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Our store made no money on fish, or very very little, despite the markup - deaths, the cost of shipping, the cost of maintaining them, and the cost of having two employees who primarily sold fish outweighed the markup on the fish.

However, we sold several tanks a day, generally with all the equipment, and about two big (55+ gallons) tanks a week. Stores are different, it's tough to generalize.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

It all depends on the store, and their polocies. And yes, they all want to give store credit. Unless they know you well, and know that you are going to be a continuing thing. And even then, you may only get store credit, unless you have a true buisness at it, and have a tax number and such. The reason is, with store credit, in the end, they not only make a profit off of your fish, but get their money they gave you for them, back when you purchase other stuff in the store.

As for which is better, well from a good fish keeper the stock is always better, because the fish are usually in the same water quality as the store, and they are less stressed from a one hour trip to the store, vs up to 48 hours in a shipping container. But, many people actually don't take care of the fish they are planning on selling, and yes they do have losses. As even the common hobbyist gets greedy, and does not care for the fry as they should, because their idea is why waste too much food on these fish if I am not keeping them, and such like that. So in the end, some poor fish keeping hobbyists, can ruin it all for the rest of us. The best thing to do, is keep taking the fish in to show the good quality, and once you are established with that fish store, continue you new friendship along. Buy purchasing products there, and visiting all the time just to see what they have. And by all means, continue with the good quality now that you have established a link with them.

Many of the chain stores, will not purchase local hobbiest bred fish. As they need to continually purchase from their suppliers to get the best discount available. And yes, they purchase enough fish, that they probably get them for pennies on the dollar. As live bearers are constantly breeding, everyone that has them could be trading them in. And if they took all these trade ins, then their order stock would decrease, and the wholesaler would then have to increase their prices. Thus, when no local breeders brought in any fish, the lfs would have to order them then, and the price would increase. This is why they keep most of their orders to the wholesaler.

As for the LFS getting credit for loses of fish during shipping and all? I know of no fish farms or wholesalers that give credit. This is where the LFS gets to claim the loss during tax season. Now I know of one chain store, that get credit from their corporate office and wharehouse, but that is within their own organization, and not from the breeders, or fish farms. This I do know, as I order fish from several fish farms in Florida, for several of the LFS around here. I am the middle man. In this way, many stores together can order a larger amount of fish, thus get a better price. I have many times loss whole boxes of fish due to some reason, and the loss is mine to deal with. I have to fight the airlines and such. And in the end, the difference is just not worth the struggle of fighting with them. And in the end, this is one of the reasons fish prices are so drastically increased from wholesale prices (300-500% mark-up).

So, all in all, you need to build a reputation with your lfs to get them to want to buy from you. The lfs usually want to buy local bred fish. And some of the chain stores will too. Be happy with what you get, as you could be getting nothing offered.

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There is always a bigger fish...

