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.
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!