Frustrated with LFS prices and quality
- Thread starter Reefdweller
- Start date
Behrmon
pr (BearMon)
Hey Rich,
For me CRA is my local store, they are well aware that I make purchases from other BRS members and they fault me for it.
I meant to say they DON'T fault me for it.
dz6t
Acro Garden, BRS Sponsor
This is the point I was trying to make anyway.
second that!
The excuse "I have to charge you more because it cost me more to buy it" doesn't fly anymore in today's economy.
It should be "I charge you more than you can buy it online because I provide/add XXXX value to the product/your shopping experience...so I am happy to have you as a customer and then you may choose to support me."
dz6t
Acro Garden, BRS Sponsor
They don't have to right to fault you for it to begin with. I think you put the relationship between your LFS and youself up-side down. The store should fault themself if you do not buy from them.
NateHanson
Non-member
It's still there. (I think you're referring to post #90?)
Antimony1019
I'm Addicted
This sounds so much more simple than it really is...
People are complaining about price differences already, if a store would hold a fish for a couple weeks, technically it would need to be in a completely different set up (only because new shipments come in every week, introducing new variables into the system), and then would that mean that each customer who buys a fish should have their own tank, for a true QT, otherwise what is the real value you are getting? Let's say that each customer doesn't get their own tank, it would still require the set up of a different system for this service to really be beneficial (but even at that you would probably still be adding things to it on a daily basis), therefore more money, more time, more expensive fish. In a perfect world most LFS's would love to offer this service, but it really is just not feasiable, at least to do it the proper way anyhow...
Beginner classes area great idea and something that we have talked about, but once again, it requires more time. Most of the LFS are independently owned and operated and are already run ragged to the bone... There gets to be a time where you need to start looking out for your own welfare and saniety (and the welfare and saniety of your family at home
).Homegrown products... Well see above, it's the same issues...
I'm not sure if it was you that suggested rebagging southdown, or someone else, but I do believe that would be illegal, and any reputable LFS wouldn't want to mess around with legal issues surrounding that (I could be wrong about that one though, that's just my gut feeling).
It's not that the LFS's DO NOT want to offer better services, but really sometimes it's just not feasiable or practical.
I don't think any of the LFS's are unwilling to listen to ideas and concepts that the BRS has for them, but many of you seem to come across as "you have to do these things to better serve us", and well I don't think anyone likes being told what they have to do, especially when it is coming from people who don't see the books, know the finances and are not entirely familiar with the way things work.
Antimony1019
I'm Addicted
I understand the points made in post 90, but do not agree with them, and I have set up both retail and fulfillment warehouses. I have been to Live Aquaria, Marine Depot and That Fish Place. These are not low rent burnt out slums. I am convinced that they pay more per sq/ft triple net for their improved spaces than most of the LFSs in the area. They have larger sales floors, and more staff. In addition they all employ degreed Marine Biologists and undergrads. Maybe the pick/pack guy pulling my drum of salt for door to door delivery does not speak English that well, but he is doing his job and I don’t have a problem with that because these places understand servicing the customer, he is not in the call center.
Just because it is nice to deal with one distributor for everything does not make it good business sense. Sometimes in the interest of the best value you have to buy from more than one source. Rather than complain about the unfair internet maybe partnering with one of these online companies is the key. Run group buys to get the volume up, create an online presence, or negotiate a break bulk warehouse deal with one of the west coast importers, I could go on but no one is listening anyway.
I do know what is involved with setting up businesses, of both types and that you had better be ready to chuck the business plan and start thinking outside the box if others are selling your commodity for less than you can buy it for. Think for a moment, the LFS does not have to print and mail 10s of thousands catalogs every other month, they don’t have 24 hour call centers, shipping departments, daily website upkeep, they do not carry millions in backup inventory to prevent out of stock/backorders (interest, depreciation and taxes). Further the LFS does not have any warranty to stand behind, and I doubt Sarbane/Oxley audits are really tapping into their management reserve.
I want to pay the premium price for the things the local store can offer me, innovative ideas, personal service, rapid response, friendly atmosphere, unique items.
