I hate when that happens. Do you guys remember how Kordon's Rid-Ich used
to be the very best stuff available? Now it hardly works-in-all. GRRRR!
> As for the fish, properly managed you should be able to make a profit on fish alone.
> Granted there are larger profits to be made on the supplies. Here in the SE
> Wisconsin area, we have several really good independent fish stores, not to mention
> several good independent pet stores. The best of these, fish only places, makes most
> of his money off of the fish.
>
> Ty
>
I was up there last week, and despite all the Petcos around, I was
really impressed by the number of indies. I saw one, Rivers and Reefs,
in Fon-Du-Lac, that looked pretty cool from outside, but it was closed
so I couldn't get in. It looked to be doing allright, though.
When I ran my store, I thought that I could get by on primarily fish
sales. I was wrong. The competition soon found it's fish sales slumping,
so they started practically giving them away, still making plenty of
money on supplies and non-fish stuff.
My fish were fully cleansed and conditioned before sale, and their
prices were only 15 cents ( fresh) to a dollar ( salt ) more than the
other guys. However, the customers would go to the other guys to buy
some gadget, and then get sucked into an offer they couldn't refuse,
like 6 for a dollar neons or whatever. Those fish would then bring
disease and havoc to their tanks, and they'd come crying to me to fix
them. I would fix them, and then they'd go right back and do it again!
It drove me nuts.
You see, the problem is that the profit MARGIN is very high on fish, but
low on everything else. Well managed fish stocks with low mortality can
be very profitable if the sales are brisk. The other guys know this, and
while their total sales volume may be high from supplies and nonfish
stuff, they still want to take as much live fish sales as they can, and
will stop-in-nothing to do it.
A huge store that sold mostly livestock could in theory make a lot of
profit, but it would also require being able to keep the customers away
from the other guys.
Well, I'll see ya'll. I'm going collecting.
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