PlanetCatfish.com

i could raise my quality 10 fold in my small store but anyone who spends a bit of money goes right to the net.

people go to the internet for selection as well as quality. The selection locally is unlikely to draw a lot of interest for me, because I like odd things. Most folks that shop online like odd things. most of the fish I see in my LFS are quality, but... LFS need to bring in bread and butter fish because those are the ones that make them the money. For some of the things that I spend good money on, I do go for quality but the likelyhood of getting those rarer, more expensive fish I do go to importers that I know have good stock.. if you brought in quality leopoldi rays for going rates then I'm sure I'd be interested. The big point is you can up quality but you're likely never going to get the folks that go online, because you're not going to have an immaculate quality good priced 16 inch tigrinus when they want one.

I would like to add to scott's post a bit. The lfs here in Cleveland hardly ever get the strange and unusual things. To Me those are the fish that really get me going. Yes i do religiously go 2 days a week on import days to see what comes in but still only go home most days with a few bags of black worms. the internet gives me the opprirunity to buy and sell those rare items that are never found in the store. i think the internet attracts clients of a different kind. we as a rule are the people who pay the bigger money for the fish we want. with additions of great websites like planetcatsh among others people from all over the world share information and knowledge about fish that are just not available in the hobby via lfs. I personnally have to drive almost 4 hours to get to a quality fish store. which myself and a couple of the local catfish guys go to on a regular basis. This guy has over 1500 tanks and specializes in catfish from south america and asia. This store gets more of my money in one stop than my lfs do all year. he does make it easy for me as well, a simple e-mail gets the weeks up to date list and i can order by internet and get fish that only he has in the United states. the lfs still has its place. this is how many people have broken into the hobby. there is always something that i forget or run out of that a quick trip can take care of. when the store has the strange and unusual come in i have a moto that i go by, BAG THE WHOLE TANK PLEASE, this has happened more than once. If you want the clientel to purchase like this just bring in something unusual now and then. when people see that they will keep coming back looking for those things, i know i always do. hope i haven't rambled to long.

Ken

jj Wrote:

i could raise my quality 10 fold in my small store but anyone who spends a bit of money goes right to the net.

Nothing is stopping you from getting a website and an Aquabid ID and selling fish online yourself.

Everyone in the fish industry knows (from shopkeepers to wholesalers), if the fish you have isn't what the people want, they aren't going to buy it. The only thing the internet does is reduce the overhead and increase the traffic (in the form of page views). This increased traffic is what sells fish online. Reduced overhead and economic pressure from competitors online drives the pricing.

jj,

I'd like to add something to this. Most of the fish that I look for, like the others that post here, are extremely rare in the trade. I can get a lot of "oddball" catfish at the local shops, but either sold them to the shops myself, or have worked with them in the past and not interested in them anymore. Assortment seems to be VERY regional and I can get the fish that I'm looking for by online dealers a lot faster than if I were to wait for them to show up here. There are still fish that I can't get.

As an example, I give every new dealer I start working with a list of 3 species: LDA03, L250, and L340. I have yet to have any takers on them. However, if they were to show up the check would be there in a heartbeat. People pay for that availability. Gold nuggets and goldies just don't get it done for a specialty shop.

Another point is that most LFS don't ship. I have seen some very nice selections around the country that would please most customers. The problem is that fish are being competed against locally. More often than not, shops get their fish from the same local wholesaler at the same price and then think they have something rare even though the shop down the street got the same thing out of the same delivery van.

In your original post, you mention "If you are ever in Tuscon". If you're going to be a local shop, that's where you need to concentrate your efforts. If you're looking to compete with online sales, it's time to start getting direct shipments from LA, Miami, or Brazil. It's just a fact of free enterprise that somebody out there is going to try to compete with prices by increasing the volume that they move. If I had a thousand zebras coming in every week, I could sell them for a buck over cost and make a decent living. It's just a matter of focusing on what you're trying to do.

Larry Vires