I will offer a current day example: Tunze is coming out with new pumps this month. Where are the local stores with this product? The only people pushing them are the on-line stores. No pre-buys, no group buys, no posts about having some in this fall, nothing, I’ll probably order mine on line because they are the only ones asking for the sale. Could a LFS sell a Vortech pump, who knows I have yet to see one at a store. Could a store sell private label salt? Yes, RMS did it in Cleveland. They bought IO in 2000lb super saks and sold it as House Blend for less than any of the online places if you brought your own container. They also sold pails for a nice markup if you did not have a container. How about premixed saltwater in addition to RO water (should go Pat. Pending on that one) not the $10 NSW just mixed IO or TM or house blend. A store in NJ has Midnight Madness with all sorts of speakers and entertainment, why not a set up frag classes, host some of the frag drafts (you know they are out there) there are more things that a store could do to bring customers in than space on this server.
Just because it is nice to deal with one distributor for everything does not make it good business sense. Sometimes in the interest of the best value you have to buy from more than one source. Rather than complain about the unfair internet maybe partnering with one of these online companies is the key. Run group buys to get the volume up, create an online presence, or negotiate a break bulk warehouse deal with one of the west coast importers, I could go on but no one is listening anyway.
I do know what is involved with setting up businesses, of both types and that you had better be ready to chuck the business plan and start thinking outside the box if others are selling your commodity for less than you can buy it for. Think for a moment, the LFS does not have to print and mail 10s of thousands catalogs every other month, they don’t have 24 hour call centers, shipping departments, daily website upkeep, they do not carry millions in backup inventory to prevent out of stock/backorders (interest, depreciation and taxes). Further the LFS does not have any warranty to stand behind, and I doubt Sarbane/Oxley audits are really tapping into their management reserve.
I want to pay the premium price for the things the local store can offer me, innovative ideas, personal service, rapid response, friendly atmosphere, unique items.
I will offer a current day example: Tunze is coming out with new pumps this month. Where are the local stores with this product? The only people pushing them are the on-line stores. No pre-buys, no group buys, no posts about having some in this fall, nothing, I’ll probably order mine on line because they are the only ones asking for the sale. Could a LFS sell a Vortech pump, who knows I have yet to see one at a store. Could a store sell private label salt? Yes, RMS did it in Cleveland. They bought IO in 2000lb super saks and sold it as House Blend for less than any of the online places if you brought your own container. They also sold pails for a nice markup if you did not have a container. How about premixed saltwater in addition to RO water (should go Pat. Pending on that one) not the $10 NSW just mixed IO or TM or house blend. A store in NJ has Midnight Madness with all sorts of speakers and entertainment, why not a set up frag classes, host some of the frag drafts (you know they are out there) there are more things that a store could do to bring customers in than space on this server.
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Rebagging product is not illegal if it is not done to obscure the original contents or origin. But the idea was dismissed before calling the guys making it and asking if you could private label the stuff. They would probably do it for you themself if you bought a truck load. I have done this numerous times with other products. Most companies do not care as long as your paying for it but it is outside the "way we always did it box"
Matt L.
Non-member
I agree with your conclusion here.
Let's throw out all the unscrupulous LFSs right now and just discuss the few that we know are reputable and we patronize.
For everyone out there, the point I was trying to make in the previous incarnation of this thread was that a good LFS is hard to run. Higher prices aren't just as a sign that the good LFS is trying to rip you off.
Yes, LFS owners need to do more to add value to their product, even the good ones. That much is clear from this debate.
My feelings are that even though the LFS business is hard to run, this hobby for many of us would be more difficult without it. We wouldn't be able to see fish in person before we buy them. We wouldn't have the expertise of some of our well known expert owners. We wouldn't have to wait until Tuesday if we need something on Thursday night...
But in the end, people are going to do what they're going to do,
Matt
dz6t
Acro Garden, BRS Sponsor
But in the end, people are going to do what they're going to do,
Matt
I think the point is that LFS need to do something to attract people to buy from them.