Livebearers= Most commonly sold and most in demand fish in the area I live, next to ottos.
"Most small pet stores shut down - how many are around you, and how long have they been in business"
In the town I live in , there are 3, 2 have been in business for 10-12 years, the other one has been in town for 30 going on 31 years.
In the town I go to school (60 minute drive), there are 2 LFS and 1 chain store. The local one that refused to pay more than 30 cents has been in business since 1982, the other one since 1981. 1 store did close down recently, the third one, but because he stocked really expensive really rare livestock and had to charge a fortune for these turtles and snakes and lizards and stuff that he went under.
Of the 5 Pet stores I have offered my Platies to: 1 (the one im ranting about) said 15-30 cents.
2 LFS: said 1 dollar a peice for platies, 1.50 for guppies
2 LFS: said 2.50 a pair for platies, guppies and mollies, 5.00-7.50 a pair for sailfin mollies If I have any fry.
Of the 5 pet stores: only 2 give "store credit", and the one im ranting about wont give credit towards livestock, the other one will.
3 LFS: Pay CASH for fish bought.
"Like LM was saying the fish have to be of marketable size - My platies are young yes, but at close to 4 months of age, they are a solid INCH in length and half an inch in girth- my platies are very large in size by nature.
I would never in a million years expect people to buy fish smaller than one inch in length.
Thats a ridiculous assumption that I would be trying to sell puny fry- a waste of life that would be in my opinion. Exactly why I was so upset when I order "live young guppies" and got 5mm fry.
Someone also said "you have to establish a relationship with the store", well if that means stopping in to my 2 favorite stores on average twice a week to browse and chat to the people, and they all know me and my boyfriend by name, I would say thats a relationship. Why explain to these people how the fish are raised when I have had hundred of conversations with them about the fish already! They all know whats in my tanks, what tanks I have, and what I feed and what products I use. Many of them have helped me in solving several high pH high hardness issues on my water.
"dress professional and look the part" Someone also said, well I guess that would help IF and only IF the store people DIDNT know you by name, and know that you are in fact a "starving student"- a full time university student.
I suppose when you live in a city with at least several hundred thousand people, You can do these things, and noone knows you or what you have at home, but when the large city I visit is only 70,000 people and all the fish store people know you by name and can spout off most of your stock back at you, its kind of hard to play at being "professional".
Someone also said "place an ad in local papers" well I have already done that, and currently have consecutive ads running in 3 different papers, and have sold a half dozen platies this way already. The fellow who bought them was very happy and said my fish were "healthier" than any he had seen in stores and "larger and more robust and more active" than any fish he had seen in stores. He was going to "pin [my] number to his fridge so he could keep it around and was going to recommend me to fish keeping friends", but that was 2 weeks ago and the ads are still running and noone else has called. I have an answering machine so I dont miss calls.
I realize a lot of you work at pet stores and empathize with pet stores, and I realize this dude at the LFS is wary, but feeling that he knows me, and what care I give my fish, he should know that my fish are healthy and good, and saleable size. I have emailed him pictures 3 times now. But seeings his comments were so offensive to me, he will not be purchasing any of my fish now or in the future. I will stick with the ones who know that they can TRUST me and know my fish will be good quality. I think I will take them to the fellow 15 mins away who pays cash.
It still cheeses my pizza though that he said "locally bred fish are crap". Should cheese all your pizzas too, those of you who breed your own fish.



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Pete,,

Developing a relationship"" is this incident is not a "first name basis" relationship. It is a BUSINESS relationship!

In a business relationship, I am looking to the monetary value of the relationship if I am considering a vendor. The queastions that I ask are:
1. What is the quality of the good or service?
2. What is the realistic value of that good or service?
3. What is the business history of the vendor?
4. Why would this vendor have greater value than my current vendor?
5. How easy is it to work with this vendor?

Sadly, you exhibited what would be mercifully described as "immature" behavior when you narrated your initial encounter with one of the LFS owners. Immature people generally have not learned to ask questions or to develop sales skills. A "no" answer, that you originally received, or the low ball offer, that you bullied the owner into, resulted in you attacking the owner! Mmm, not professional or mature, think of how you might have made that situation work out better.

Of course, you received a better offer form another LFS and you have sold some fish privately, but what could you have done to sell more fish to fewer parties at a better price?

Since it sounds like you are in college, treat this as a "case study" piece. As in all case studies, there are no answers that are 100% correct.

