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After being out of the pet fish industry for a while, I have decided that I will jump back in by writing some opinionated articles on different aquarium related topics. My first article will be about the retail store part of the hobby. I have worked in multiple fish (some were even general pet stores), and I have been a lowly associate, livestock supervisor, department manager, and assistant general manager, and thus everything in-between.

For the new hobbyist, finding a good fish store can be hard. You have your big box stores which sell anything and everything pet related. You also have your comfy, cozy mom and pop shop which doesn’t carry as much, but generally has what you need. You also have your super stores which carry general stock of what you need, and you can do your normal shopping. But which one to go to? Each has their pros and cons, and I’ll try to explain them as best I can without being too bias.

Your super stores that happen to carry pet supplies can be very convenient. You can pick up your normal groceries and some fish at the same time! No need to go from place to place to place, driving around all day. One stop shopping. Sure, they may not have the best selection of fish, but they have some you would like. Supply wise, they will usually have the basics. Nets, common filter inserts, carbon, etc. But the problems with these stores are that they usually know nothing about pets, and that’s even worse when it comes to fish. A hamster, for the most part, can be put into a cage, given food and water, clean the cage every now and then, and it will live a full life (yes there is more to this than that, but I’m talking about fish here). Fish, on the other hand, are not like this. You cannot simply dump fish into a bowl of water. Do you think Mr. Joe, the stocking manager for the plumbing department, also the guy that will be helping you with your fish here, knows much, if anything, about fish care? And what do they know about keeping the fish that are housed at the store? Do they know what ich is? Do they know what the nitrogen cycle is? Do they know what causes the algae to grow all over their tank?

The next step up is big box specialty stores. They carry most everything for pets. They usually have people assigned to certain areas based off their experience, knowledge, and possibly preference. Usually. Sometimes you can get Joe from small animals helping you out with fish. These stores will usually be able to tell you the basics of keeping fish. Feeding, breeding, cleaning, etc. However, their knowledge is usually limited on the subject, and often times, wrong. Usually they are able to give you info enough to keep hardier fish alive. I would never rely on them to properly sex most fish or even tell me the breeding habits on any.

Then you have your mom and pop stores. These stores often struggle to make money. They usually have higher prices, smaller staff, and smaller inventory. However, because of this, they are usually in it for the love of the hobby. Many times these stores are your best options for information. Employees here are usually more knowledgable and will be able to steer your in the right direction. However, there are many stores that are not very knowledgable and can put you in a downward spiral toward doom.

Now some of you may be wondering why I am bashing stores so much. Not all stores are bad. Many stores are very good. However, the real question should be, “why are there so many bad stores?” Once you figure in the factors, it’s pretty obvious why stores have the employees they do.

The key factor is money. People need money to live, stores need money to operate, supplies cost money, etc. etc. etc.. Let’s set up an example here. We have Bob’s Fish Mart. Bob owns the store, and he has two managers and 6 employees. Bob has to pay for the store lease, all the shelving units to hold the inventory, all the tanks to hold the fish, electricity, water, salaries, advertisement, maintanace, etc. So Bob has to pay all this, and the store doesn’t even have a bit of merchandise to sell yet. So Bob has to get inventory. Now this doesn’t just appear out of nowhere, Bob has to BUY the inventory. He buys the entire inventory, and sells it for more money than he bought it for. The profit from his sales is what pays for everything. So Bob sets prices for everything, and the store opens.

Customers come in, see his prices, and buy nothing. Bob has set his prices too high! Why buy something for $4.99 when they can go down the street and buy it for $4.89 (if you think that is crazy, believe me, it happens! People WILL and DO care about every little nickel, dime, and penny)? So now Bob lowers his prices. This is what is called competition. The store down the street sold a product at a lower price, so people will go there for that. Now people are buying from Bob. However, Bob now has to sell more to make the same amount of money. When his prices were higher, he wouldn’t have to sell as much because he was making more, however, now he has to sell more product to have the same amount of income to pay the bills. So Bob has to stay competitive. So when other stores lower their prices, Bob has to lower his as well.

Now Bob is having some money trouble his prices are low, and a lot of people shop at his store, but he does not make a lot of money. Where can he start to save money? He has to pay all his regular bills, but what about salaries? Bob can let a few people go, and is loosing less money now! However, he needs those employees. His store is busy and he can’t let customers stand around waiting. So he hires new employees. However, these employees are not as knowledgeable or experienced as his original employees, so he pays them much less.

AH HA! There we are. That is why pet stores often have employees who do not know a lot about fish. The stores cannot afford to pay employees who have proper experience. So these stores often hire high school students. Now, there can be an employee who DOES know a lot about fish. And working at a fish store is perfect. GREAT, that is the best option. However, this is usually not the case.

