What makes a great LFS???????

ok as a follow on from the lfs vrs superstore post an interesting question would be what in fishkeepers opinions makes a lfs great:blink:

Good condition premises tanks ect
Some healthy stock to buy ect might be nice:)
Reliable & willing to reward a little loyalty, make you want ot go there again.
And then expert and friendly


That pretty much does it for me.

1. good owner/manager
2. friendly staff with manners and a knowledge of their subject/stock
3. good advice even if it costs a sale.
4. a good range of healthy specimens and popular products.
5. a willingness to order wanted items and then to phone customer when available.
6. attractive display.

in my opinion the shop that fits these criteria best is fintastics as dmitri and liam are expert fishkeepers and are always pleasent and helpful. i have known these lads for years and hold them in high regard. they are aquarists and have their own pet fish and tanks at home. they know a good fish when they see one and always try to stock the best available fish and if they can't answer a particular question they will take the trouble to ring someone who can possibly supply the answer or solution.

there are other good shops around as well but fintastics are my favoured shop and i regularly reccommend them to my friends.

i have to agree with derek there fintastic is my local fish shop and im down there regularly there advice is second to none very help full think there helping me with my hunt for a female black calcus

I know what you mean, the lads in Fintastic are fantastic dealt with them a few times myself (poor dimitri even had to strip down a show tank for fish i wanted!!! which i totally appreciated) but also i have to mention Peter in Aquapaws who has helped me no end i will nearly have all my wish list on friday... Cyathopharynx foai Moliro , Enantiopus melanogenys Utinta, Lamprologus similis and he also has Altums coming in for me the following week, love it

So what makes a good lfs? It would have to begin with the owner and his/her staff. If the shop is strong in that regard then things generaly fall into place. I once walked into my lfs when the owner himself was training in a new member of staff on the water changes and while the new guy was doing it the owner was bouncing questions off him about ph, temperature etc. Then someone walked in and was looking at co2 systems and the owner offered some assistance. The guy had a planted setup but it was doing fine without the unit so the owner advised him against purchasing something he didnt need and pointed him in the direction of the fert shelf.
My point here is the guy could have easily been persuaded to part with a heap of cash but instead after some decent advice walked out with what he NEEDED and not with what the owner may have wanted to see him leave with. I got the same treatment here when I first started and it turned out to be a worthwhile investment for them as I have since spent a mint in there, all because I wasnt taken for a mug as a noob and have been looked after ever since.

Jay

Simply, a Store that meets the customers needs and that has a genuine interest in the compatibility of his purchases. Staff that can give advice based on experience and is not afraid to refuse a sale to an Idiot, ie, can I have a Nemo Fish as a friend for my Goldfish.


Kev.

It is really great there are people so helpful working at some of these lfs.

I at the end of the day want a healthy fish for a fair price.

All else is a secondary requirement. From the point that little guy is in the bag and is not sick ect. I am happy and it's on me to make it wrk out from there on.

Met a few with the gift of the gab, but no experts, some nice but barely competent.

Best kind usually quiet expert that will not rush over to you but is rather busy cleaning tanks or setting up new display ones ect, much more reassuring when you enter a shop to see that, always busy but will give you 100% attention when approached for assistance.

Mark

just reading back through this topic it was great to read positive comments about the better shops rather than complaints about the bad ones.
in my view this is the best way for forum users to positively influence shop service re quality and fairness.

Fintastic tick all the boxes for me, the guys there consistantly go the extra mile, from when i was ordering my tank and wanting to know what bits to get with it, which i have to say i bought online and not in the shop, they still guided me in the right direction and put up with my constant badgering for more information.
When it came to setting up the tank Dave, the owner, came out to my house and spent the evening with me getting it right, he also returned several weeks later to give me a hand with my first water change, you can't put a price and this kind of service, especially since i hadn't even bought a fish at this stage and never felt obliged that i had to either.
Dimitri and guys are a wealth of knowledge, the shop is a friendly and welcoming place.

If you haven't been there is its well worth a visit

Thanks guys for all the help its much appreciated

Cheers
Danny

Mmmmm,
As has been said earlier, when a lfs (or more usually, lps) downsells, that tends to impress me. What impresses me nearly as much is when they admit their limitations, i.e. rather than bullshit about something, just come straight out and say, "sorry, we have little or no experience of that".
Obviously, healthy fish are a pre-requisite.
I actually appreciate a sign on a tank with "not for sale- protozin day1236" being ticked off stuck in big letters in front of the tank, etc. Then you know they are not trying to hide anything (and to definitely quarantiene for longer afterwards when you get the fish home!).
I don't mind paying well for good, healthy livestock, sustainably caught is a DEFINITE plus (SPONSORS PLEASE NOTE AND ADVISE!!) (inbred is a definite minus, b.t.w.) but I tend to get upset at paying twice the sterling rate for ragged, snail-infested plants, or accessories that are 2.5 times the price of someone 4 miles away, or 4 times the uk price!

