricing would help offset this. I don't expect to be able to walk in and get grand opening pricing, but at the same time, I don't expect to walk out and feel like I've just been mugged.
3. Once the TV is gone, START STOCKING TANKS IN IT'S PLACE. Seriously. Tanks are expensive as all hell, and keeping them in-stock is rough. But I think that they are an absolutely essential part of running an aquarium shop. Not that I'm advocating keeping in 7 240 Gallon tanks at any given time, but how about a couple 29's, a 55, a 90 and a 125? Likewise, it's dumb to have a (roughly) hundred square feet devoted completely to employee relaxation. It may sound like a good idea, but putting it up front where customers first walk in the door makes it seem like it's laziness.
4. Get new employees. It's really sad that the people who know the most about aquariums in the aquarium shops are really just kinda jerk-ish. It's plainly obvious that people like Marcus and Skip (ATR) know an absolute TON about the hobby, but they've also come off to me as really arrogant at times.
So yeah, I'd get new people, novices included. People that are actually excited about the prospect. And I'd almost recommend some type of uniform for the crew working. Something like "Red shirt = newbie, but can easily fish out a fish out of the tank for you" and "Blue Shirt = experienced aquarist."
5. Get the hours back up. So when the store opened, it was open until like 9, right? Then suddenly it was 8, now 7. It may be that it's not worth it to keep the store open that extra hour from 7-8. But y'know what? You pay your employees what.. $15 an hour? Max? The additional shop lights would cost what... $2 (the others are already on timers and run anyway)?
So let's assume that the operating cost for running that store is an extra $20. Well, I know I went in the other night expecting to buy about $50 in food and possibly livestock, so it wouldn't have been a completely bad idea. That and since, they would be the only fish store open after 7, it'd be a draw for people to come in.
6. In-store only weekend sales. I really think that the stores that do this have a good thing going. Make it known to your regular customers that you have in-store sales going on on the weekends. Say... I dunno.. 1-2 items on a deep discount. These specials wouldn't be in the newsletter (something I imagine that most people, like me, delete without reading anyway) and people have to come in to see them. I think that this would encourage a lot of impulse buying.
----------------------------------------------
So now that I've ranted about AZSB for a LOOONG time now, it's time to really talk about the general decline of stores in the East Valley.
For example, WHAT HAPPENED TO ATR? The last time I walked in there, I felt like I had walked into a friggin' ghost town. Half the coral tanks had water in them but very few corals, half the fish tanks had water in them but were empty. The shpw-sized exotics of old were gone and replaced with (in my opinion) petco caliber specimens. Their food selection has gone down to pretty much nothing, their liverock is even more insanely overpriced than it once was.. the place is simply a disaster. This doesn't hugely surprise me since I was told that Skip stopped managing the place and is now some sort of on-site aquarium maint guy.
Pets Inc. isn't all that much better off. Sure, they have a decent selection of fish, but all of their corals are very "meh" and overpriced, and it's clear that the store's focus is very much on freshwater. Not a whole lot to say about them. Their tank selection is definitely second to none is one thing I will definitely say is very nice about them.
Aquarium Arts is, in my humble opinion the best store in the EV right now, but even they're not without their faults. Their fish selection is in my opinion, the best I've seen for diversity and pricing, but their inverts are rather... unimpressive. They have a ton of tanks for their inverts but they're usually sparsely populated with the unimpressive specimen here and there, or with a sickly looking anemone, or something else you could just as easily pick up at Petco. Their coral selection is also less than stellar. I've simply never been impressed with their corals. OCCASIONALLY you go in there and find an interesting frag, but usually you walk in there expecting to find brown corals with brown polyps mixed with some brown. It's just not impressive. A shame too because they have some really nice coral tanks (not to mention their show tank which I've always thought was amazing).
I have yet to visit Arizona Ocean (or however it's called) so I can't really comment on it, but Reptiles and Reefs was a joke (at least it was the last time I was there with no signs of improving).
So yeah - EV stores seem to generally be declining. What's up with that? Is it the same across Phoenix?? I've heard good things about some of the central phoenix stores but never been, and it's a shame to see some of the best stores out here just go down from what they used to be.
Thoughts?
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