What would you do if your LFS sucks? (Warning, this post is long and boring)

[Tanked]

I've been meaning to start a thread on this topic for some time now. And granted, this is just my own opinion of one store near me that I frequent the most but I gots an itch that be needin' to be scratched. Fo' shizzle.

 

My LFS has been in business for a long time. Much longer than I have been in the hobby. So they must be selling enough to keep themselves in business. How they do that is beyond me. Everytime I go in there to buy something, which is not often but still enough that they should recognize me, I have to chase down an employee for some help. I'm not a window shopper. I would venture to say that I probably purchase something there about 40% of the time that I go. I know some stores probably get jaded after awhile because some people do treat the LFS as a free aquarium without ever having the intention of buying anything. But I've spent hundreds of dollars there in less than 6 months and there's no way they would forget my face because I'm incredibly good looking. And yet, I'm a stranger to these same employees everytime I walk through the door.

 

A friend of mine attempted to buy me a fish a few months ago for my birthday. She knows even less than I do about this hobby, only that I have a saltwater aquarium with a "pretty fish" swimming around in it. (Those of you who have been following the adventures of Tanked know very well the escapades of one, death defying little royal gramma). My friend knows nothing about the size of my tank, the problems with selecting suitable tankmates, or how large some species grow to be. Right off the bat, a responsible fishkeeper would point to the register and say "gift certificate". Not these chumps. She told me they spent an hour trying to pick out a fish for her. I should mention that they went to her and helped her right away which irked me even further. All male staff, one pretty female customer....you do the math. Anyways, she finally decided to go the safe route and get the gift certificate despite their best efforts to sell her something. In one of my past experiences with them, one of these employees had told me that a pseudochromis would be fine with my ornamental shrimp so I had been questioning their intent for some time.

 

Sorry to vent everyone, and if you are a LFS employee reading this, I'm certainly not accusing all stores of only being interested in making a buck at the expense of their livestock. I also realize that this is not Mother Russia and I am entitled to get in my car and drive to a different store, albeit for me, much further away. I just wanted to know what people think. Anyways, anyone ever had a good experience buying a fish online? I wonder....

[BlackSumbel]

For some time the LFS was decent. The guy working there knew me immediately, and would rattle off whatever appropriate stuff they had in stock. He would frag bits for me, and sell them to me at a very reasonable price. Unfortunately, he moved.

 

In a nutshell? I wont be shopping there NEARLY as often, and will most likely save myself the headache of shopping , by doing everything online or through reef clubs.

 

There is this weird "tude" that people get when you know what you're talking about. The first few times I went into another LFS I was waited on promptly, and curteously. After that, they knew that I had an established tank and pretty much let me go without notice untill I began pacing and tamping my foot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to getting so ####ed that I bag my own stuff, but I'd rather NOT...

 

I'd limit my patronage, and find a better location, personally.

 

-Sumbel.

[Aiptasia]

You gotta remember, most LFS's pay at or just slightly above minimum wage. Most of the employee's at our LFS's are family members or kids who've parleyed themselves into a job to support their own pet hobbies.

 

I've found around me, there are no good "reef" oriented pet shops. One of my LFS's carries good supplies of dry goods (the prices are high though), another carries some LR and coral frags but no dry supplies, and yet another only carries SW fish. It's as if most of the saltwater sections in my local LFS's were added as an afterthought. If I could combine the saltwater sections of these three LFS's, i'd make one good one.

 

There's even one guy in our area that runs an aquarium maintanence business for local hotels/restaurants, etc.. He's rented two mini-warehouses over near a local airport and built all of his own custom acrylic holding tanks. He's absolutely the "man" when it comes to plumbing a custom tank, but he knows nothing about reef tanks, focusing on FO displays with artificial corals. He quarantines all of his fish for two weeks when he receives them in holding tanks, and actually opens up his mini-warehouses between seven p.m. and nine p.m. two days a week (tuesdays and thursdays) for retail sales of fish. It's the strangest LFS setup i've ever seen, but if you want pre-quarantined SW fish, he is the mang to see.

 

I've been in the hobby for 25 years, so I can usually ascertain how good a pet shop it is within the first 30 seconds of walking around. When i'm travelling around on business, I love to drop into new LFS's and see what's up. Some of the best shops i've been in were in Orange County/L.A. and in Knoxville, T.N..

 

They are in business to make a profit, so focusing on a sale isn't necessarily unexpected. I know the owners of all of my LFS's by name, even if they can't always remember mine, but they sure know my face when I walk in the door. It seems like once they know you're a "bread and butter" regular customer, they will bend over backwards to help you with a special order or a little caulerpa on the side from time to time.

[DLeAnnM]

If you know more than they do, they are less likely to want to wait on you. Sad situation. I must say if there was an award for worst LFS, mine would surely win! Dirty, gross etc... The only thing I buy from them is crickets and feeder fish for my turtles. They have 3 disgusting salt water tanks though I dont know how they sell anything. I was surprised to see a mandarin in their tank with a bunch of damsels which is most of their stock~surprise, surprise. I asked them what they feed it and they said "oh just fish flakes". I havent been back to see what happened to it. I have even suggested to them to take a look at this forum but apparently they have not.