What seems to be sorely lacking in Dublin is a proper plant specialist (not just one brand label!)


(or a tetra specialist! Glowlights, embers, hatchets etc NEED plants they can hide under. This can be floaters (a plastic lilly leaf will do) or something half way down like an Echinodorus leaf. Then they colour up nicely and are not perpetually terrified of the bird that is going to eat them).


Anyway, just my thoughts!

T

John.... ......reasons for a good LFS: the toilets in AV? ummmm. Fair point, but I usually prefer to hold things until I get home (unless I think there are traffic jams on way home to Bray).

I'm not a fan of naming and shaming.....well not in public anyway.

I have a few favourite shops, and each one I use for different reason.

I'm mature and experienced enough to not slap a shop simply because it has a few tanks of white spot or the odd dead fish....although I really think that shops should have a quaranteen section for new arrivals.

I'm not a total fan of centralsed water systems, even though there are some major advantages to them.

I'm not impressed by the 'supermarket clean' system set-up if the water and state of the fish is actually rubbish. Crap on a silver platter is still Crap. SO: a makeshift tank system is fine so long as the important stuff (livestock) is looked after.

SO: to the positives, a great LFS should:
a) have a good selection of good quality fish (rememering they don't have be always the 'highest' quality).

b) give options with bread-n-butter fish and a reasonable, but no need for stupdily large, range of the more unusual fish. Not only is that good for business, it is good for the fish keeping community to avoid snobbery and splits within the community.

c) Price...realistically priced. Maybe an opportunity for 'regulars' to get a few deals is not a bad idea....again, good for business, and good for the aquarist community.

d) Quality water system.....but, here is a caveat, not one which will be difficult for the keeper to transfer fish from to. eg a water system piped with antibiotics or fish unnecessarily kept in specialised water conditions (eg Discus, especially). Obviously, the water has to be a certain quality if the fish demands it (eg marines etc etc).

e) They should give a check of the tanks at opening times..and randomly through the day...remove the 20 dead plecos lads sucked into the filter intake!!

f) Have good selection of dry good.......and know your customers needs. For example, if they sell Marine fish, then they should stock rudimentary marine dry goods (salts, hygrometers, medications) and not leave their fish-customers high and dry.

g) Stock at least some rudimentary books on fish-keeping (and not just big photo albums). The books should have a price range that gives a starter an good guide without having to pay a fortune.

g) Staff......oh the big one....Staff.
The ideal world should have friendly staff, who can deal with humans, and have a great deal of knowledge.
The staff should be able to identify whom is starting out in the keeping world, and recommend an appropriate set-up (if asked) for that person (rather than the usual....whoops, out of the hat pops 'mollies', 'platies' as good starter fish.......that really just shows ignorance and perpetuates myths).
Snobbery should not exist in Staff....but how can you stop humans being humans.
AND a shop should allow a Staff members personality shine rather than squeezing them into a salesman badge.

We, as fish keepers, have to allow for the fact that some staff are starting out in the business (and may be new to fish keeping themselves). The shop owners should encourage the new staff to develope their skills and knowledge.

and I'll stop there (else every shop I know will ban me).

ian (I shouldn't use my real name should I )

I also must comment on the sponsors updating there sites.as regards
to stocking goods ect, I am fed up with either having to phone around to find certain items if you can get through. and as john said travelig from the midlands to Dublin is simply stupid to find very limited stock!!!!!1 no wonder we order from the U.K but at least we can see before hand if they have the goods in stock before we order,

JohnH wrote:

Of course you should, some time back Tom, and before him Fr Sean, advocated we should all use our recognisable names. I agree with that 100%.

I just want to justify my comment about toilets - if you've driven for the best part of 2-1/2 hours to reach somewhere - and then are faced with a similar, if not longer trip back then a toilet is a MUST!!! N. Tipp is a little further away than Bray.

(In fact, in the words of the old WW1 song - "It's A Long Way To ........." )(Even though the Tipperary in the tune was actually a 'place of ill repute' near to Leicester Square in London.

