Petco to buy Drs Foster Smith

[reret10]

My main question is how long will it take to see definite changes? I mean the website down thing isn't a fair indication of a change after the merger. I'm wondering how long it might take for price changes and such.

 

[FinzAquatics]

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.

Sorry, this just made me laugh... The merger wont even be in place for another month man...

 

[schatzi]

This is horrible news.

 

[dkeller_nc]

There is an optimistic potential outcome of this that we can all hope for. I think it's spot-on that Petco wanted Drs. Foster and Smith for their mail-order dry goods pet business. The cat/dog/bird and fish equipment, food and medication business is a whole lot bigger than Live Aquaria or Diver's Den, and has a lot less in overhead costs.

I do agree that Petco's management has little understanding or interest in either the marine or freshwater livestock; they do the bare minimum to keep these lines in their "aquatic specialty" stores as a draw for sales of aquarium equipment and dry goods.

So perhaps they'll look at Live Aquaria and Diver's Den as a liability that doesn't give them nearly the return on investment that the dry goods business does, and sell these two operations off as stand-alones to someone else.

 

[DONT PANIC]

I find this thread extremely interesting.
While I understand true hobbyist dislike of a “Petco” type store, I would point out that these attitudes about how well or poor livestock is treated are anecdotal and based on how well your local PetCo is run.
I do not shop at PetCo with the very tiny exception of some cheap FW fish if they are on sale.
I do buy dry goods from DFS occasionally.
When I buy livestock, I choose to buy from other hobbyist or a LFS because I like to see what I’m getting first, and evaluate it’s overall condition.
Since most of the responses on this thread are anecdotal in nature, I thought I would offer my experience up for consideration.
I was employed by PetCo for a few years, I have also worked for a small private pet shop for a number of years. (Not currently in pet retail industry)
There are responses to this thread that say DFS and PetCo do not have similar attitudes regarding caring for livestock, I cannot say I agree.
When I worked for PetCo, by mandate from corporate we were forced to always do anything and everything possible to care for the animals. PetCo puts its animal husbandry ahead of anything (including it’s human staff). If a one dollar mouse is injured or sick at the ma/pa shop it goes in with the snakes or just straight into the freezer. At PetCo it goes to the vet and get isolated and medicated as needed by staff.
Heres an anecdote about PetCo’s attitude towards animal care:
A customer buys a ferret from PetCo, the wholesale of the ferret is at the time 68$, the retail is 120$.
They also buy supplies including some colorful paper-based bedding.
The dumb weasel thinks the bedding is food and eats a huge amount of it.
Customer returns ultra sick ferret to PetCo, including used (no longer sellable) supplies for a full refund.
The only vet that can do “emergency ferret treatment” is 45 minutes away. PetCo pays me mileage, plus hourly to take the ferret to emergency vet who saves the stupid smelly critter’s life. Then again they pay me to go get it the next day. The vet bill is well over 1000$, not to mention the opportunity cost of having one of your best associates on a road trip not helping customers.
I personally think PetCo should not sell animals except crickets, feeders, and popular FW fish from a business perspective.
But just because your local PetCo fish department looks like crap doesn’t reflect the company’s attitude towards animal care. I have given too many aggressive hamsters medications to agree with that.
You can say their prices suck, which is true, but maybe thats because they consider 200$ sick hamsters a “cost of doing business” in the pet industry.
Anyway, as others have pointed out the live fish portion of DFS probably never even made the conversation in regards to this acquisition. They want to take a chunk out of 1800 pet meds more than sell nemo fish.

 

[DONT PANIC]

One other thing that I believe has also been mentioned by others in this thread to consider before proceeding with all the PetCo bashing is that I was shocked to be told by one of my former co-workers that they are offering a 30 day guarantee on SW.
Thats not going to make me their customer but it’s pretty much unheard of in the industry. They are giving you a guarantee they don’t get from their suppliers. I can honestly say in all the places I’ve ever bought SW, the only “guarantee” I’ve gotten was: I guarantee that thing there is a thing that you are buying.

 

[albano]

I was shocked to be told by one of my former co-workers that they are offering a 30 day guarantee on SW.

I was led to believe that the guarantee is only for online purchases, not in store

 

[DONT PANIC]

I was led to believe that the guarantee is only for online purchases, not in store

That is correct, he was told me if i ordered online there was. In store 30 days on FW but GL on SW. Still I thought it was crazy.

 

[Trevenator]

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.

I have not been able to get on there page on my pc or iPad in 4 days.

 

[Devi]

I used to work for Petco, and the state of their display tanks is 100% the fault of all their corporate B.S. There was a million ways to fix the state of our tanks but since it was not corp approved there was nothing we could do. Also, they do all they can in their power to make sure their employees are under paid. No one is allowed full time, their full time is 32 hours, which no one gets unless they are management. I was lucky to get 24 hours a week! The next thing they started were hour long lunches, unpaid. So anyway they could screw us! That being said we took fabulous care of our critters, they had regular vet care. Just don't go there for fish!

