What would the perfect lfs have?

travis89

travis89

Active Member
Originally Posted by Reefstar22
If they had the BEST lifestock, the product was QT'd for 3 weeks before it was placed for sale... corals were in the correct light, and have already been adjusted to the proper light...If i knew the corals were being dipped ...(parasites) ...and the sales people were knowledgeable.
You just described my LFS very well, except they qt for 4 weeks.
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
thanks for the input reef star 22 i have been in retail sales for about 9 years now, and am a firm beleiver in customer service, thats the only way to build a dynasty, if you help someone out and they have a good experience they may only tell 3 poeple,. but if they have a bad experience they will tell 10 people
 
travis89

travis89

Active Member
Originally Posted by Fishgeek01
i was actually thinking of doing internet sales as well, how do you guys feel about that
That could be good for people who can't actually drive to the store but would like to buy things from you, or for people who are just lazy and don't want to drive out there.
 
rs1831

rs1831

Active Member
Originally Posted by Fishgeek01
i was actually thinking of doing internet sales as well, how do you guys feel about that
I think thats a great idea. The more ways that you can market and sell your items the better. Try making a deal with a local pizza delivery business and see if they will put flyer's on there delivery boxes. I'm a GM of a local business and we make deals with a lot of the local businesses.
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
i was thinking local delivery maybe, because to ship local is dumb, but outside of like 25 miles having to do shipping... what do you think, at the minimum i was going to have a maintanence and water delivery deal for my customers
 
fishieness

fishieness

Active Member
that is a great idea
one of my fav LFSs doesnt have the niceslt live stock of all time. some acros are browned out.... ect. but the owner is a great guy who loves to talk to you. also, in the back he has a few huge prop systems. so he will buy colonies and such and grow them out and then make some frags or smaller colonies off of that. but instead of selling each frag for a lot, he sells them for about what wholesale is. i bought a pink milli there a few weeks ago. there were a lot of branches and it is probably a good 4" ball for 80 bucks. but he took some frags off of that because it was even larger and was selling 2" frags for 12 bucks!!! another LFS near me tried selling me a 2" pink milli frag for 60!!!

so frags and aquacultured thigns are a huge plus, but dont sell them for an arm and a leg esspecialy if they didnt cost you anything to get.
also, support your local reef clubs. that is pretty much a garentee to get you more business.
and internet sales are a great idea!
are you goign to give SWF people a discount on that too?
lol
 
travis89

travis89

Active Member
Originally Posted by Fishgeek01
i was thinking local delivery maybe, because to ship local is dumb, but outside of like 25 miles having to do shipping... what do you think, at the minimum i was going to have a maintanence and water delivery deal for my customers
That sounds good, especially the water delivery, it would make things a lot easier.
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
Originally Posted by fishieness
that is a great idea
one of my fav LFSs doesnt have the niceslt live stock of all time. some acros are browned out.... ect. but the owner is a great guy who loves to talk to you. also, in the back he has a few huge prop systems. so he will buy colonies and such and grow them out and then make some frags or smaller colonies off of that. but instead of selling each frag for a lot, he sells them for about what wholesale is. i bought a pink milli there a few weeks ago. there were a lot of branches and it is probably a good 4" ball for 80 bucks. but he took some frags off of that because it was even larger and was selling 2" frags for 12 bucks!!! another LFS near me tried selling me a 2" pink milli frag for 60!!!

so frags and aquacultured thigns are a huge plus, but dont sell them for an arm and a leg esspecialy if they didnt cost you anything to get.
also, support your local reef clubs. that is pretty much a garentee to get you more business.
and internet sales are a great idea!
are you goign to give SWF people a discount on that too?
lol
the discount will probably be like 10%, just to get people from on here to help, sorry swf people hope this isn't a conflict of interests, and i have a local lfs that sells frags for 14.99, i was think 12.99 sounded better anyways... plus it can be more cost effective to sell that way for the supplier and the customer
 
