Petco to buy Drs Foster Smith

Wryknow said:
Free market capitalism is a wonderful thing. Market evolution is necessary. We all get to help decide which companies survive and which do not by choosing which to support.
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Excellent point you made ..... All of you Foster and Smith lovers here have assisted with the downward spiral in quality from your LFS's by purchasing from these on line retailers in the 1st place. And now all the lamenting because some larger company is going to _____ <---insert speculation here.....

LFS's have had a major struggle in competing with online companies that aren't required to adhere to MAP pricing policies or half the time MAP policies aren't even in place (by other big name companies). Both of which apparently don't give 2 squats for the people that made their success possible in the 1st place.

As a result LFS's have only been able to keep up by cutting overhead costs, like renting crappy locations and having low paid staff, both of which translates to a lesser experience for those new to the hobby and places to avoid for those who are seasoned. Not to mention how much the animals suffer for ending up in places that have to "cut costs". It is completely ridiculous when and online retailer can sell a product for less than an LFS can buy that same product from it's own wholesaler.

But hey, this is how the free market works right?
So now this industry takes one more step into being a "Wal-Mart".
Soon we'll all be able to buy cheap knock offs of everything ever invented in this hobby, and the inventors will eventually stop bothering to invent anymore since their intellectual property will just be stolen anyway.....oh wait, we're already a few steps down that path aren't we?

My prediction?
90+% of the nay sayers here will be shopping at petco soon enough when those great online prices come home to roost in their own back yards, cause America loves cheap prices at any cost.......

Oh wait, maybe not, as petco will soon have to start paying that new $15/hr minimum wage that's headed our way....
 
There is not enough interest in marine livestock for a publicly traded company like Petco to invest in. They will shut it down or switch to freshwater only after the buy out. Dogs, Cats and fresh water fish is where the money is. Not marine livestock.
 
I have to laugh at all of you that profess to love DFS and DD and then sit here and throw them under the bus because they made a business deal. Give them some credit for caring about the deal that they made. Do you honestly think that a group of these guys threw away all of 30 years of what they built for some cash and are going to turn their backs on the people and animals that put them there? I doubt it. I also think it is an insult to assume that they don't care. And yes, that is exactly what you are accusing Kevin and the Drs of. Calm down, back off, and let them continue to provide wonderful livestock. Here in San Diego, home of Petco Park and Petco headquarters, we have several of the stores and they are just about as good as the other local fish stores in many ways. In fact, I believe that they buy quite a lot of their livestock from ORA so if they were as evil as many of you think they are why would they bother with that? Maybe you should get your club together and have an event at your local Petco and help them get their act together if they aren't doing well. Instead of just complaining about it, do something about it. Now would be a great time to start.
 
Petco to buy Drs Foster Smith

tg1966 said:
There is not enough interest in marine livestock for a publicly traded company like Petco to invest in. They will shut it down or switch to freshwater only after the buy out. Dogs, Cats and fresh water fish is where the money is. Not marine livestock.
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I thought it's already been stated that they are NOT a publicly traded company. Which is it? Why would they get rid of the marine livestock when it's already part of what they currently do? This post makes no sense...
 
u4ick said:
Excellent point you made ..... All of you Foster and Smith lovers here have assisted with the downward spiral in quality from your LFS's by purchasing from these on line retailers in the 1st place. And now all the lamenting because some larger company is going to _____ <---insert speculation here.....
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Oh please... most LFS were crappy long before DD came around. They did that to themselves. Choosing my LFS by which pest I want to deal with sure is fun.
 
u4ick said:
My prediction?
90+% of the nay sayers here will be shopping at petco soon enough when those great online prices come home to roost in their own back yards, cause America loves cheap prices at any cost.......

Oh wait, maybe not, as petco will soon have to start paying that new $15/hr minimum wage that's headed our way....
Click to expand...

Not likely for me. I will continue to boycott Petco just as I have for 5 years now. I walked into the store one day out of curiosity and saw a frag tank that looked horrible, and dead specimens in the saltwater section. I wanted to run out of the store.

Not to de-rail the tread, but I don't think that anyone is going to see a $15 minimum wage across the board. Maybe in some places, but having that as the national minimum is the worst economical idea that I have ever heard.
 
And so it begins. The complete downward spiral that is Dr. Foster Smith.

