Drs Foster and Smith closing

Every one always talks about how tough it is for the LFS, but start putting a list together for online stores and it is huge. It sux either way about LA Supply!
 
It seems a monumental miscalculation on the part of Petco, to acquire the company 3 years ago and already be shuttering most of it.
 
I doubt that - not a good use of resources. Doubt DD/LA is all that profitable frankly.

Seems to me like it would be. Many of Live Aquarias fish ship directly from Quality Marine... with a mark up and no middle man to hold the fish in between.
 
Seems to me like it would be. Many of Live Aquarias fish ship directly from Quality Marine... with a mark up and no middle man to hold the fish in between.

I'd really be curious to see the percentage of losses during the warranty period they have to cover.
 
Hard to know for sure but it obviously works for them, they have been doing it for the last 20 years

True. It definitely seems, to me at least, that the quality of fish from wholesalers has gone down over the years though. I feel like I'm a pretty decent fish keeper and I lose about 30% of fish from LA either as DOA, that arrive near death, or ones that randomly die within the warranty period. I do tend to order more difficult fish from them because of the warranty though so hopefully most people have better luck. I tried a couple Convict tangs on separate orders recently and both were about as thick as a sheet of paper and died within 24 hrs. I have even had a lot of damsels arrive DOA recently.
 
Seems to me like it would be. Many of Live Aquarias fish ship directly from Quality Marine... with a mark up and no middle man to hold the fish in between.

I think the proverbial grass is always geeener .... Clearly they are profitable as they've been around for a long time; but i do wonder how profitable. Certainly not enough to make Petco's acquisition of DFS a good one in the face of closing down everything else.
 
We really have no idea. Not even enough to guess much less debate if it is a good or bad that Petco bought Dr.F&S.
I just hope that they keep LA and DD going.
I rarely buy online animal elsewhere.
 
I think if you invest in an asset, and three years later have to shutter that asset, it may not have been the business plan they envisioned. The owners (Drs Foster and Smith) said at the time of sale that they vetted potential buyers for a company that would commit to keeping the location open for the "foreseeable future".

It is anyone's guess whether the financial results were positive for Petco. It definitely wasn't positive for all the people who lost their jobs.

It may be that online competition would have resulted in the same outcome.
 
There are plenty of situations where Petco can make out like a bandit by buying Dr.F&S, physically close the ware house, even the livestock center and still profit.
The most obvious, is that they can keep the online present and just ship things from the very large Petco Warehouse which they already have. They just cut a huge cost and, if they careful and provide the customer service as before, they will retain all the customer base.
It is unlikely that they can do the same with DD, I don't know, but LA will go the same way in the future IMO (baseless opinion).

Like I said, we have no information. I think it is funny that some of us seem to give his uninformed opinion as a sure thing.
 
Notice that there are nothing on the new release regarding the Online DFS, LA or DD. There are many business that sold though multiple online sites. There are even online site that sell stuff at a very high price, with the sole purpose of making the price at another site, of the same physical business, seem cheaper than it actually is.
 
From a purely business perspective, DD, LA and DFS are all completely different. Diven's Den is essentially a luxury online LFS, for which there is little direct competition. LA is an online white label for a bunch of other suppliers which regular consumers cannot access, which also doesn't have much direct online competition (though in theory it maybe could). DFS is an online dry goods seller who is competing against not their parent company but also Amazon, BRS and others.

Of course I have no idea what the health of the other businesses are, but it seems very plausible to me that DFS wouldn't make economic sense whereas LA and DD are both very healthy businesses.
 
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