JeremyR
CRA
This deserves comment. We have a number of these on order, and today was actually going to be the day I posted about it in our forum.. as yesterday was the day I recieved confirmation that I would be getting some (the offiicial packet from tunze on the subject only arrived saturday). Nobody as of yet knows exactly how many they are getting first round, and likely it will be in the single digits as they are divided equally between all tunze dealers. While it is possible to take pre-orders, it is impossible (except for the very first few) to guarantee any kind of fulfillment date, regardless of how it is marketed.
I would also like to remind everyone that you get farther with sugar than vinegar. Comments challenging the ethics of LFS's in general and accusing them of being out to rip off the newbie are inflammatory, and frankly insulting. While those kinds of businesses certainly do exist, we are not all geared that way and blanket statements of this nature are certainly not helpful in promoting the changes you desire. If a person has such strong feelings about particular stores, that is what the vendor feedback forum is for.
For the record:
We hold all fish a minimum of 7 days prior to sale, and have for a very long time. No fish leaves here that isn't eating and looking good. The posted guarantee is 48 hours, and I can count on one hand the number of times anyone has complained of a subpar fish.. the posted 48 hour guarantee is to cover us for the myriad of people with improper setups who might have bought 4 fish from petco before stopping in. Rules are not set in stone, and regular customers can be worked with if they feel a fish was not up to par that they purchased.. but honestly, this almost never comes up.
We generally have at least 100 pieces of tank raised coral in the shop any given day, the vast majority of it locally raised. All incoming SPS is dipped and inspected, and all are treated periodically if something like red bugs pops up.
We sell tank raised fish when available.
We have free flavia coffee, hot chocolate, and hot apple cider.
We do our best to keep dry goods prices down, some things (such as tunze) sell for the same price as the big MO houses, other stuff we keep as low as we can by bulk buying during sales periods (such as a maxijet 1200 for $26).
ALL customers recieve 1 coral buck per $25 spent, that they can use on future purchases. This was suggested to us by a customer when CVS came out with a similar promotion, sort of a customer loyalty program, and we have been doing that for several years now. We also offer an additional 10% livestock discount to BRS members, however almost nobody asks or shows a BRS card to take advantage of this.
Most of the complaints about us specifically generally are about either my dry personality, or the broncos. I have been trying to work on the first part .. but I can't help you with the 2nd part.. I will die a broncos fan
. For those who prefer, we also now have a deathmetalhead employee, a cheerful animal-lover employee in addition to myself & my wife ruth.. diversity at work! In closing.. I respect peoples opinion and the fact that they have the right to buy wherever they want... what I would appreciate is for people to stop making blanket statements in these types of threads. Thank you to the people who have spoken up for us as well, it is much appreciated.
Thx for reading!
Antimony1019
I'm Addicted
First and foremost I want to make it clear that I am not expressly representing Aqua Addicts, I did not show either Mike or Joe my posts before posting this or even tell them what I was going to write, so please do not take it as a DIRECT reflection of the store. It is merely my point of view as someone who who is involved with the store on a personal level. I have my own job, do not work the store full time, heck we wouldn't be able to afford to live if that was the case.
I think you might have missed the first part of the sentence when I said that most of the vendors (probably 80% of them, but that's an estimate on my part) will not sell to LFS's because they are not buying enough in quanity, and they are not buying enough in quanity because they can not afford to. If he could buy independently from each vendor than you're absolutely right about it not making good business sense to purchase from a distributor. I'd have to say though that most LFS's probably deal with at least 20 different product lines, the time it would take to deal with each of them independently might not be good business sense either. I also haven't heard any LFS's complaining about the unfair internet, I don't think that comment was ever made...
Most of these improvements that people are mentioning are time consuming. I know if Mike were to try to start taking off with all those ideas, we would probably end up in divorce court (I Love You honey!!!) because he'd be working 100 hours a week. It's a delicate line between maintaining your own business and keeping your saniety. I'm not discounting anyone's ideas, I think they are all great and if we had unlimited finances, and resourses then I don't think there would be any question over whether or not these ideas would be employeed.