Now, to the defense of the stores, they have there problems with customers as well. Let’s assume a store that does have knowledgable employees. Customer A comes in and wants an aquarium. What do we sell him? Many people in the fish hobby know that the best tank is the biggest one you can afford. The bigger the better! But how do you convey that onto a customer. If an employee came up to you and said, “Your best option is to spend a LOT of money on us here. The more money you give us, the better!” While this is not what employees will actually say, this is usually what the customer hears.

So now the customer has defaulted on the oh so popular 10 gallon aquarium. The employee tells them how to set up it, wait a day to make sure everything is working just right, so on and so forth. Now that the tank is setup and ready, they come back in with the family and they want to get fish. Well, one person wants this, another wants that, this one wants ten of these, that one wants twenty of those. No, you can’t do that.

Here is a list off the top of my head of what I think some of the most popular beginner fish are: Bettas, Guppies, Angelfish, Tiger Barbs, Danios, Swordtails, Platys, Common Plecos, Neon Tetras, Cardinal Tetras, Glow Lite Tetras, Pictus Catfish, Piranha, Silver Dollars, Pacus, Oscars, Blue Gouramis, Dwarf Gouramis, Goldfish.

Out of that list, I would only recommend 5, MAYBE 6, from that list that could live in a 10 gallon happily. Kudos to those who can pick out the 6. However, most people would want to add ALL of those fish together all at once. So now the employee has to explain to the customer, AGAIN, that they can only get 2 or 3 fish today, and then you can only get about 6 or 7 fish in that tank total, which will take about two months to get to. Suddenly the customer feels wronged (even though he was already told this before). So now the customer goes to a different store, with less educated employees, who say that he could add MANY more fish with no problem at all. Who do you think the customer is going to listen to? The store who doesn’t want to sell the customer anything or the store that wants to sell him anything he wants?

Now that I am done with my little rant, I am interested in what other people have to say. Agree? Disagree? What? You won’t offend me! And even if you somehow do, I’ll live.

I prefer the smaller family owned and run pet/aquariums. Some can be a bit dearer but what most offer is service and knowledge. Today Wed I ordered some Cardinal Tetras Fri I will pick them up. They will not have been in any tank at the store (saving a shock movement) and if there is a problem I wil have no problem sorting it out.
If they do not arrive in they will phone me to save my a trip.

Another family LFS will order special plants in for me and they contact me when they arrive in the store.


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Keith

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Shops are the same the world over - everyone is out for themselves to make a buck, most don't give a poo about the customer except 'how much can we make out of this mug'.

We hate going to LFS's as they usually charge extortionate prices for inbred mutants with the infinitely clueless serving you

When investigating a new shop we spend some time observing the service being given and will walk out if we here things like "Oh yes Sir they'll get on fine together" then you see them leaving with a predator and its natural food..................

In recent years we've taken to internet shopping - ebay has especially been a boon for us as I've bought & sold fish on there, there's also access to importers & breeders via other websites and forums which is good for the hobbyist but not for the shops.

For the new hobbyists I think/hope more people are researching what they're getting into rather than before the internet age - if in doubt google it and check out the forums - the only dumb question is the 1 you don't ask cause you don't want to look stupid - everyone has to start somewhere and getting wrong info & advice from a shop is not the only option open to newbies anymore.

Hi there Rasco, thanks for the interesting read.

Approaching this as a serious hobbyist, what motivates me most to go to any particular store is loyalty.

There are a lot of aqurium stores around Perth, which is great. I've purchased from maybe 10 or more.

I recently invested in a 250G setup, from a mom & pop store. When I made my purchase, the employee spent 1/2 an hour talking to me, happily answering all my questions, sharing his own experiences & helping me make important decisions about my new aquarium.

I left feeling over the moon, very happy with my new investment!

So, I'll be going back there! Couldn't really care less if their fish are more expensive - they're good healthy fish and I trust the staff. I'll still go to other stores to get some quick food, maybe different fish/plants or whatever but any big purchases will be likely made at the store I'm talking about.

So my point = loyalty, customer satisfaction count for a lot.

superstores= Walmart?
big box specialty stores= Petco and Petsmart?
mom and pop stores= any other locally owned fishstores?

I never trust superstores, only thing I would buy from there is supplies such as food. The fish at Walmart all ways look unhealthy, and there is usually always dead fish in there. They never put gravel in the tanks and so you can see all this green crap on the bottom of the tank. Also the filters are always clogged up.

As for big box specialty stores, I have gotten bad fish with ich before, but then also gotten fish without ich. Prices are cheapier than mom and pop stores

Then there is mom and pop stores that sell fish but other pets as well such as lizards, insects, and other exotic things. Then also mom and pop stores that sell more conventional pets such as dogs, hamsters and fish. With these stores, the fish I think are a little even more trustworthy than the big box specialty stores. They have a some what decent selection and more rare fish than big box specialty shops.

Mom and pop stores that sell ONLY fish have the mos selection of fish. Also has many hard to find fish and plants. Employees know a lot. A little more pricey, but I trust them more and it gives me peace of mind when I buy fish from there vs the other two stores.

