LFS or Online shopping

danfeig

danfeig

.Registered Member
So I try to support all of our local fish stores, I want to support our LFS! But if you have followed along my build thread, you will see that most of my orders have been made online. I don't think that its that our LFS don't try, they just don't have what I want, are too expensive, don't have the best customer service or are too dirty - that I wouldn't put any of their live corals or fish in my tank!

This morning I hit up two stores. SEA and GQ. Actually a 3rd store, Tropical Kingdom, as I wanted to pick up some Brine Shrimp for my Seahorse Tank and Quarantine Tanks and no one else carries it! Anyways, my potassium levels were real low and so I needed a supplement.

I stopped off at SEA first for a few different reasons. One they were the closest to Tropical Kingdom but second and foremost - as it's been documented and discussed, I ordered my tank through them and Leased them space for their 2nd location - unfortunately, that didn't get off the ground. Well, SEA didn't have it. Issues surrounding SEA have been discussed on numerous threads...

I then went to GQ and saw Nathan. He had the product I was looking for, Brightwell Aquatics Potassion-P Dry 10.6 oz, for $24.99, which I bought. The same product though, I find online for $11 - $18, plus shipping.

Nathan and I got to talking about all the rumors going around town, the same ones everyone is talking about, and business in general. It's tough. The economy is tough! I have to tell you, I feel bad all of out local stores! But it really got me thinking!!!

I am in the real estate business. I own and operate many retail centers in town. I have never had as many vacancies as I have today. The economy is tough. I don't think the average Joe realizes how much it costs to operate a business. Take a small store like Nathan's. Rent is going to be around $1,100 per month. How about utilities??? At least $600 per month (a/c, lights, pumps, water). Liability Insurance will be $100 per month. This totals $1,800 per month and we haven't even touched on all the monies he needed to spend to get the store set up. All the tanks, plumbing, pumps, lights, skimmers, etc. How about all the salt he goes through each week? We haven't discussed that he needs to make a living (a salary) and what about his employees? Then there is the workman's comp, unemployment insurance and employment related expenses. What about purchasing all the livestock. And then how about all livestock that dies or comes in dead that he has to cover!

It is really tough! In a small store like that, things have to be marked up considerably to just cover costs.

But we still need to support our LFS! If we order everything online, where are we going to go when we need a bulkhead in a hurry? How about when we have a leak and need some place to temporarily house our fish and corals? How about when we run out of something or need something in a hurry?

Okay, I have been rambling... but it's got me thinking. What is it that we want from our LFS? I know what I want.

1) I want a clean store that doesn't smell like dead fish. A store whose tanks are clean and doesn't have algae growing all over the glass or corals.
2) I want a store that always carries the basics we all need including water, A&B and food. And how about plumbing parts, mag-drives, lightbulbs!!!
3) I want a store that has a large quality selection of corals including colonies and frags. Mostly good frags that aren't going to die off a few days from getting home.
4) I want to be able to order any fish that I want.
5) I want a store that dips all of its corals and removes any pests or algae
6) A store that quarantines or treats its fish.
7) A store with knowledgeable staff.
8) As a customer, to be appreciated for my patronage.
9) A guarantee or option of a guarantee.
10) Above all, I want everything at a reasonable price!!! I understand the overhead expenses that I outlined above. I am willing to pay more though to buy things locally and to be able to trust what I am purchasing! I just don't want to be screwed or taken advantage of.

Ordering online can be hit or miss. Yes you can get a 14 day guarantee from Live Aquaria, but you can also easily get infected fish. I've been forced to order online and I hate it! Yes, I like FedEx Fridays but I hate paying for shipping and I hate not seeing first a picture of what I am getting.

So please, tell me what you want from our LFS. Let these guys listen. How are our LFS going to earn your business?

What do you all want out of our LFS?
 
They won't, I'm done with all of them, I'm discusted with all the shops, they have had a decade with me to earn my buisness in Tucson. Keep in mind I have a unique perspective having worked at majestic, southwest under two diffrent owners, and finally sea. I've seen unscrupulous buisness practices at all of them. With the exception of GQ because i cant afford his live stock so ive had limited dealings. Oasis is a joke, its a scam a week on rediculous prices on run of the mill coral, and advice on husbandry that is both outragous and incorrect to be detramental to livestock. Ive been treated like crap as both a customer and a hand around the shops. I'm over it. Changing names of the shops doesn't fix the problem. Ill happily spend online and phoenix until i have an honest shop, that does what they should, and treats customers like they are of value. Done.
 