rustyj

rustyj

Member
You should brag about having aquacultured products, not only are they hardier (if thats a real word) they are cheaper, better looking with the right strands. Take a look at the GARF.ORG web site if you havent already, they have been researching and publishing results on coral propogation since the 1970's. They are a non profit looking to support coral propogation through education and products and research. I learned loads from them. I have a 55 gal tank that has never had a real filter or biomedia used in it. It is simply 4 inches of live sand substrate and a protein skimmer with two power heads and a light on a timer. No fancey filters, bioballs and such, and it is doing incredibly well. Also I have my 135 gal reef tank with about 40 lbs of lr and hang on filters (no biowheels) 1in sand plenum and a skimmer and that is it. I do use macro algae for nutrient uptake in both tanks and in the reef tank it serves as munch for some of the fish. If the cost of entry is high than you will not have alot of people getting into the hobby, if the cost and time to maintain a tank is to high than you wont have people stay in the hobby, make the cost of entry reasonable and the maintainence reasonable than you will have a thriving hobby in your area. I am willing to bet you could go down one street and find at least two old fish tanks in someones basement or garage.
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
agreed thank you RustyJ i like the idea of aquacultured items as opposed to wild caught anyways, better for everyone concerned, also the cost is one of the driving factors that keeps people out of the trade, i agree there, also i hear on a regular basis well doesnt it take a lot of time, not if you keep up in my opinion, maybe 10 min a night in my personal tanks, and then its all about staring into my ocean, usually about 2 hours a day, ha ha ha my wife even gets jealous of the old tank...
 
whitey_028

whitey_028

Member
hrmm wish someone would go into the lighting business and lower the prices of these reef lighting systems, I am sick of retroing everything to save costs...
 
whitey_028

whitey_028

Member
Originally Posted by Fishgeek01
what if you didnt have to install the retro kit yourself? what if it could be done for you
custom built canopies with lighting setups could be a great business...
 
hagfish

hagfish

Active Member
Some important points to me that may be more subtle, but important none the less...
- Put prices on everything and make it easy to figure out what price goes with what creature. We have a few LFS here that don't put prices up. It's pretty annoying getting quoted totally random prices that you can tell they make up on the spot. Especially when they end up being outrageous.
- Keep the tanks sparkling clean. Everything looks much better when the glass is invisible and there's no algae anywhere.
- Have lots of frags available. Not everyone wants to drop $100 every time they go to a LFS.
- Be sure to stock a variety and change it up frequently. There are some stores nearby that you just don't know what you might find and that makes the trip interesting even if nothing is bought. But don't get things that can't be kept alive in captivity.
- If I can buy a light for $100 online, I'm not buying it for $350 at the LFS. Someone will. Most won't. Volume means customers are coming in the door and stock is going out the door.
One thing you can do is assuming your employees have there own tanks is send corals to their houses and use there systems as propogation systems for the store. Frag the colonies once every month or two.
A friend of mine used to set up and maintain tanks for a living. The customer owned all the equipment, but he could put whatever he wanted in the tanks (it was basically his livestock and they rented it). This is another way that you could get mass propogation and a place to store it all without adding cost to you (and actually making money on it). I think this could be huge. Some may not like you having access to the livestock though.
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
thanks for the input hagfish, i agree with what you are saying, and the frag idea reduces some of the capital needed to do large scale fragging, and you are garunteed the quality of the system when you are maintaining it yourself...
 
defect808

defect808

Member
Living in hawaii, I have to drive 100+ miles to get to any kind of LFS and then i get there and the place sucks. We cant get coral or any kind of that stuff here. So id drive 100 miles. I'd love to see aquarium that the owners have kept up in their store, their own personal aquarium. Friendly staff is a must =). All of these things have probally already been mentioned tho =)
Good luck
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
might be a dumb question for you defect808, but i don't know much about hawaii, can you drive 100 miles anywhere in hawaii, i didn't know the islands were that big...
 
ninjamini

ninjamini

Active Member
Price-tags that show a pic of that type of fish with an aggression scale (peaceful, bold, aggressive), diet, max size they grow to, and recommended tank size.
Price-tags that show a pic of that type of coral with an aggression scale (peaceful, bold, aggressive), diet, lighting requirements, and recommended distance to next coral.
How about a reference book that tells you all you want to know about that specific coral or fish. Pictures of the stages of a cycle. Pics of tank issues, mantis, aspasia, hair algae...
A learning center showing differing types of tank setups. hang on filter, wet dry, refuge filterless.
 
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