They must have reduced their website bandwidth. Their Apache server keeps coughing up 503 timeout errors all day today.

Just the start of trimming down costs on what was a good company.
 
Eric Boerner said:
And so it begins. The complete downward spiral that is Dr. Foster Smith.

They must have reduced their website bandwidth. Their Apache server keeps coughing up 503 timeout errors all day today.

Just the start of trimming down costs on what was a good company.
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Or it could just be the big sale they started today is drawing more hits than they can handle...
 
Some of the comments on here regarding how DFS has already changed because of this acquisition are laughable.
 
Just as an FYI I had a DOA on an order which also was incomplete due to the time lag between my order and the out of stock notice being on the LA website and the customer service was excellent with full credit, including shipping, being applied.

If I may make one suggestion, and of course I may, Hahahahah, it would be to adopt a hopeful wait and see attitude. If you have been patronizing LA then keep doing so. The speculation is not really helpful, and as my now deceased and wonderful grandma used to say, "When you assume you make an *** out of u and me." Loved her. :D
 
Perhaps DRS - Live Aquaria will change Petco's mentality as a whole as it relates to their marine practices. Could be win - win.
 
I'm starting to think LA/DDs part of the business, which is small, won't change unless they see a decrease in sales large enough to put a microscope on the operation. If so, Petco might look at it and say "we spend how much on that facility to make just that much money?" and then really start to change things. I think DD can keep going on the same way if the business doesn't fall off too much.

That said, I can't blame people for not supporting them. It's exceptionally naive to think Petco bought this business to better their in store aquarium systems. That's a drop in the bucket of their business. And you're kidding yourself if you think they are in it for ANYTHING other than making as much money as possible. They aren't hobbyist run. They are a massive business whose goal is to make money and expand. Period. They might say some nice things to look good in public, but the goal of their business is money (understandably). They ate up some competition here. They aren't looking to better their handling of aquatic livestock unless they think it can make them more money which it likely won't because that part of their business is relatively small. The gains they would see by becoming a world class aquatic life business likely wouldn't be worth the investment. They aren't going to hire biologists to run their systems. They are going to keep hiring high school kids to take care of the tanks and pay them minimum wage; and most of those kids either won't care about the livestock or will never have the proper training to really care for it. I mean, how many years did it take many of you to learn how to properly run a marine system, and to diagnose and fix problems? I know it took me years. You think Petco is going to invest that kind of time and money into training some kid who might not even be there in a couple months? It's just not going to happen.

I understand Kevin's reaction and statement. He can't say anything bad about his new bosses. It was a very canned response. I know that HE still cares very much and will do everything he can to keep that facility running unchanged. But it will be hard if the Petco higher ups start looking hard at it because the fact of the matter is that they have different philosophies. No matter what they say. Petco wants to make money and if they think they can cut this, slash that, change this and make more money, they will.
 
Have you guys actually looked at the website for Drs Foster and Smith? Petco probably bought them for the overall business they have in the pet supply mail order operation. I doubt that in the big picture the Divers Den and Live Aquaria is that big of a piece. There is a lot more to it than selling livestock.
 
My local Petco has ick. They continue to sell fish anyway. Corporate will not let them use anything to treat the system but some (herbal) crap. Otherwise I like my Petco. Good people work there. My hope is that the merger will benefit all on the order of animal husbandry.
 
DaveMorris said:
I have to laugh at all of you that profess to love DFS and DD and then sit here and throw them under the bus because they made a business deal. Give them some credit for caring about the deal that they made. Do you honestly think that a group of these guys threw away all of 30 years of what they built for some cash and are going to turn their backs on the people and animals that put them there?
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Yup. I honestly think that's what happened. And I'm not throwing DFS under the bus either. When you hit retirement age and someone waves a couple million at you, and it means having the stress of maintaining your business will be lifted from your shoulders, yeah, lots of people will say ok. My last job? I worked for three pathologists who were unhappy with shoddy lab results, so they started their own lab. The plan was to hire the best and be the best. And it worked. We grew and grew. We put our the very best, most accurate results. But the pathologists wanted to retire and its a lit of work running the company. One died if old age, so the other two decided to take what they could get and enjoy what life they have left. So they sold out to their competition. Maybe it's the same for DFS.

Best we can hope for is that petco keeps the old staff around up at Rhinelander and that they don't put new policies in place that tie the hands of those good people.
 
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