Yah saw that $80 ric too. And when I was like HUUUH, he was kind enough to explain that its some kind of rare or something and hence he is charging high. It was on hold too :P

I think I know the one you're talking about. Regardless, one shop tries to have ultra high end stuff where prices are super high. I believe the guy is a bit mislead... because he needs to think of his customers as groups (marketing calls segments). He's got stuff that sells to maybe 10% of the reef hobbyists out there... If Calgary is 1.2M people... there may be 10K people with aquariums... and maybe 10% (=1K) people with marine set ups. Maybe a few hundred people are actively buying stuff for their tanks... and the fraction that seeks and affords ultra high end stuff is dozens... it's a tough business model to have a client base of dozens of people in the discretionary spending category.

Then the rest of us, feel insulted at the pricing. He once tried to sell me a 3" diameter hollywood stunner chalice for $300, with the logic that 1/2" frags of it sell for $25 on eBay... that logic works if it weren't so readily available locally and you fetch $25 a frag on a good day. He's got to let go of his margin.

Many LFS get stuck with 'the formula' in their head. To account for losses, labor, shipping etc... I'll simply take my cost and multiply it by X factor. Well, you can't do that on an item that cost you $100... you have to be happier with a slimmer margin to move it consistently out the door and cultivate return customers on the high end stuff.

keep the feedback coming guys , tell me what you like and dont like , what a lfs should do or not do and what makes you shop at a store and ultimately buy something in the end??

do you guys feel lfs caters to anyone in particular??

what kinds of products do you think every lfs should carry?

what are some of the things that make you not want to come back or visit regeuarily???

on the opposite side what makes you keep coming back??

any and all information is welcome!!





cheers!!

is anyone else like me and hate seeing "sold " or "on hold " or " nfs " written on the tanks , imo if somethings sold or on hold it should go in a holding tank thats not viewable by customers.

:/

Not all stores are big enough to have the sort of space to do that. Also, when you move fish around, you never know when they're just going to kill each other (e.g. Angels and tangs)..

Besides, it's that or sell fish that haven't been long-term acclimated.

Personally, I appreciate it when a store is willing assume the risk and hold onto a fish for me, treat it for disease and make sure it's eating before I take it home.

i do too in fact i think it should be something every fish store is willing to do although not in the for sale or display tanks they should be moved to a private tank, sure not all strores are gonna have that room but fact is if you plan to buy a building/fishstore with no where to work or do business besides that one room then you really set it up on yourself , its not the customers fault a store doesnt have enough room.

i guess it goes back to when the lease was signed and how much thought was put into expanding and operations.

i dont feel any sympathy for those running stores with everything in the same aisle, fact is its a business :)

every business has operations and things to do that are not in the best interest of customers to be viewing.

since im on the walmart band wagon what if walmart started holding things for peopke in the isles , you mean to tell me you wouldnt get frustrated picking between whats for sale and whats not for sale??

i would expect walmart to have a place to hold lay away items and overstock goods just the same as i would a fishstore or any business that sells multile products.

but i do know what your saying yes an established business may not have enough room or ability to do so. the fishstore next to my house is a prime example i sometimes have to wait 15 mins for someone to get out of the isle so i can walk down it and view...and more times then not theres either someone mopping , some mom and her kids viewing , 2 people just having a reef chat or a employee serving a customer......either way its cramped and i feel like i need to wait for someone to announce " now serving customer 213" i hate going there for that reason and i know others that do as well. great very friendly people and nice stuff but too small a business location.

I wish my LFS would have various sources for livestock.Also they could do a group buy on popular or rare corals,so if ten people want a "one eyed,three legged,rainbow with a limp coral" Buy it ,frag it, and it's out the door,everybody's happy.have a menu at the front counter and a suggestion box:lol:

I guess one thing that sticks out as peculiar to me... is we have 2 shops that are strictly marine. Looking at the size of the shop, I can understand why... but this is very atypical. My first thought was... huh, there must be enough hobbyist demand in this town to support such specialized businesses.