Last edited by Bob Wesolowski at 04-Dec-2004 14:28

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

"Sadly, you exhibited what would be mercifully described as "immature" behavior when you narrated your initial encounter with one of the LFS owners"
Bob- I cannot understand what you mean by "immature behaviour"...you mean him saying local bred fish are crap and me replying with "funny coming from a guy who sells dyed fish"? Is that what you mean?
And my apologies here if I got you wrong, but I could you quite a few nasty four letter words in asking you what the.....do you mean by saying I "bullied" him into giving me a price? I did nothing of the sort.
I simply asked him if he would buy platys. He said and I qoute "well, usually we dont like to buy locally bred fish, because, no offence, but they are always crap. We would give you maybe 15-30 cents each, and it would be store credit on dry goods, you wouldnt be able to use it on livestock". To which I replied, "well I am a member of a huge online fish keepers community, and pretty much all of the people on there, and myself feel that locally bred fish are healthier, and more worthwhile to purchase than massively produced fish. And besides, thats awfully funny you saying local fish are crap when you sell dyed fish".
So, I ask you Bob, at what point did I "bully" the employee (not the owner by the way), into anything?
And please, keep your "immature" comments to yourself, its not as though I am a 17 year old first year college student here Bub, I am almost 26 and have been in University for 7 years so far. No I am not taking business or anything, I am doing a double major in Anthropology and English Literature. And I highly take offense to your suggestion that I am just an "immature" little kid.
So, if this is NOT what you meant by that, disregard it, but if so, perhaps you should reconsider your choice of nouns and verbs in your comment, as they were not exactly "friendly" or "courteous", nor exactly "mature" if you choose to use that word.
If you would re-read my first post, You would see that I was entirely offended NOT by his offer of 15-30 cents, but of his comment that locally bred fish are crap.
It had nothing to do with his offer of miniscule money, it had to do with the fact that he is using a ridiculous form of logic that goes like this "all locally bred fish are crap- therefore YOUR locally bred fish are crap- therefore all people who breed fish outside of massive fish farms have fish that are crap". Not exactly an intelligent or researched rhetoric if you ask me.
That is what I was choked about. And if you noticed a great many people on here agreed, locally bred fish are healthier by far, less inbred, and less deformed, and we dont dye our fish or give them massive hormone supplements that could possibly shorten their lifespans by a full third. This is why locally bred fish are the better purchase. And often these fish are cheaper to purchase by consumers, and live way longer, and are a joy to own, unlike some of their commercially bred counterparts- everyone knows the ones, you bring home 4 guppies and within 24 hours you have 1 or none left.
This is exactly why fish stores should be pleased to purchase locally bred fish, and when, later on in life, I open my own fish store, I will not even bat an eye to purchase some locally bred fish off of people. If you as the owner of a LFS, go that little extra to show people you have faith in them, they will keep coming back, and not only that, but likely their friends and families will as well. Its good business to maintain strong relationships with the community. Besides, If I purchase locally bred fish, and that die the next day, I would look at what that person was doing wrong and try to help them. If they died a week later, I would Look at what I was doing wrong, and why these otherwise healthy fish are dying on me. After the fish have been in your care for a week or more, and they die, it is no longer the breeders responsibility, it is YOUR problem and Your issue to deal with. Saying its the breeders fault is sure an easy way to avoid looking at the question of your own fishkeeping skills isnt it?

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WOW 4.99 FOR A PLATY????
My lfs sell them for 99 cents, and if i retur i get full credit Try different stores before you make your decision selling it to him

Last edited by trojan_man at 04-Dec-2004 22:02

LFS people dont make money selling fish. That is why they sell tanks all of the time.


I guarentee you that if there was a store that sold ONLY fish, it would be out of business in a few months.

Actualy Vic, LFS make more selling fish than equiptment and tanks and such. Tank markup is very low. And, they don't sell several tanks a day to pay everyones paycheck in the lfs

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

LFS people dont make money selling fish. That is why they sell tanks all of the time.


I guarentee you that if there was a store that sold ONLY fish, it would be out of business in a few months.

We RARELY sell tanks...in fact, I'd estimate a tank sale occuring maybe twice a week, if even that. If they didn't make any money selling fish, they wouldn't sell them. Makes sense to me. As a general rule, you usually make at least a dollar profit on smaller fish, such as guppies, 2-3 for tetras, and up and up, until you get to, say, butterfly koi, wholesale around $70.00 (keep in mind they're small) and sold for $110+. We actually make a great deal of money on trade ins, as well.

Cardinal tetra-$.95
sold at-$3.00

I agree that small fish shop have diffculty in making a profit out of just selling live fish,notice a couple of 'small' fish shop is mainly selling dry goods or equipment, while the few small tank put infront of the store is just a display telling people that "hey this is a fish shop everyone" .

But a main different between here and american is the avaliable of asian arrowana.Not only asian arrowana is more ready available over here, but there is also a very high demand in singapore,malaysia and japan etc.Making the price remain high as ever even though it is common to find one over here.

A well breed crossback asian arrowana roughly say 15cm long,can easily fetch a price near to a S$1000 dollars or over, while lower pricing asian arrowana of the same size like RED or RTG(red tail golden) can fetch S$200 - S$1000 depend on the quality and the breeding grade.

So most 'small' fish shop over here in singapore can earn more by selling them IMO.

But almost every fish shop i seen BIG or SMAll shop will be selling arrowana, at least a RED or RTG breed, and what's more they can be sell off quickly at high price and doesn't occupy much space in their shop.

