LFS pricing!

[ecotank]

Well I just spent $200 ordering stuff at bigalsonline, so to add to this post I thought I'd calculate what it would have cost me at Petsmart - $397.00! We don't have a LFS around close, but I estimate about $450.00 at the closest one.

I'm all for supporting a LFS, but until I win the Lotto I'll have to be smart about what I pay for. Even then I can't see paying over twice what I pay online, a markup over wholesale is one thing, but the LFS's are cutting thier own throat when they mark up that much! And it's a vicious cycle cause they will have to mark up even higher to make up for the lost business from marking up so high in the first place.

If only we had a good LFS around here with decent prices!

 

[allthingsanimal]

I would buy big-als before any petsmart on all equipment. The only thing I bought at Pets mart is my 55 and my proquatics heater. $99 for a tank? Not too bad.

 

[ecotank]

Yea, $99 for a 55 isn't bad at all. Our Petsmart has the same deal, it's tough for me to get out of the store without buying it. Now they have gone and started carrying 100, 120 and 150g tanks! They are sure out to get my money

 

[MarkRW89]

If I can boast a little here I happen to live near an excellent fish super store called A+D aquatics. They are even gonna try to order a single special betta just for me!!!!!*celebrate

Ive ranted about chain v private stores before and it makes me as sad as anyone. Feel sorry for people who dont have the choice that I have in my area.

 

[Lou]

Originally posted by MarkRW89
Feel sorry for people who dont have the choice that I have in my area.

If people supported the good stores they'd be there. Don't and they go away...pretty simple. Folks want it both ways and that is what is the point of this thread. Can't go for lowest price all the time and then complain you don't have a good fish store.

 

[ecotank]

Well, I live in a desert, so there is no LFS because there just isn't one, not because we don't support one.

Because it's Palm Springs, there are several high-end fish servicers that lease sw tanks and maintain them, but no stores for the common people

And I think any store should have a somewhat reasonable markup, not twice as much as wholesale if they intend on staying in business.

 

[mann]

LFSs don't have access to the same slim margin/high volume sales that the super stores do, so they have to get you into the store by means other than competitive pricing. Equipment is going to be expensive there, probably four or five hundred percent markup.

You don't need to treat the LFS like a charity, though, if you don't have the money to spend. For some customers price is not the deciding factor on where they'll make a purchase - Leave it to these guys to pay those prices. For them, it's worth it to have one or two fish store guys dedicated to them for an hour or so, giving them information and instructing them on what to buy, which you're not going to get at Petsmart.

Another fact is that while the employees try to steer these guys right, sometimes they'll send them out the door with a 20 gallon tank and a bag full of Oscars because there's only so much arguing you can do with a customer who's spending more than everyone else who's been in that day combined. I'm not going to say anything, because I know that the guy that walks out with a ton of fish and equipment just subsidized my own shopping spree of a sponge and plant ferts.

 

[catfishmike]

what i don't get is if i bought in bulk from say bigal's and then sold what i bought in bulk for a few dollars more i would still make a profit.albeit a small one but a profit none the less.i know that i am more inclined to shop at i higher price if i like the store.once i decide i like to shop somewhere i make sure that they know me.but i can't become a regular when i can't even afford to shop on a store.think about it,these are lfs were talking about ,not neiman marcus.it's not like by paying a higher price you get a better quality product.i love a bargan but if someone told me ii should buy a kia at the cost of a mercedes i would tell them to relocate to a fiery pit of damnation.i think thats what were really trying to get at is the mark up is just too high.

 

[mann]

what i don't get is if i bought in bulk from say bigal's and then sold what i bought in bulk for a few dollars more i would still make a profit.albeit a small one but a profit none the less.

catfishmike, respectfully, no you wouldn't. There are a lot of costs involved with a retail store. You have to buy the equipment you're going to sell, you have to pay rent on your commercial space, you have to pay the water and electricity bills for that space, you have to pay people to work the store, you have to advertise, you have to pay taxes, etc. So when you buy a tank for $10 (for example) that the fish store paid $3 for, they are not making a $7 profit.

