albano
2500 Club Member
Don’t do it!… not trying to rain on your parade, but the nicest thing that I can say is don’t quit your day job!
Trying to make a living, selling fish and coral will probably make you leave/hate the hobby.
Do you leave your local fish store disappointed? Why is that?
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- Thread starter revhtree
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Trying to make a living, selling fish and coral will probably make you leave/hate the hobby.
cancun
Valuable Member
I am lucky to have 3 great stores within 45 min of my house, and a mediocre one 20 min from my house. No stores that I go to.....I even know the owners and employees very well.....will refund your money for a deceased specimen. They are reasonable on a case by case basis though.
There are to many variables they have to consider like your husbandry etc.. Also they are in business to make money. Fish store owners usually do it because they are passionate about the hobby,, not to become rich.
On occasion if something happens to the specimen out of my control, I would get half my money back, or a replacement. That is rare that I ask that of the LFS though. In saltwater you buy at your own risk unfortunately. I NEVER buy online, even corals, I like to see what I am getting.
If you have been in this hobby long enough we have all lost plenty of money. That's the unfortunate part in this hobby. IMO I think we should spend more time educating new hobbyists, so maybe they won't make the same mistakes we did. Not lecturing them or be condescending, but truly helping them understand husbandry, chemistry, and everything else. Maybe that will help prevent unnecessary losses. Just my two cents!
There are to many variables they have to consider like your husbandry etc.. Also they are in business to make money. Fish store owners usually do it because they are passionate about the hobby,, not to become rich.
On occasion if something happens to the specimen out of my control, I would get half my money back, or a replacement. That is rare that I ask that of the LFS though. In saltwater you buy at your own risk unfortunately. I NEVER buy online, even corals, I like to see what I am getting.
If you have been in this hobby long enough we have all lost plenty of money. That's the unfortunate part in this hobby. IMO I think we should spend more time educating new hobbyists, so maybe they won't make the same mistakes we did. Not lecturing them or be condescending, but truly helping them understand husbandry, chemistry, and everything else. Maybe that will help prevent unnecessary losses. Just my two cents!
jskidds2294
Community Member
It’s a side hustle we both have other main sources of income. But I already breed fish as a hobby and she is a website designer in her free time so it’s a no brainer. We just wanna make money off it and I’m tired of terrible customer service here in central Florida. Only way it will take over as our main source of income is if it over takes both our other incomes. Then we will focus on it but not before that.
BradB
Well-Known Member
Usually disappointed. Prices are so much higher than they were before COVID. LFS prices have always been higher than online. If a $30 fish in person is online at $20, it is worth $10 to see it in person. But now the same fish is $120 in store and $80 online, and $40 is a lot of money - especially when free shipping has been around $150 both before and after COVID.
jskidds2294
Community Member
Plus companies like LiveAquaria have realistic refund policies if fish die in the first week since with most diseases it takes weeks from catching it to kill the fish meaning it came from the store. A lot of LFS’s have no refund policy and it’s sickening and super anti consumer when on top of that they have no quarantine. Then they have the balls to charge an extra 20%-40% because of retail space overhead like it’s our fault they made bad life decisions like opening a physical store when online has been around for a good 2 decades.
DavidinGA
Active Member
My local store is way overpriced and runs a lot of copper masking every disease. I can buy from saltwaterfish for less and get 15-day refund no questions asked. Zero reasons for me to buy from my local store.
Bucs20fan
Valuable Member
I think this all has alot to do with the situation the world is in honestly. LFS bring in easy to sell fish, clowns, damsels, cleaner shrimp, you know the stuff everyone wants and the inverts for us all to replace. Occasionally they bring in nicer things like a gem tang they want 900 dollars for or a few copperbands for people to buy and kill. But they have been forced to bring in cheap run of the mill fish we can find at petco for half the price if we wanted to because they can absorb the die off costs better. Shipping and freight are ever increasing and then a lyretail anthias is all of a sudden 55 freakin dollars, and a standard damsel is 25 dollars. They like to sell em to new customers and of course they dont have the time to quarantine these fish so they run their salinity at 1.019....
Its not as much as a niche hobby anymore and theyve had to adapt to that unfortunately. All about selling a 30 g bio-cube to some parents with some Nemo's in it. Versus alot of us looking for something like special ordered lemon peel angel or any of the other sought after fish. And I believe its hitting us all in the guts right now. I too feel it here in South Carolina.
It also brings us joy when we find stuff and can tell each other about it, or we find that one mom and pop store that knows us by name. I seriously hope some change is coming in the next 6 months or so lol. Id hate to never be able to give my triggers a treat of emerald crabs bc they got to 20 bucks each haha. So thanks for listening to my rant bc it makes me mad I cant find cool stuff anymore locally.
Its not as much as a niche hobby anymore and theyve had to adapt to that unfortunately. All about selling a 30 g bio-cube to some parents with some Nemo's in it. Versus alot of us looking for something like special ordered lemon peel angel or any of the other sought after fish. And I believe its hitting us all in the guts right now. I too feel it here in South Carolina.