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

Come on guys, it's definitely not the end of the world.
I personally thought DFS was always a cleaner looking Petco.. (or maybe a Target vs Petco being Walmart?)
The Petco around here is pretty decent. They don't have the nicest tanks, but saying I won't shop there would just be arrogance without knowing what else is coming.

I remember never liking DFS, they jacked up their prices too much. Liveaquaria? That wasn't even DFS.
I'll be interested to see where it goes, but I'm pretty sure the same people who operate each company (DFS/LA) will probably keep their jobs, and keep doing what they're doing. So the only thing that will really change (when DFS bought LA) will be the web page logos.

In fact the only negative purchase I've ever had from Live Aquaria, was AFTER DFS bought them. I had a DOA. Never happened before.

 

[DSMpunk]

I used to work for Petco, and the state of their display tanks is 100% the fault of all their corporate B.S. There was a million ways to fix the state of our tanks but since it was not corp approved there was nothing we could do. Also, they do all they can in their power to make sure their employees are under paid. No one is allowed full time, their full time is 32 hours, which no one gets unless they are management. I was lucky to get 24 hours a week! The next thing they started were hour long lunches, unpaid. So anyway they could screw us! That being said we took fabulous care of our critters, they had regular vet care. Just don't go there for fish!

I went in to my local petco last night to pick up a 20L because my sump had sprung a leak. I walked by the coral tank and was shocked to see GSPs open and swaying in the current, a healthy looking LTA and even some decent looking SPS.

A guy came over and asked me if I needed help and I told him I was impressed with the tank and asked if this was a new shipment. He said no, most of the stuff had been in there for weeks. Apparently he brought an LED fixture in from home and raised the SG to 1.023 for the coral tank (up from 1.021) This was against the policy but he said he was sick of watching corals wither away.

I ended up picking up a Jedi Mind trick monti, the LTA and a couple of clowns. He even cut me a deal. Just a LITTLE bit of effort from Petco would garner a lot of success.

I get keeping fish at 1.021 but coral?

 

[Kyle918]

Wow, what a sad day to learn of the take over. I just don't see a huge corporation like Petco being able to manage DFS the way it is currently managed. Petco is all about that $$$

 

[primo21]

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.

+1, there is obviously a reason Petco bought them....they make money. and as long as they continue to do so why would Petco want to change it??

 

[triggerfreak]

from what i have read petco baught them to be able to sell perscription pet drugs online and that the two owners of foster and smith are gonna stay and be in charge of everything they are now.So im hoping that everthing will stay like it is with live aquaria and divers den.

 

[clekchau]

Did people forget that dr fosters acquired flying fish express which eventually became liveaquaria? Lol

 

[tc2007]

If only they could separate out their big fish, small fish and inverts into separate tanks at costco and treat them appropriately. Last week I saw a convict tang about to die in a 5 gallon tank. It had a cloudy eye, rotten fins and swimming upside down. I asked the employee and she told me that it was in the big tank where it was beaten up by the triggers and other tangs.

 

[Fogvalley]

It is corporate world. Mergers happen everyday and are usually for the better in the long run. I am not at all worried petco will implement polices to a very established company. Ey will give the drs a fat check and change the name on the bank acounts and that will be all the websites probably won't even change honestly? I have been in petcos with some outstanding sw but it all depends on the help at the store.

 

[Buzz1329]

I used to work for Petco, and the state of their display tanks is 100% the fault of all their corporate B.S. There was a million ways to fix the state of our tanks but since it was not corp approved there was nothing we could do. Also, they do all they can in their power to make sure their employees are under paid. No one is allowed full time, their full time is 32 hours, which no one gets unless they are management. I was lucky to get 24 hours a week! The next thing they started were hour long lunches, unpaid. So anyway they could screw us! That being said we took fabulous care of our critters, they had regular vet care. Just don't go there for fish!

Great post. Thanks.

Mike

 

[89Foxbody]

I used to work for Petco, and the state of their display tanks is 100% the fault of all their corporate B.S. There was a million ways to fix the state of our tanks but since it was not corp approved there was nothing we could do. Also, they do all they can in their power to make sure their employees are under paid. No one is allowed full time, their full time is 32 hours, which no one gets unless they are management. I was lucky to get 24 hours a week! The next thing they started were hour long lunches, unpaid. So anyway they could screw us! That being said we took fabulous care of our critters, they had regular vet care. Just don't go there for fish!

I agree, 100%.

The company gives you no leeway whatsoever, especially if your store manager is a...less than friendly person.

When I worked there, the person in charge of animal care for our entire district came in and stuck a net in the overflow for our feeder fish tank. It gunked up, overflowed the tank, drained the sump, burned out the pump, and all 500 feeder fish in the tank died.

I once had a tank with about 20 Bala Sharks in it that I had had nice and healthy for months. We HAD to reorganize all the fish to "planogram" and after netting and moving, and properly re-acclimating them to their new system, they all died overnight.

Corporate kept sending us pushes of coral and inverts that I had to try to keep alive with our 3 year old 2x54w t-5 bulbs.

Animals come first. LOL