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Let me first say I am fully aware of what is going on with the reef stores in this town. So what I am saying is directed to those involved in the future.

Other than what dan stated. I think for many, especially those starting out, the real advantage to a lfs is the relationship and trust garnished building a system stocking ect. Money is finite and this hobby is great at waisting it on "snake oil". In general online sales are cheaper due to lower overhead. Some brands have a map or msp. However the lfs could have a freebie included or some kind of price guarantee. Xyz store would rather make a 20%margin on something than loose the sale onlne. i beleive if a person trusts a lfs to be honest and look out for their customers needs most will pay a little more. I have always thought the lfs could offer some feature added benefits as well. Ie a real quarantine section for fish/coral at an additional optional cost. A special order wall with pictures of order able items. People will buy if they can see it. I know my coral and fish but many people don't. If there was a book or wall with pictures to special order from. Beautifull tank pictures to get ideas from. Special orders that actually come in. I need to get my kids to sleep so I can't post more now, but as a retail business owner I have put a lot of thought into what I would do if I owned a lfs to maximize service, merchandising, and dollars per squar foot in sales. I would not try to reinvent the wheel but rather do some research into what make some of the other well know successfull lfs as such and then ad my own unique touch and nitch. Ie vivid. Packages that offer more Value. They are beneficial to both the lfs and the customer. They increase the average ticket price and offer the customer a good deal on something they would not have otherwise purchased. Financing 12 months sac for large purchases. A club with meetings and special purchases through the store.

Ultimately a lfs and a customer is a partnership and many reefers are very loyal or could be if given the opportunity to have that loyalty earned.

I love this hobby and I love business. It has continually frustrated me to see all the lfs's in this town make so many business mistakes. I don't have the time to open a reef store but if anyone is moving forward with any new or new for you stores and would like to sit down for an idea session I am always willing.
 
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It seems like every 6 months to 1 year a thread just like this pops up in the Tucson forum. Which is kind of funny because people keep saying the same things yet none of the LFS can meet the requests of the ever so important customer. I notice that I never see threads like this in larger cities, probably because the poor shops go out of business and the good shops thrive.

I believe part of the Tucson LFS difficulties is that the Tucson reef community is very small, and the city itself is very spread out so the number of customers that walk into a store on a given day is significantly smaller than stores in larger more densely populated cities. High operating costs and low sales volume puts the LFS in a bad spot.
The business is stretched for money, and is forced to hire employees for low wages. Just like anything else you get what you pay for, and I've experienced employees that know very little to nothing about what they are selling, and I've been insulted, disrespected, etc, etc, etc, on several occasions. When I walk into a LFS I often feel like I'm walking into a used car dealership, which is why I no longer go into them even if I know they are having a sale.

If these LFS could sell more fish, coral, etc and make decent profits they would continue to stock their store with nice coral and fish. Since they are struggling with income they don't stock the shelf and can't afford to pay employees to clean and/or competently help customers. Unfortunately it seems like Tucson cannot financially support a decent shop.

Since you are making a list:
11.) Top notch customer service, where questions are answered, customers are treated well. I don't want to be grilled when I bring back a dead fish when the LFS told me it was eating, and it died 7 days later never once taking a bite of anything I offered.

12.) LFS I could trust with special orders. I don't want the run around for months and months on a fish I've paid for. (I will never again prepay for any livestock after a few bad LFS experiences here in Tucson)

13.) An LFS that would consider the customer tanks as their own and seek out fish that they think the customer would want. I've requested LFS bring in fish and they pay absolutely no attention to my requests unless I prepay. I know other hobbyists in other cities who have LFS that will call them and say I have x-fish on my list, do you want me to order it for you.

I know this last one is not possible due to costs but:
14.) Knowing I'm not going to have to immediately medicate the fish I just bought from your store. Usually when I buy a fish (other than divers den), I expect to medicate within 7-10 days. It helps if you can keep a fish in QT for several weeks/months to fatten them up before medicating.