It also brings us joy when we find stuff and can tell each other about it, or we find that one mom and pop store that knows us by name. I seriously hope some change is coming in the next 6 months or so lol. Id hate to never be able to give my triggers a treat of emerald crabs bc they got to 20 bucks each haha. So thanks for listening to my rant bc it makes me mad I cant find cool stuff anymore locally.
Saltwaterfish.com still requires you to pay for the shipping on any fish they replace. And they will only give you store credit. They will also only replace it once, if your store credit fish also dies, you are out.
You can go to their other website, reefs4less.com, and order the same exact fish for a little cheaper usually. I always compare between the 2 and usually end up on reefs4less.com. Both websites are run by the same company. You do not get the 14 day return with this site, but you get them cheaper to start with.
Both have the same DOA policy.
jskidds2294
Community Member
If they don't have time to quarantine they don't have time for my business. Having no refund policy set in stone and having no quarantine procedure at the same time is a slap in the face of their customers. Almost every online retailer dose both of these things. I don't care if it hurts their income they chose to make a bad financial decision and open a physical retail fish store with overhead costs.
Bucs20fan
Valuable Member
Im absolutely in agreeance with you. Im not trying to make excuses for them by any means, its frustrating as anything. I believe they should cater to the customer as much as possible. Its just really disheartening seeing how things have shifted in the last 5 years even. I havent been to an LFS in about that long and just went "wow" about live stock. I go to one about 10 mins from my house and I love going in there, honestly the worst part of their store is the variety in livestock recently. Theyve got all the dried goods and foods I could ever want and they are always the same price as amazon and BRS which is great. I wish there was an answer for this kind thing in relation to our LFS's. At the end of the day I am just glad I have one to go to, just dont get to be a kid in a candy store feeling anymore.
vlangel
Seahorse whisperer
What I love about lfs is being able to see the animals in person and also knowing that they are not going to have to endure a shipping event. Having worked in one myself, I know what to look for in regards to health. I am blessed to have a choice of 3 pretty good ones, although each is about an hour from my house. Do they always have what I am looking for, of course not but in general I am happy with them.
jskidds2294
Community Member
Sorry it sounded like I was coming after you that wasn’t intention I was just making a statement on the subject you brought up. I understood from what you typed that you were thinking the same.
Bucs20fan
Valuable Member
No problem! I hate the cards most of us have been dealt depending on where we live. The hobby is as big as it has ever been, but its also dying off in some areas if that makes sense?
jskidds2294
Community Member
But they needed to be shipped to the retail space, then rebagged for you to bring home. So rather then the online retailer / wholesaler just sell to you directly your adding an extra step to the fish’s shipping. I do agree seeing in person is nice and I think more places should do what divers den dose of posting images of the specific fish for sale. It would be a nice middle ground.
vlangel
Seahorse whisperer
You are absolutely correct in that they had to be shipped to the lfs before I come to buy them. This is going to sound self serving but the lfs is the one taking the big shipping risk. If a weakened fish is shipped and then succumbs, it's under the lfs's watch. I have ordered fish online and have had some pretty dismal experiences with it. Even though the online supplier made things right financially, it was very hard on me watching the animals perish. I have had much better experiences with fish that I have bought at reputable lfs's.
jskidds2294
Community Member
Not to sound like we should all be endless money pits willing to take endless risks but the life of these living creatures is more important then us not wanting to take the risk on. And I can tell you that big box stores, and LFS’s buy in bulk and if they get weakened fish they don’t do everything to heal them. They try to keep them alive just long enough with a weakened amount of meds then make it your problem or in worse case wait for them to just die starving them then throw them out, some have even been caught doing this to live sick livestock.
If the fish are in transit for less time by getting shipped strait to you by the wholesale/online store then the weakened fish would be stronger still and have a higher chance of turning around for the end user with proper medication and care. And with online stores having better refund policy’s like you stated there isn’t much risk but emotional damage watching a fish possibly die. But at the end of the day it would drastically decrease the total dead or dying fish so I think the emotions of end users should be ignored for the life of the livestock.
Also if you treat every fish that comes in with a freshwater dip, a strong formalin 37% dip, a strong copper dip, and a strong methylene blue dip then keep them for two months in a tank with trace amounts of the 3 with weakly small siphoning‘s and a uv internal filter. I guarantee 95% of sick fish will turn around as long as they are able to swim and eat still.
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albano
2500 Club Member
Sounds like your future business plan is to ship fish directly to consumers from wholesalers/importers… exactly what most online sellers are already doing.
jskidds2294
Community Member
Only about 10% of my idea. I’ve been watching a lot of retailers for years and taking notes on what has and hasn’t worked and what seemed eneimic and what could be fleshed out more. Also have a few ideas from other industries in online retail that have worked well in other sectors that haven’t been introduced into the aquarium hobby much yet. Not gonna go into ton of detail yet my site is already mostly complete and I’m just waiting on a few things backend before I start. Could be 6 months or two years from now. Not my main source of income so not a big rush on my part.
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