Just in case u don't know, asian arrowana has already been popular in s'pore for years, think can be trace back to the 80's or more. Constant competition were held in s'pore every year by join local fish farm and i think the last competition has 140 entries competing in nine separate categories, Biggest arrowana competition in the world! And the 1st position in one of the categories, a full grown crossback golden fetch a price of S$78,888 !

Around here the mark up on aquariums is only about 10%.

Two tanks a day of unknown size, but smaller than a 55 gal, and 2 55 gals a week, would not even pay the salary of two employee for the week. After you take out the overhead for the week.

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There is always a bigger fish...

I wasn't arguing that the tanks were where the bulk of the profit was coming in; I'm not sure why you are.

My point was, again, stores are different. Some make money on fish, some don't or can't.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

I was not arguing about it, but mearly trying to make a point. The way your post read, it sounded like you were saying the tanks were the bulk of the profit.

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

15 yr old comes in, buys a tank, buy fish, kills fish and buys some more, get addicted buys another tank and more fish. The profit comes when that 15 yr old comes back to them over and over for whatever he needs.
i frequent my lfs 3-4 times a week. not goign to buy anything just to look. whats new, whats dead, whats odd, whats cheap. last week i left 20 mins after closeing, was just chatting with the owner about cichlids. we have allready talked about where else i shopped and whats better where and why. i of course blew sunshine up his dress and had a few laughs about the local chains so called quality. im not breeding, nor planning on breeding, but some day who knows. some fish might impress me and ill find a interest in it. the leg work is allready done, he knows what i know and what i feed my fish so he knows i deal in quality allready.
find a shop YOU like, people YOU like, a shop with knowledge and are helpfull. dont just blurt out ...wanna buy some fish? heheh befriend them, compare notes. after you get hellos as you walk in and hows your day going, bring some fish in...for nothing..just say hey ive been breeding for a while was hopeing you would take a few and see how well they sold. maybe after a few batches if your interested maybe we can work something out. best thing to do is givem a taste and then take it away. when they see the tank of your platies selling like candy while the other sits there full all the time they will know.
but after everythign is said and done and 3 months later you are agrivated to heck because you didnt liek them in the first place...you just wasted your time for nothing. much better to enjoy your buyers and your buyers enjoy you. makes for a longer partnership.

Sneaky pete you are taking this way to serious. I think it is time to let it go.
If you think you are getting next to nothing for your fish, you should check out the auction that the fish club holds here. groups of fronts $10, groups of discus $10-15, the point is sell them to the highest bidder which is the pet shop that will $1.00. Case closed. Also many LFS will say stuff like locally breed fish are crap, because they get like a hundred or so offers from people selling their fish.


???Why is the dead smiley smiling ???

Last edited by openwater at 05-Dec-2004 15:39

Pete,

Congratulations on pursuing a double major. I did my majors in accounting and finance with a minor in mathematics. Of course it did take me 4 years because I had to work full time.

See how an innocuous sentence can become a club? That is exactly what you did with the LFS owner and what you did in response to my post. Let's stick with the last poster and put this topic to bed.

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

Not to be rude, but calling her immature doesn't exactly sound innocuous. Not that I'm at all insinuating her response to the LFS owner was appropriate, but I myself would be somewhat offended had all my effort raising fry been called crap. Furthermore, crudentials in finance, mathematics, and English literature have little if anything to do with the topic at hand.

EDIT: Line spacing



Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 05-Dec-2004 17:06

yea there's two sides to every coin, perhaps if he had been a bit more tactful in the first place this post would have been a little different. i've already got a good supplier, but if you want shot of them, i'll give you 'x low amout' for them... oh and its not company policy to use store credit against live stock - sorry

the other thing i thought about is to them it IS about money, they need to put food on the table, they might care about fish personally, or even have tanks at home, but their shop has to make money... if it wasnt about making money, it was for love, then they would screen their customers, only employ ppl who had good knowledge etc etc ... carlsburg dnt make fish stores... but if they did... (Uk joke lol)

good on you for standing your ground

My Lfs is alot like that except for this one person who has a huge tank and understands how us in the hobby strive to make our fish happy and healthy. Unlike fish farms that just want the money.

---

''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

Wonderful Sneaky! You should have slapped him in the face .

Locally bred fish are soooooooo much better then the ones that are mass raised... I don't know what he's talking about... Funny they're fine with the local breeder but when they find their way to his store they die... *rubs chin*