A year ago I would have been all about having a great shop in town but I've been ordering online for so long now I feel it is the best way to fill my aquarium needs. I don't have to drive across town to see empty tanks. And I don't have to anxiously await the next time the LFS tries to con me out of some money. If you order from the right online vendors you will always receive a fair shake.
 
I did everything I could to support our local LFS including giving free frags that I had trimmed so they could make a little easy money, which got me to thinking, what I really would like to see in a LFS is a Bookmans style exchange program where you can bring in some nice frags for trade or store credit, I understand the theory behind this business model and it does seem to work very well with books, magazines, and video games, so why not Coral Frags. It seems to me we need the next LFS to think a little outside the box.
 
I am not as local as you guys, Green Valley in fact.

When I make a trip to Tucson I want it to be a productive one. I usually hit all the stores on a trip in although I have never been to GQ's (I have heard good things about it though).

I know it's my responsibility to dip and inspect corals, but with that said, I have gotten FW's a couple times, Red bugs and have not purchased montipora in a couple years because I have seen monitipora eating nudibranchs in the tanks on 2 occasions.

I am more than happy to shop local, it saves me on shipping to a certain degree but I am not going to make the trip to town if selection is limited, in poor condition, and pricing not even close to comprable.

More importantly to me, I want to enjoy the experience, the banter and be recognized for my patronage. On a least 4 occasions I have made the drive to find stores closed during normal hours of operation with no notice, nothing nada. Been forced to stand out side for 30 minutes after opening because no one showed up to open the store on time. Call a head you say, odds on someone answering the phone is about 50/50.

Having pricing clear listed so I do not have to stand there and wait for the manager to call back.

If you can not show up to open the store on time or open it at all, then be inconsistent in pricing, and on top of all that unable to provide much in the way customer service than as a local business you're going to fail.
 
I would love to have a great LFS to support, I think most people would.

I would want:

1. Good, healthy livestock at a reasonable price. I understand it's going to be more expensive than online, but the ability to go and look at the exact fish/ coral with my own two eyes before purchase, and having it go from in the store to in my tank in a few hours is worth a little extra money.
2. Give me the ability to special order fish & corals.
3. Don't really care about equipment, a LFS will never be able to compete with the big online vendors.
4. Plumbing parts, bulbs, GFO, food at a good price.
5. Salt. Give me Reef Crystals buckets or 200g boxes for close to what Fosters & Smith sells it for, and that LFS will have a loyal customer for as long as their doors are open.
 
I think there has been blood in the water and something foul in the air for some time.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 
I want a place to stop in and hang out with nice people that like to chat.

I want clean tanks and floors with no sickly looking fish, there needs to be a system behind the scenes where fish with obvious disease can go. Why display them when nobody is gonna buy them.

A store that attempts to keep things disease free, fish and corals. We have the largest fish pharmacy in the country local to us, use them. Dipping at the very least should be done, but this could be a lot better with little effort too.

Dry goods and bulbs should go without saying. Im talking a couple different options, not everybody wants the cheap alternative when it comes to bulbs.

Some kind of a guarantee system needs to be available. The $20 clown fish that dies isn't that big of a deal but if you want to sell me that $200 fish with no guarantee Im gonna go with Live Aquaria every time.

This is the biggest one for me. I want my special orders to come in.

Lastly, there has to be some sort of competition when it comes to price. I understand you have to mark the fish up but if im not gonna pay the same price as I would from the online vendor thats gonna guarantee it for 14 days, that would be stupid on my part. Mark it up but be competitive, if I order it online you dont make anything. You should be cheaper than Divers Den, if your not your crazy.
 
Another one that may not be practical but I would like a cash refund if/when a fish dies under the guarantee. That is one of the many reasons I order from DFS instead of other online vendors. If a fish dies, the refund is applied to my credit card, I don't want to have 200+ dollars tied up in the LFS or other online vendor where it may be months before they have something else I want to buy. Or worse force you to buy something because your credit is about to expire...

I personally can't see myself spending big money on a fish at a Tucson LFS without the refund. I've already been burned my to many LFS sales, and DFS is just a click away.

I've even had DFS extend a warranty for me on a fish that was sick. In order for a LFS to compete with DFS for my business they have to have the same fundamental policies.
 