Consider your own bulk experiment. If you bought a hundred tanks for $3 a piece and sold them at $5 a piece have you profited by $200? Say you sold them on ebay and your total time spent monitoring the auctions, contacting buyers, collecting money and shipping the one hundred tanks was twenty hours. I'd say you worked very efficiently if you did all that in 20 hours. You can afford to pay yourself $10 an hour for your work. Is that profiting?

 

[catfishmike]

i didn't say it would be a it would be a fat cash cow.going on a strictly by the numbers basis yes there is a profit,not a profit that means anything.more like pennies on the dollar.unfortunatly that is the plight of the small shop owner.i'm not gonna lie and say that running your own store is a profitable venure.more often than not it's a labor of love and a failure waiting to happen.you just have to suck it up and suffer(or have a spouse with a high paying job)my point being though is that the people who want to sell me the goods mark them up out of my price range what good does it matter if i can afford fish and bulk items (which they also make no money on)if i can't buy alot of core equipment at my lfs my purchases don't really help them either way.thus defeating the purpose of supporting your lfs.how do you tell someone that your trying to establish a buissness relationship with that his prices are outrageous and there is no way you can afford to go to him for anything more than fish and small supplys.owners tend to get offened at comments like that and will most likely not ensure good service over time.

 

[Lou]

Well one way to support them too is if you raise fish and barter the fish for other items...you both can come out ahead--especially if you don't wnat to market fish on the side. The more cooperative relationships you can work the better and sometimes it just takes some creative thinking.

I will admit I have $ to support local stores and it isn't an option for many. There are other ways to be friendly and supportive though too.

 

[catfishmike]

sometimes you can do that,but more often than not the credit you receive for the fish just about covers the cost of rasing them.

 

[AndyL]

Originally posted by catfishmike
what i don't get is if i bought in bulk from say bigal's and then sold what i bought in bulk for a few dollars more i would still make a profit.albeit a small one but a profit none the less.

Don't start It's a downward spiral into water change hell if you do! I pretty much got into retailing by ordering 'a few extras' any time I ordered in some fish or supplies...

Originally posted by catfishmike
think about it,these are lfs were talking about ,not neiman marcus.it's not like by paying a higher price you get a better quality product.

Fish quality radically varies. Often you can't compare quality... Take my best sellers, neon tetras. I sell them for 5$ each, never had to replace or had a complaint of a dead fish. Walmart, sells them for 1.50ish, every time I walk by the tanks are full of dead diseased and dieing fish. The 2 LPS's have pretty typical LPS stock (2.00-2.99) from what I've seen. Their stock is usually poorly colored, has a variety of diseases always ammonia burned, and its fairly easy to find genetically defective fish - bent spines, short gill plates. Hang around for a while, someone will bring in a dead neon... It never fails.

They get their fish from a distributor who brings them in from Florida or asian farms. The fish are in poor shape. Mine come from a breeder in vancouver, They're in transit for less than 12 hours (air freight). In the quantities I bring in, I make about a dollar per fish. Obviously I could bring more in - but then it becomes an issue of keeping them until they're sold - food and w/c's aren't free after all.

If you really want to see differences in quality, get some Angelfish from your local chain store then bring some angels in from a good breeder - like www.angelsplus.com . You'll see the radical difference in quality out there.

Andy

 

[ecotank]

Andy, I beleive his comment was not about fish quality, of which we all know a good breeder or LFS is always better than a large chain, but it was about bulk items such as filters, tanks, etc.

This is where the huge markup seems to be and one that can't really be accounted for. Sure I'll pay twice or three times as much for a quality fish compared to some disease infested Wal-mart fish, but I'm not gonna pay 3 times the price for the same filter.