That's my experience with stores in my area

Lol, tell me about it racso, the way fish shops are run into the damn ground by people with an eye on basic economics rather than realising that a better display and healthier fish sell better got my goat so much I quit last week. It was very much a case of cant learn, wont learn, and frankly I was so utterly hacked off by my good work being undone by a teenager with a shoddy college education and the wits of a neanderthal pig, I upped and left.

Cant undercut the finances and have it run by idiots, itll never work.The shop needed reinvestment and restaffing which they werent willing to do. Im off to better things with people with more common sense, I shouldnt have to keep telling people who thought they were fish experts how to simply keep the animals alive at length every week just for them to show the memory and wits of your average woodlouse. Cant polish a poo as my good buddy jay often says

Gosh,
And you were so excited about that job! Sorry it turned
out that way.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

yeah frank, I was hoping it would work out, but little things like selling fish under treatment for whitespot, killing a batch of clown loaches in my absense by idiocy, refusing to replace aged filter media (ie: 5 years aged!), persistant putting bettas in with guppies, not gravel cleaning properly and keeping turning the flow rate down, plus general misfeeding and stocking unsuitable fish eventually really hacked me off. Not getting the leeches out of the koi system, neglecting the cichlids in favour of the mollies, etc etc etc. I turned a lot of it around in a couple of months just to see after the floods when I had to take couple of weeks off that it had descended into hell again. There was an oscar missing a lower jaw due to hexamita , and there was no store euthanasia policy, meaning I couldnt even put it to sleep. They were even resistant to water changes!

Call me picky! I'd have had to been there every second, theres no way I could keep a tight enough reign on them without being the manager, so I just left. Still I saved a lot of fish while I was there and at least showed them that you can get the death rate down, and got some new fish and keepers off to a good start, but theres only so much you can do with a change resistant company. Ultimately id be more use elsewhere, and well, theyll probably go out of business, so it might work out in the end. They werent suited to stock fish, the staff didnt have the intelligence, and the management didnt see the relevance. I believe the collective term for such people over here is a bloody bunch of worzels.Not a clue among them, and I mean a persistant enforced level of bloody ignorance. I know the shop was a dump , but i honestly thought I could turn it round, and the bottom line was, without the authority to fire people it would never have happened.The budget I could probably have coped with. I might go and see what NIRAH is up to.



Animals and money dont mix, but look after the animals well, and the money follows, somehow you cant get that into the average accountants head with a sledgehammer! Somehow I couldnt seem to prove that to them even when the sales went up 200% in two weeks. Companies are dumb all day.

Im fairlynew in this hobby but fromwhat i know your right. before i gotmytank i tried to doasmuch research as possible to help makethe right decisions. i always justbeleived whatthe storepeople told me.i know better now. im glad you took the time to write this articlei hope itwill help many begginers to avoid mistakes

The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we dont know what to do.

Not every shop is run by irresponsible . Yesterday I visited my favorite LFS and witnessed conversations with a family that wanted to purchase star fish. The sales person inquired about the set up they had in place for the animals. Turned out that they had nothing but wanted to get the salt and everything as well to get started. These cuustomers were sent away - several times as they simply did not get it. It would have been easy money for the shop to sell these idiots what they wanted and cash the money (and more starfish next week to replace the expired ones) but they choose not to do so for the sake of the animals. Sadly, this store is also suffering like so many otheres because of the internet and the problem that they simply can not compete with the prices offered there.

greaet rant ... my favorite part was the picture of the family, each wanting their stock and the number. its soo true...
then theres the sad truth in that uninformed, cheap, or indifferent people force stores to basically no help a customer but instead tell them what they wanna hear

I think that in generalities, Rasco is mostly right. However, it is important to note that individual stores come in all varieties, including even the superstores and pet big box stores. Where I lived 2 years ago, the local "pet big box" was excellent, much healthier fish than the local LFS, the staff always asked how big a tank was, how long it had been setup and what else was in it before they even opened the lid to their display tanks. Where I live now the local "pet big box" isn't nearly as impressive, but I'd say it was OK. However, the local LFS where I live now is pretty terrible.

Point is, each store, even the corporate stores, are individuals and need to be judged as such. Generalities are just that, general. But, you do yourself a disservice if you don't at least check out every local store for yourself, rather than going by broad generalities.

I happen to work in one of these "pet big box stores" and I know one of our problems is that the other big box store down the street has a much larger store. They out-compete us and drive our profits down. This makes it harder for the store to schedule enough people to work a lot of the time. Therefore, when I see a problem with some of the fish tanks I'm not able to take care of it right away because I have to go stock the shelves because I'm one of only 2 or 3 people working that day. Sometimes we can't even get certain kinds of fish food even though our GM ordered it because the district manager refused the order. I know there are a lot of things that I'd like to improve in the fish department I work at but all the corporate garbage keeps me from getting it done.