If I were to have a LFS (which I'm not), my preference would be to offer freshwater and general dry goods as well. True, without the purchasing power of the big box and online specialists, an independent LFS would not get supplier discounts to offer those deep sales. However, offering some hardware at MSRP does 1) keep people coming back when they are seeking something, and 2) grows/develops customers. For example, carrying 10 gal to 30 gal tanks makes you a viable place for hobbyists entering the hobby... into freshwater. There's good margins on freshwater fish & plants... at some point, a portion of hobbyists will gravitate towards more challenging set ups and rare imports like Apistogrammas, Discus, Aponogetons, etc... and a portion of hobbyists will become interested in how easy it is to convert to a marine tank. Marine hobbyists on the learning curve starting with softies and smaller tanks also buy livestock at good margins... It is the lifetime value of customers that matters more so than the individual transactional value of a purchase. The value proposition would then be friendly service, solid advice, fair pricing, and quality goods/livestock. Where big box stores falls short is consistency in advice and quality livestock.

In Calgary, IMO it seems that different stores fit different phases of the hobbyist learning/development journey.

My opinions are: (In no particular order)

1) Prices - In the name of all that is .... Please but prices on everything. The store I frequent has great staff and if I ask about a price, they provide it pretty quick and the price is usually pretty good; however, someone is not always available and I end up looking at a few items and leaving without even asking for a price as I don't want the items enough to wait until the staff are available to talk. Missed opportunity for the store.

2) I also find "aisle" stores a pretty big pain. You end up feeling like you're in an zoo aquarium where you have to quickly look and move on as someone else needs to get by, or look at the tank and there is only room for one person and you don't want to hold up the line. That is why I try to go during the week in the afternoon so less people are in the store.

3)Equipment? I really only buy my equipment from one local store who has the same prices or better than the major online stores and if he doesn't have it in stock I just go mail order. I have never once found a price anywhere near online stores at any of the other stores in Calgary. However, to be fair, I have not even asked for equipment pricing from them in years, so I have no idea if they have gotten any better.

4) Location - I also live in the extreme South and I miss having a store close by that I can pop into. However, this probably saves me a lot of money on those impulse buys.

On the issue with pricing, I wonder if it is partially a cultural thing? Of the 5 traditional stores that sell marine stuffs, 3 of them are owned and operated by asians and those are the ones that NEVER have prices on their tanks. It is in their nature to expect haggling. From their point of view, is there a point in putting a price up if someone is just going to come along and knock it down ? Also, I think that the cost on livestock fluctuates wildly from shipment to shipment. It is possible that a Blue Tang from one shipment will cost them $40 while on the next shipment will cost them $50. In the meantime, the Blue Tang from both shipments are still hanging out in the same tank. I'm guessing that the store owners kind of want to hide this from the customers. Anyway, I'm not a store owner so I'm just speculating :-)

And on the issue of Preferred Customer pricing. I don't see an issue with this. It is no different than any other business with a Preferred Customer system. I am a "Preferred Customer" with Avis Rent a Car so I get to the front of the line. "Preferred Frequent Flyer's" with Air Canada get special treatment (seat upgrades, meals, perferred boarding, etc). This is normal business practice.

There's something less obvious... no not an Asian thing. Two of the shops are spin offs of one of them... I think they learned from the original in their habits and practices. It's quite easy to go to Staples and get a Brother label printer, it's what I used in the family LFS in Halifax. Average cost per label made is about $0.50... if a LFS is unwilling to afford that... you're truly counting pennies while the cows walk out the back door (customers).

if pricing is so hard for our lfs to do then why does lfs in other citys have no problems doing this??

like nick mentioned the stores in edmonton do this , so do the stores ive visited in ontario and in newfoundland....

thers no reason at all why stores elsewhere can put prices on stuff but ours cant....it has nothing to do with anything but being pure lazy or trying to grease extra coin out of customers....the stores here dont care and want you to have to ask for a price , becuase their price changes customer to customer.

i went in to one of the lfs a few months ago , i asked about a torch coral, the shop keep said ....... " were having a special on torchs this weekend , he said all torch reardless of heads are $70"

i thought humm maybe i will so i said ok give me a bit to browse still...ten mins later i went looking for the guy but he was gone so i said to the other guy whats the price on the torch coral i wanted again??

he said " were having a special on torchs this weekend all torchs are $50 regardless of heads"

to say the least since that very day i lost respwect for them......

not to mention i went in to a lfs on a monday to buy a 1/2" bulkhead the price was 12$....seemed high but i needed the bulkhead so bought it....

the next day i decided to put in a second bulkhead and went back for another.....huh guess what the price is now $7


so how does that happen anyone think theres a reasonable reason for this or are we all just pigeons??