:o)

John

John, way back when I would travel long distances to Aquatic Shows (Doncaster, Manchester) and to aquatic shops in the UK (I lived in the Midlands of england).
One of the most important thing that I would put at the top of my list for bothering to visit is "do they have any decent usable bogs?" If the answer was NO, then they quite simply lost my custom.

Mind you, I have also used the toilet in AV. Useful if one is desparate, but not a reason to visit the shop (not like the superb ones they have in Belfast train station last time I was up....worth visiting just for the plushess of the toilets).

ian

I would agree with a vast majority of the points expressed on this topic & I certainly agree that maybe we should be looking at the positives & not always the negatives, (the glass being half full rather than being half empty), however I think that shops that continuously have dirty tanks, dead fish, highly inflated prices & staff that give out bad advice in order to make a quick buck should be highlightd in some way.

I am in no way advocating naming these shops on the forum (its against the rules) but as with previous posts maybe the way to do this is promote the good guys & it will soon become apparent who the bad guys are.

There are a core of really good shops with decent people running them, unfortunately there are just not enough & we need more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very interesting topic. Being from Dundalk There are very few decent lfs near me. I would go as far as to say within a 50 mile radius. Having no car makes the matter worse, thankfully i have an obliging dad.

About 3 months ago i was going on a fish run, i decided to go north of the boarder in hope of better prices and i was very happy with my choice! Grosvenor Tropicals in lisburn, just south of Belfast. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get to due to road works and about 1 hour return and a good hour browsing the shop.So as was mentioned, the use of toilets was greatly appreciated! Excellent supply of fresh and salt water fish, coral and plants. Upstairs is all tanks with a few reptiles also.

Friendly staff who really know their stuff, i was looking for the new fluval u4 which they had in store and i was advised against it for my size tank, and was told to stick with the filter i have already. At the cost of 40 sterling he gave what he thought to be the best advice for my situation. I was looking for tiger barbs and was asked of my current stock list and advised to keep them in groups of 6 or more to reduce aggression which i knew, but its nice to have someone advise you whats right and not assume you know about the fish just because your buying it.

The only problem is they don't take euro, but sterling is a good price now and after paying 85p for tiger barbs (4.50 EACH in my lfs) and 3 pound each per corydoras along with some excellent wood priced at about 12 pound, 25 pound was enough to well kit out my rio 180.

On their site they talk about quarantine for a minimum of 2 weeks which really shows in their stock. The fish were even put in a styrofoam box for the trip home without me having to ask. I can't wait till i get up again

Grosvenor is well worth the trip, My son lives just round the corner from it. so it's easy to get him to buy stuff and send it down by courier which is atill far cheaper than An Post!!!!!! The Euro is a complete rip off and no way reflects Sterling prices, you can save obout 35 to 40 euro on every hundred. even more with large orders. I have used Grosvenor since I came over here 10 years ago when they had the old shop, and last year they even honoured 6 year old gift vouchers,

Am no expert but I have been to about 6 shops around the Dublin area, most impressed with the lads in Fintastic Aquatics, knowledgeable staff (wink wink nudge nudge, Liam & Dimitri always take time to help out and actually make it a pleasure visiting. I did visit another Dublin store as I was just getting involved in the hobby (Sunday drive kinda thing) and witnessed the owner of a store take the pi$$ out of a customer cos he didnt know the species name of a fish, owner thought this was funny (as he played it up to the other customers), the said customer was embarassed as hell and I just looked on in shock thinking to myself 'Christ business must be a booming if you can threat customers like this or most likely B, 'you are a total d1ck. (sorry for the rant, but I felt for the customer that day),
for me being a noob/intermediate fishaholic I would say helpful staff for the learning curve rather than some kid thats just clocking in the hours. After that its good health stock in decent tanks, price is 3rd place,

Regards,

good to see the positive responses here to my initial post, while not wanting to cause waves i think we should ALL name the Great Local Fish Stores because in my opinion they deserve it... my 3 top fish stores i name because of great stock, great knowledge, great fish health and genuine interest in helping those who are in the hobby, my top 3 are in no particular order
Aquapaws Aquatics,
Fintastic Aquatics,
Seahorse aquariums,
love these guys!!!!!

to keep with forum rules i will not slag off any of the shops i think are crap... but then again i will NEVER go to those again

My favourite shops would have to be 1. Aquatic-village only been to this place a few times but it has a great selection of fish, i think i read somewhere they have 70,000 litres of water .2. Fintastic aquatics are pretty good very helpful and great selection of plants.3 Kinsealy petstore are good to there pretty close to me and have a good selection. I also like the petstop in blanchardstown.