Bigs als in Calgary Decemebr 1st
 

I Never saw the Big Als in Calgary, Saw the one in Edmonton..very expensive, though they did price match minus shipping but not happily. Didn't like the shark in the tank, but other than that they seemed okay, more store than enthusiast though. Think more competition will help or will it matter?

Competition is always a good thing :)

This makes me 50% happy, I really liked Big Al's, allthough I think the main reason were the awesome people that worked there. The 50% that makes me angry is that it is in the NE!!

When BA was here before it was nice and close to home, does Calgary really need another fish store in the north quadrant of the city.

Perhaps this was the best location they could get, but you think their marketing people would have looked at the demographics of Calgary and figured out that a store in the south would be a win, just becuase a lot of people in the south including myself hate having to drive across this stupid city to get to a LFS.


Sorry for the rant, I am happy they are back, like any other LFS they have their strong points and weak points but it will be nice to see them back.

AMEN, brotha.

I would, however, drive all the way up North for some of those $16 clams I keep hearing so much about :D

Indeed, "AMEN." Couldn't agree more with Greg and Drew. Big Al's strength were the people that worked there. I was able to visit the store at least once a week and chat it up with the guys (and gals).

But yeah ... I couldn't be more disappointed with the choice of location. Being on the extreme south end of the city, I'm afraid I won't be able to visit there except on extremely rare occasions. They really should have returned to the south. Being where I am, I do notice the northern-ness of all the LFS's (except for Elite, thank you THANK you Colby, for opening a store in the south!!!)

Yay to Big Al's return, a big BOO to their choice of location!

Ok good point, I might try a little harder for a $16 clam. :lol: Ok Big Als, set it up, $16 clams and I'm there!!! :p

More north stores?! Boo!

I was there this past weekend, and I can't say I enjoyed the trips up north. I would have to say I would enjoy a few more south stores. Still though, one more store never hurt compitition!

amen
 

Amen to the first Big Als thread that will not be locked or deleted! haha

Big change from the good ol days where everyone hated me for being with them!! haha

Nate

Nate, you think any of the old staff might end up at the new store, do you keep in touch with any of them?

Whats the address of the new store location?

According to http://www.bigalscanada.com/

Bay G, 2020 - 32nd Av N.E.

Sounds like its near .. um .. what is the place called.. "Audio Concepts Mobile". Not too far from Princess Auto's old location.

It would be the first bank of bays after the golf course on the left when heading east up 32nd. (coming from Deerfoot south of course :p)

I am curious what it will look like, are they going to put in a monster shark tank again?

I'm sure anything will be cleaner and newer than the old location :p

http://www.bigalscanada.com/storeloc...algarymain.htm

They are hiring too, hmm maybe I need a part time job in the evenings to pay for my hobby :p

There was a time the south location was all shiney and new .. the scary thing is I remember it. :eek:

And the scariest part of all was .. Nate was there then too. :p All young and stuff. Wait, what am I saying. The guy is still entirely too frickin' young. Apparently I'm old. :cry:

thanks tony
 

thanks tony....I am startin to get old too! the ripe old age of 24...

As for the staff, I doubt any will end up there...I keep in touch with some of them, but, like I said, most have moved on since then. I thinkit is only two of us that have remained in the industry. Kelly and myself, but you never know...perhaps they are paying a decent salary and some would go back under the new ownership.

As for the shark tank, I believe you have to have one in every store.

Anyways, competition is good for any industry, I just hope they can keep up with the pricing in Calgary, it is a lot different than other cities. You guys really have no idea how cheap you guys are getting some of these things.

Maybe a bit off topic, but this might be something you could answer Nate, Glenda and I were talking the other day and wondering what the salt water market in Calgary is really like.. how many Calgarians actually keep SW tanks. 1,000..5,000...10,000? it seems like there are a number of people from Calgary on this site and I am sure it only represents a small portion of the reef keepers in cowtown.

reef keepers
 

I actually have something like that for information...for my final class in the small business program at Mount Royal we have to do this super crazy business plan, mine was like 80 pages on aquarium maintenance which is what I am doing now.

I used stats from Pijac Canada which were a little bit old, combined with the fact that in the 8 years that Big al's Calgary was there, they had over 100000 customers for FW and SW. I believe I used a 10 % rate of consumers leaving the hobby and a 15 % rate of them entering based on yearly growth. I will check my business plan, and maybe email you the part on it...

Thats a good location for me, Im always around their. :lol:
Hopefully the pricing will be competitive.

Haha...my thoughts exactly.

GREAT another store to hit on the day long excursion to the north. The old location was so convienient.

Thanks Nate, I would be intersted to see the figures.

I would imagine there must be a decent customer base, considering the amount of stores in Calgary that do salt water, especially since two of them are salt water only.