Mike and I put our heads together all the time to try to come up with new and exciting things to do at the store, but ultimately it ends up coming down to not having the time or money to do it, it's unfortunate but it's the way it is. I think everyone on here can at least agree with the challenge that exists with opening a small business, I forget the exact statistics about how many fail, but it's frightening.
Also please remember that none of the LFS's have been complaining in these posts, which is how you are making it appear.
If you are convinced that warehouse space costs just as much that's fine, but you don't know how they started up, maybe they had a rich relative that left them a million dollars, maybe they were working a job before opening up thier own business making big bucks and could afford to bring in a lot of overhead. Really the point I was trying to get across is that no one on this boards knows the exact background of any LFS or any online business how they were able to open, how they were able to run, how much they pay for rent, who has a rich Uncle, or anything for that matter.
I'm not going to post on this anymore only because I'm not expecting to change anyone's opinions on this subject, I was just hoping to shed a little light on it from a different perspective, which I think I did, or at least I said everything I thought was relavent.
I think you might have missed the first part of the sentence when I said that most of the vendors (probably 80% of them, but that's an estimate on my part) will not sell to LFS's because they are not buying enough in quanity, and they are not buying enough in quanity because they can not afford to. If he could buy independently from each vendor than you're absolutely right about it not making good business sense to purchase from a distributor. I'd have to say though that most LFS's probably deal with at least 20 different product lines, the time it would take to deal with each of them independently might not be good business sense either. I also haven't heard any LFS's complaining about the unfair internet, I don't think that comment was ever made...
Most of these improvements that people are mentioning are time consuming. I know if Mike were to try to start taking off with all those ideas, we would probably end up in divorce court (I Love You honey!!!) because he'd be working 100 hours a week. It's a delicate line between maintaining your own business and keeping your saniety. I'm not discounting anyone's ideas, I think they are all great and if we had unlimited finances, and resourses then I don't think there would be any question over whether or not these ideas would be employeed.
Mike and I put our heads together all the time to try to come up with new and exciting things to do at the store, but ultimately it ends up coming down to not having the time or money to do it, it's unfortunate but it's the way it is. I think everyone on here can at least agree with the challenge that exists with opening a small business, I forget the exact statistics about how many fail, but it's frightening.
Also please remember that none of the LFS's have been complaining in these posts, which is how you are making it appear.
If you are convinced that warehouse space costs just as much that's fine, but you don't know how they started up, maybe they had a rich relative that left them a million dollars, maybe they were working a job before opening up thier own business making big bucks and could afford to bring in a lot of overhead. Really the point I was trying to get across is that no one on this boards knows the exact background of any LFS or any online business how they were able to open, how they were able to run, how much they pay for rent, who has a rich Uncle, or anything for that matter.
I'm not going to post on this anymore only because I'm not expecting to change anyone's opinions on this subject, I was just hoping to shed a little light on it from a different perspective, which I think I did, or at least I said everything I thought was relavent.
RichConley
Attack of the Killer Cute
Beginner classes area great idea and something that we have talked about, but once again, it requires more time. Most of the LFS are independently owned and operated and are already run ragged to the bone... There gets to be a time where you need to start looking out for your own welfare and saniety (and the welfare and saniety of your family at home
Homegrown products... Well see above, it's the same issues...
I'm not sure if it was you that suggested rebagging southdown, or someone else, but I do believe that would be illegal, and any reputable LFS wouldn't want to mess around with legal issues surrounding that (I could be wrong about that one though, that's just my gut feeling).
It's not that the LFS's DO NOT want to offer better services, but really sometimes it's just not feasiable or practical.
Do you guys really not think that a beginner class wouldnt be a serious profit? I think Skiptons made about $5K worth of sales in an hour just because they had pizza during the LFS tour.
What are we looking at? An hour of work for someone? Even well paid, we're talking like $50 cost. If you can't make more than $50 in profit on sales by bringing a dozen or more people into your showroom, then your showroom isnt doing its job.