on the topic of laziness... some of my retail management pet peeves

1) Dirty floors that obviously hasn't been attempted to be mopped in months
2) Dusty merchandise that hasn't been wiped for months
3) at the same time, the guy isn't doing anything but standing behind the counter reading newspapers, surfing the web, watching TV, standing at the door and people watching

I have little sympathy for them when business is slow. They are actively choosing to not make their shop more attractive.

thats one of mine to , coming from a construction background employers dont pay you to sit on your ass , so ok its a slow day why not scrub floors, walls or dust things, reorganize for crying out loud.

ever since i was 12 i learned theres never nothing to do, what makes a good worker or employee is someone who takes the intiative to do things regardless of the task.

i dont expect an 50 yr old man or woman to get on his hands and knees to clean floors but at that age or time maybe its time to pay a young fella to clean a few times a week.

imo general cleanup should be done evenings after the store is closed so customers only see a clean store and should be a main priority.

i know me personally am driven away by mess, how can i expect to buy livestock or goods and put my faith into someones advice when their displays are messy and store looks like it sat closed for 4 yrs...

seriously store owners , we want clean stores its that simple.

if i went to restaurant and they had food left on the floor or bathrooms with grease and rust running down them...ikt would be my last visit..if i even stayed at all....

just looking at all the replies and attention this thread is getting tells me we are hurting for a change in business in this city from our lfs , we all know it.

red coral was off to a great start , ive always had nothing but great things to say about kevin and the gang, its sad what happened to them but we need a replacement for their store , the few we have are older stores and set in their ways , they are not about to change so we as the public need to demand what we want .

in the end its us who provide the business that these stores get , if it works they are not about to fix it....why right??


its about time we had a place that WANTS to serve the city and WANTS to expand and become part of what this city has to offer.

we have a very large poulation, it is dominated by asian store owners(this is fact) all these stores run in a similiar way and all have stemmed from another lfs who still runs in this fashion.

calgary needs someone willing to change things and make them at par with the rest of the country.


ps.....i actually get along great with all the stores in the city , but fact is there are problems that n eed addressing sooner than later.

I have read the last two pages of posts and this is the only one that I find has any merit in reading a second time....Hope others will read again.

Store owners run 'their' stores the way 'they' want. If I was the owner I wouldn't want people telling me how to run my business.

no but if you were a smart business man you would want feedback , if not how do you know your full potential or problems people or your own customers have?? and since when does a business not care about what its customers wants??


i guess sure maybe joes aquarium is happy selling goldfish and half dead corals.....maybe joes aquarium has a clientele and does not care for new business, thats fine but we are customers you cant admit our needs dont matter to them , without us there would be no moneys ...period

still to me that equal lazy , im not trying to change how our current lfs works im trying to find out what this city wants in a lfs and believe me there are things that we dont have and want....why do you think i sell coral?? simply because its lacking in this city..... up untill about a month ago i was the only person selling frags.... now since ive started and word has gotten around one other store has started to make frgas as well.....i can almost guarantee it is from talking with people who come to my house, i think its great that what im doing is catching on to the stores...so mabe theres hope for more turn around no??

cheers ;)

i guess what im saying is we are forced to shop at these places.... if something better comes along then guess what...they are going to lose their clients for a better store...its that simple, its not marrige so if i dont like the store im not gonna work it out through counselling im just gonna go to the next store.

when this happens the store is going to close...why??

because they were not up to the task of providing the services they origionally intended to do and didnt listen to their customers.

business rule number 1:


always respect your customers wishes and opinions, in the end they make or break your business.

i would love one of the sponsors or store owners on this site to pls reply and give us your take on customers, running a store and what your goals are.

we are all talking about this from a custoer point of view i would like to see what a business has to say about the comments made and their take on things in this business.

I'm pretty sure you're referencing the place where I had to stop at a gas station to wash my hands on the way home after leaving the place. I had handled a few items on the shelves, and my hands were filthy when I left! I did ask if they had a sink I could use to wash my hands before I left. "No. Sorry we don't." I haven't been back.

How long have these shops been in business? I'm guessing quite some time and are set in their ways and still in business. Not saying their systems are perfect but it's the way they want things. I feel your pain about being forced to shop at these places.... Regina has ONE store which I and many people in the city won't buy from unless absolutely necessary, be thankful you have 5 or what ever the count is at. :biggrin:

I made an hour and a half detour to hit a Bayside in Saskatoon on the way home this weekend. Tanks were marked with prices..:lol: Picked up a nice Yellow Candy Hogfish

I admit not having tanks marked with prices is annoying but take it as an opportunity to turn the tables on the shop owner... Low ball an offer on a fish or coral and get the haggling started:twised:

We need BATfishMAN!