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These are all valid points. Living in Tucson, Phoenix and now Southern Florida I have seen and been to a lot of LFS both fresh and salt. I understand it is hard to be a LFS and the overhead can be quite daunting. However, that does not mean that you need to price gouge me for my money of a simple common fish. Or BS me about a fish that I know is never to be reef safe for multiple reasons. I have seen all the LFS come and go in Tucson. I had SW Saltwater build my first 125gal SW tank back in 1998! I no longer have the tank. But I do have the stand with custom saguaro ribs in it. Back than they still were cheap and shotty and never waterproofed the stand. I however did when I decided to use the stand again for my red eared slider. I also religiously shopped at Majestic sealife when they were in business.

After taking a hiatus for a few years I came back and dealt with the stores here in town as well as all the stores in Phoenix. The only real store that is actually "NICE" and doesn't smell like dead fish is GQ (atleast in tucson) they rest smell and look like crap. All the stores I have visited in FLorida look amazing! And there are literally dozens and I haven't been to all of them yet. This is something that brings me back to the LFS.

So here is my list:

1) Clean Store
2) LIve stock in stock and competitive pricing (and not just for special orders aka GQFish "Once it goes in the tank I increase the price almost 50%" Yeah that doesn't make me want to shop from you.
3) A 14 day guarantee on live stock. I mean I will spend the $35 for overnight shipping if it means my $300 fish is guaranteed for 14-15 days from LiveAquaria and Vivid and Bluezoo. You're local if your prices are higher give me something the online people don't or atleast give me what they give me. I mean if i kill every fish you sell me back to back than, yeah I don't get a guarantee.
4) Have common aquarium goods in stock always.... Bulkheads, bulbs, A&B, food, medication, salt (5gal to 200gal buckets) and be competitive. I can get a 200g reef crystal box at cost from 5 different people up in phoenix. You should be able to atleast have the item.
5) You should rent out diamond bit hole saws. (Discount aquariums and all the Phoenix stores do it), Its easy money
5) Good customer service. and Give good advice.

Anyways a local fish stores bulk of their profits should be coming from maintenance contracts. Cause lets face it you can get everything online. Why would I buy an APEX unit from a store locally when the cost is MAP and they don't get it cheaper than the online retailer and than i have to pay tax. I can buy it online and avoid tax and its $$$$ that shipping is always free. I don't expect to buy big ticket purchases from the LFS they won't ever beat the online retailers.
 
brettinteriors said:
Most big ticket items are price fixed. They could throw in freebies however.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...

I completely agree. GQ fish tried to sell me a Apex but than i have to pay tax.... why would I not just buy it online and save myself... $40+ I mean thats a nice coral from some local reefer...
 
aquaph8 said:
Haha, I noticed that when I bought my DI resin from Spectrapure, I was like awe man.
Click to expand...

Yeah but being in AZ if you actually go over to Spectrapure they usually cut you a discount for local pickup and half the time they give you some freebie. I got 50 feet of hosing free once and a couple fittings. So I can't really complain about Spectrapure! I love those guys! For the following reasons:

1) They have helped me out so much on so many occasions with all my weird and elaborate RO/DI stuff.
2) Custom designed me a auto top off for my ATO reservoir. So now I literally don't even think about my water level hahaha (except I have to watch the infrared sensor on the tunze unit every so often. This weekend there was a dead mangrove leaf that blocking the sensor. Removed it and all was good again. it was there for like a day or so).
3) I bought their DI resin in bulk and just replace it every 3-4months. I know i usually don't have to. But I don't want it to go bad when I am not here and have to explain how to do it to the wife (she'd kill me I already have her clean the fish poop!).
4) They don't talk you into things you don't need or are unnecessary that you are interested in. Like I was thinking about their backwash system. I contacted them and they told me it was completely unnecessary in AZ and also they even check the water reports in southern Florida for me and said I won't need it. I know most LFS will sell you something you're interested in even if they know its not going to help you out.
 
Your up that way anyway though, I never go to Phoenix. Honestly I've never even been to any of the fish stores up there. Inerd to make a trip up there sometime.
 
Dude you totally need to!!! ReefMonsters is amazing! He's got the best prices in town and Jorrell is awesome! He's the one who got me my Borb before he opened the store! His dad is the largest SW maintenance guy in the entire valley. He and his dad have been in the wholesale buisnes for over 20 years. Extremely well known and respected!
 
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