peoples thoughts and opinions on calgary lfs???

[Seriak]

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.

[kien]

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.

[Reef_Geek]

Originally Posted by kien

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).

[reefwars]

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.

[reefwars]

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......

[reefwars]

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??

[Reef_Geek]

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.

[reefwars]

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.

[Reef_Geek]

Originally Posted by reefwars

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.

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.

Originally Posted by kien

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.

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.

[kien]

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