Seriously though, I'm not sure if this one is a little bit of a runaway on passion of the moment (Denny does get fired up!)... don't believe there's anything so far as 'broken' here so much as opportunity for improvement... or direct feedback usable for any given incumbent to take back and raise their level of competitiveness. I would call this market saturated in terms of LFS count to population ratio. This town has money to spend when its economy is in the boom phase... but difficult on discretionary spending when it's flat.


I don't see the issue. There are 3 prices. 1) the asking/starting price. This can be posted or not posted. Whether it's marked on the tank, priced on the car window, advertised in the newspaper, or the price not written but you ask when viewing a house... it's the asking price. 2) there's the target price. The seller knows they're not always going to get the asking price, whether it's posted or not, it's the price at which the seller would be satisfied. 3) then there's the selling price... the actual price at transaction that is mutually agreed upon. It can be the asking price, it can be at or above the target price... but typically not below the target price as the seller would back out or wait for another buyer.

Net-net, starting price can be, but does not have to be posted. The market is efficient and will work either way. I believe one shop sells at such good prices that their turnover of livestock makes it a pain to price and update all the time... meanwhile the other two have spun off this one and have beliefs that this is the way to go... or likely a mix of laziness and opportunity.

PS-one place has several guys and only one of them has the authority to make the call on lowering the price. You have to know what is not negotiable (ie with the guy that just works there) and who you're negotiating with. I wonder if price discrepancies arose from this.

It really boils down to perspective. As this thread suggests, we all have or own ideas of how we would run a fish store. What would seem to make complete sense to one of us can easily sound ridiculous to another. Consider this though, one store in particular that we all love to bitch about has been around for ages without changing their business practices one iota. I'm not trying to defend their practices here. I'm just sayin'. They have managed to stick around and have seen hobbyists come and go. They've out lived much nicer, posher, more updated, more connected to customers, more tech (online) savvy stores that have come and gone. Go figure :biggrin:

EXACTLY...I give this post the 'Wisers slow clap' award.

I 1000% agree. Nothing is more annoying then the price changing from one staff quote to the next or for one customer to the next or from day to day especially on dry goods. Yes livestock prices will change week to week depending where the fish was shipped from but dry goods generally stay the same (price wise) and shouldn't be $12 on Monday and $7 Tuesday.

That's very true. Longevity in face of change is a great measure of viability in business model. Could it be better? Probably. Is what they're doing working? Yes it is. Should they be complacent? Probably not. But I don't think they are complacent either... perhaps just a little too busy for their own good? Or, perhaps they should take some of their earnings and focus on growth vs the owner's Porsche Cayenne (does he have two?)? (Retained earnings vs paying out dividends)

these business have been in operation a long time , i know all of them personally and im even trying to help one store do better business, fact is he knows the condition but its scaled out of hand over the years.....ive seen pics from 10yrs ago and the store was immaculate.

im not saying these guys arnt nice people because they are , its not a personal thing its a business thing.



overall we have a bunch of stores ran and owned by hobbysts, we also have quite a few compared to most citys , one store copied the next when it did well and the other copied that one basically.....

red coral was on to their own thing that wasnt copied, they had improved some of the ideas talked about here and look what happened, even after they are closed these same customers give the highest praise.

red coral was able to expand into 3 stores and a new facility...why?? i mean he was getting business right so why expand if your already making good business?? because he wanted so much more for his store then just to do well , he wanted his city to have what it needed and imo still does need and he understood the opportunity that was given and took hold of it. kevin seen the opportunity and knew there was room to exand.

no other lfs in this city has a franchise do they??(not talking big box stores) they probably could have though but they dont have that expectation that drive to succeed....they have settled for what they have.

he asked his customers what they wanted and then provided it to them as best he could...it paid off.....its sad that issues happened lately forcing him to close but he had the right idea.



is there a place in this town to buy a yellow tang??....yes

would i prefer to buy this yellow tang at a store i like??...yes


theres the recipe for success right there....basically provide a product or service and make the customers WANT to come to you for business.



the pizza joint next to my house sells dirt cheap pizza....its gross but ive ordered it in a jam before...

theres a spot a bit of a ways, i pay a bit more but at least i can swallow it.....this place always gets my first order:)