But then again when you consider the cost of equipment for reef tanks and the cost of livestock alone, you would need to sell a lot less to make make the same amount of reveune as compared to selling guppies and goldfish bowls.

however....
 

guppies and goldfish bowls are however where the money is at...

like I said, you would not believe how low the markup has gotten particularly in the Calgary marketplace.

and greg, my numbers do not differentate between fresh and salt customers...I used revenues/average selling price of fish to determine a % of customers that may be saltwater, and may be freshwater.

Overall, the entire thing, as a business plan usually is, was just a big manipulation of numbers.

Nate

Now all Calgary needs are some of the quality corals that you see on the American websites.

Calgary won't pay for all the quality corals you see on American websites.

Who's interested in some $600 Japanese Brains? I'll bring them in on prepaid orders :D

On a slightly related note. A friend of mine was at pisces this last w/e and he said that he thinks that they are renovating the old saltwater area. So who knows maybe they decided to get back into the salt. Purely a rumor though. So maybe more competition.

It doesn't have to be the big out to lunch $$$$ corals, but just some different colours. For the most part you just see the same old same old everywhere in Calgary.

I would also imagine if people are willing to drop over $2,000 on a BK skimmer they would be interested in a $600 brain :p

Unfortunately, no. I'm one of those people who has no problem dropping big money on skimmers or other equipment, but a $600 brain is completely ridiculous :P See, the thing about equipment is that it won't get sick, have a butterfly eat it, bleach/change color on me or die.

Anyway, let's see what the fall season brings. Keep your eyes on my forum over the next couple of weeks Greg :D

Seems to me fall is a good time for neat stuff to come into the stores .. :)

Actually, nix what I said about two weeks. Let's talk, hmm, this Sunday :D

What have you got coming?... and if its $600 I'm going to thumb my nose at you :p

Heh, come in Greg, it'll be worth your while.

A bit of a teaser: Hand picked corals...

I'm with you on that point, i can't stand driving to the north for a look at what just came in.

We are glad to hear that the Calgary franchisee finally found a new location. That city is growing in leaps and bounds!
We love Calgary!:biggrin:

Big Al's BC

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Can I scrub tanks on weekends to pay for one Albert?:lol:

Seriously though, what information on Calgary's population would lead any fish vendor to believe that having another store open up in the noth east would be more benificial than the south end? Are there more people in the north east that keeps aquariums?

I'm glad to have more competition and selection I guess. But its getting to the point where there are so many stores up there that I haven't even been to all of them? I don't even know where Red coral or Ocean's is!

I have to drive almost an hour (well 40 mins) to get to these stores...quit your belly aching over driving from the south to the north :)

Never been to Red coral, but oceans is a couple blocks further west of Wais...or Peters drive in...mmm rootbeer shake

Depending on traffic it can take 30-40 mins to get up to the north stores for someone like tony who is in the deep south without direct access to the deerfoot. That's my only saving grace is that I can hop right on the DF and get up north but even at that it still takes me 20+ minutes to get to any of the stores in this city.

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From Cranston it takes about .5 hours to Wai's and Golds. The NW stores are just out of the question for me though.

When I was there last weekend it took me 45 minutes to get up north, and that is a lot of time and gas. Even with the Deer Foot there are now more drivers on the road then when I lived there, and there is so much construction that it almost negates the benifits of having a highway.

Elite was the simplest to get to, but still a 15-20 minute drive for me. I'm with you Danny, its just to far, and it makes many NW and NE stores inaccessible.

Yeah, but, you live in Didsbury. :p When you choose to shop in a different city, you take on the choice that it will take an hour or whatever in each direction to get there.

If there was some decent spread to the stores, then it would be a matter of "I could do this store one day, a couple days later, try another" and so on. But the fact is now I'd have to make a day trip out of it, and frankly, the selection IN the stores on any given day is usually disappointing unless you luck out and come in on a day right after they landed a shipment. So it's hardly worth your while to do so unless you have advance knowledge of what's in stock on a given day. And well, nobody posts that info, so you gamble.

I haven't been to Red Coral yet either. That store is seriously an hour's drive in one direction assuming traffic is GOOD. The traffic in the city and the road layout is horrid. The roads were fine when we were a city of 300,000. Now that we're a million plus and using the SAME roads, it's a little different. (Thank you Al, for making the 90's a "Let's do nothing!" decade. And that money the feds gave you for infrastructure, I can't thank you enough - not a day goes by where I don't notice that the luxury boxes at the Saddledome don't make my day just a little bit brighter! :lol: Whee!)

Bellyaching? Sure, I guess I am. I feel it's a bit of a legitimate complaint though. I feel there decent room to open a store in the south. I'm sure Big Al's location will serve them well. I just wish they would have picked a location closer to me. :) Don't we all feel this way once in a while though?