Same with the home grown products: Sometimes you have to spend a little to make a lot.
Again, any small business who doesnt think that the Online marketplace is going to get more and more agressive is going to fail. Things are going to get cheaper and cheaper on the internet, and things are going to get more and more available.
I think Marc is a good example. His store wasnt working out, was taking too much time, and he didnt have high enough margins to hire enough help to offset the amount of time he had to spend at the store. What did he do? He took one of his products that he knew he could compete with, and make a profit, and ran with it.
Matt, yes, the LFS still has a couple advantages, but answer these: If all the LFS went out of business around here, do you believe that B, and Jeremy, and Marc, and Mike, etc, would stop keeping tanks? I think they'd probably spend more time on the boards. I like all those guys, but honestly, I go here, or to RC first for advice.
As to seeing fish, the LFS are going to lose that advantage at some point too. I think online shops with "divers den" type stores, will eventually end up giving video feeds of fish. It may be 10 years, but its going to happen.
As to needing it now, in general, overnight shipping is about the same as the LFS markup.
alsie1
Non-member
LFS pricing
I for one am glad to have a choice or where and when to buy. Visited AA in Salem today and elected to buy - was I overcharged ?? - Don't think so but got some free advice that if I was asking a lawyer or doc for some advice I imagine I'd be charged for it. And if I paid a few $$ extra that was OK by me. Different strokes for different folks. When my double ended halide lamp went and I rushed up to AA for a immediate replacement the price I paid was cheaper than online prices and no wait. Yes, some nice people have treated me right in getting frags reasonable and even some for free that belong to Boston Reefers and to that I'm extremely greatful. I like to see what I'm buying when it comes to livestock though. There is another store in Salem I won't even go into because of some personalities. Yes, I've bought online and will continue to do so but for me I'll give the LFS I like a call and see the price difference and for the sake of a few dollars will go with the local guy. I've been told by Mike or Joe that they could not come close on some things but others they were right on the money or like my lamp actually cheaper. 40 miles for me to get to Salem, NH so it's not just down the street. I'm waiting to hear from another Boston Reefer in Nashua on the name of a fish he has that I like and want to get one and I will not hesitate to call AA to see what their price would be to get me one. If things change at AA or any other I frequent I have no problem looking elsewhere. We are lucky that we have choices. By the way "Thanks Mike & Joe" for being there! They also have good tastes in what they own for dogs also. There are some other LFS in my area that are good also. Love to window shop and see how I'm treated. I imagine there are quite a few that have to do some serious traveling to get to a LFS and that would really put a different perspective on the subject.
I for one am glad to have a choice or where and when to buy. Visited AA in Salem today and elected to buy - was I overcharged ?? - Don't think so but got some free advice that if I was asking a lawyer or doc for some advice I imagine I'd be charged for it. And if I paid a few $$ extra that was OK by me. Different strokes for different folks. When my double ended halide lamp went and I rushed up to AA for a immediate replacement the price I paid was cheaper than online prices and no wait. Yes, some nice people have treated me right in getting frags reasonable and even some for free that belong to Boston Reefers and to that I'm extremely greatful. I like to see what I'm buying when it comes to livestock though. There is another store in Salem I won't even go into because of some personalities. Yes, I've bought online and will continue to do so but for me I'll give the LFS I like a call and see the price difference and for the sake of a few dollars will go with the local guy. I've been told by Mike or Joe that they could not come close on some things but others they were right on the money or like my lamp actually cheaper. 40 miles for me to get to Salem, NH so it's not just down the street. I'm waiting to hear from another Boston Reefer in Nashua on the name of a fish he has that I like and want to get one and I will not hesitate to call AA to see what their price would be to get me one. If things change at AA or any other I frequent I have no problem looking elsewhere. We are lucky that we have choices. By the way "Thanks Mike & Joe" for being there! They also have good tastes in what they own for dogs also. There are some other LFS in my area that are good also. Love to window shop and see how I'm treated. I imagine there are quite a few that have to do some serious traveling to get to a LFS and that would really put a different perspective on the subject.