There is not a single Calgary store on this forum. I think there are some great points made but in all honesty, the stores are not asking for this feedback, so why would it matter what a small reefing population on CR has to say about how their stores are operated? There are other reefers in the City that are not on CR, maybe unaware it exists, don't care for the chit chat, whatever. Stores invest their own time and money to run a business. If it wasn't working, they wouldn't be in business, these stores are around and very rarely are there no customers in the stores (I guess depending on time of day). Pricing, cleanliness, ease of access to livestock/product. Great points that all could improve upon. The 2 big box stores could have better trained staff, cleaner systems, but the pricing is there, shelves and floors are generally clean. These 2 stores get bashed all the time for various issues.

Real estate is not cheap. I bet the 3 smaller stores don't care to expand, use the size of stores as best laid out and off they go. Is more real estate going to bring in more money, not likely. Would it make it more appealing to the customer, of course. Are they putting more money in their pockets, obviously. Take the location of the stores and it says alot, they are not located in overly desirable locations, the 2 on 16th ave are not bad, the one on 17th...hmm, but I know rents are alot cheaper than if they were located at South Trail Crossing or Crowfoot or Beacon Hill (sorry for those in the south, not overly familier with shopping centres your way). We all have dumped considerable money in this hobby, if I want an expanded store offering more space, ultimately, I will pay for this as the store needs to recoup this cost somehow - increased pricing on everything. I'm not good at battering on prices, never have been, never will be, so I guess I miss the "buddy pricing".

Regardless - its their business, their risk, their cash and their perogative how and when they operate. We do have a great selection here, take what you like and leave the rest.

while this store has been around for ages you would be surprised to know of some major changes about to happen there...i know this for a fact;)


so while we like to think that they dont care ...some do.

it took sometime but that particular store owner is about to change his whole business around......why??

because times are forcing him to do so or the business goes downhill, years ago you would drop in to see what the store had...now people are ordering stuff online.in order to compete a business either needs to out do the other business in what it sells or improve oon their own business.


business has gone down over the years because of a few things one is the internet, its easier to ship now adays and with the improvements in the hobby and how much easier it is to keep things alive most people are willing to ship and do business online.

its become the norm for alot...

They should care... because BATfishMAN will make them pay... oh he'll make them pay...

This is a very good point that a lot of people don't consider. I live in the south and I would LOVE to have a store in the south. However, there is virtually NO cheap real estate in the south. The locations that are cheap are very sketchy. Take for example Red Coral's previous location. While the store there was awesome, I would personally be concerned to leave my car there for an extended period of time. And even at that location it was still MORE EXPENSIVE than their previous location in the north. Anyway, what this means is that virtually any reasonable location in the south is going to mean that prices will be higher. And well, we all know how we feel about high prices right? :neutral: Take for example the fish store that we used to have right off of MacLeod Trail South. Personally I thought it was a nice store. Great location, nice layout, decent stock. However, I hardly ever saw any foot traffic in that store and even I myself rarely frequented that store due to their high prices. I certainly can not blame them. They have to make ends meet like all the other stores.

I'm going to hold you to that! :wink:

ok some more lol


what about kids....people like to bring their kids to the stores and see all the pretty things , whats some of the good things or concerns parents may have when doing the family trip to the store??

SHARKS! And lots of them! Kids love sharks! Bonus points for sharks with lasers, but not required. Just a nice to have.

personally i think this guy is a great man , hes obviously has done great things and his business being around after so many years is proof of that.

but yup the changes have already started, its not something a business can do over night without costing alot but sometimes its the small things that build up to something better.

i wouldnt be surprised if you seen him as a sponsor on canreef in the future;)

we all know that any sharks with lasers are snatched up as soon as they arrive....they make great pets lol

It may not be that people like to bring their children to the store, but are required to. There are plenty of times when hubby is working on the weekend, and I have to bring #2 son with me if I want to go.

Basically, open tanks on the floors (especially with things like stingrays in them) and exposed plumbing, valves, and switches are a big no-no if curious children could be in the store.

10 years in a LFS, actually I've seen far too many parents when they're not really into the hobby themselves, but wanted something that their kids can look at. Not a big customer segment, and not typically long lived hobbyists either. Hobbyists with kids... you're either a hobbyist who happens to have kids, or you're not a hobbyist and stay that way. It's too bad.

can I suggest... BATfishMAN?