peoples thoughts and opinions on calgary lfs???

[Reef_Geek]

Originally Posted by reefwars

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!!

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.