Glow Fish

[matthewlee1959]

I agree about the profit motive, but see it from the opposite end.  To hire the person I'm talking about would be expensive and most stores see labor as a commodity.  What they don't understand is the customer loyalty they would build and the ongoing profit they would see once the customer is hooked on the hobby.  (Sorry about the unintended pun.)  If your fish person also was knowledgeable about small mammals profits for the store would go even higher.  The opposite can also be true, my daughter and I were in a chain store and every tank had dead and dying fish.  We talked after leaving and decided we might buy our tank, substrate, ornaments and other hardware, but not our fish from that store.  While it was a busy day, if people who talked as if they knew something about fish couldn't maintain the tanks I don't know that I would trust what was still living.

 

[GetItSahn]

 

I realize that if you want to go all out it can be very expensive, but you can start on the cheap and if it's something the family enjoys they can upgrade a little at a time.  I don't see the money as the big issue as much as the time required to cycle an unplanted tank.  A month with a tank and no fish is hard especially when you have kids wanting to buy fish.  I realize opinion is divided on how soon to add fish to an planted aquarium, but what if every pet store, or pet department had a one of their 10 gallon kits set up as a planted aquarium with a Betta and a small school of another variety?  I have some sales experience and my instincts tell me that a knowledgeable person on staff who could tell people how to have a tank like the demonstration set up would have no trouble selling fish with all the trappings whether they were the tetra variety of GloFish or something else.

Well look at it like this, people want things to be easy waiting a month to cycle a tank, and get fish. Im sure that many wont go through it,another thing is that the stores are able to sell alot of fish because they disregard tank size. An example of this would be all fish in general, most stores dont realize the correct tank sizes for fish, or do but know that they'd sell more if they tell the buyer "you could put anything in that tank",because of as i said Profit. Im not saying a small LFS store couldnt open up to be like that, But a major fish/pet store doing so, i couldnt see it.
 

I agree, It's alot easier to convince someone to buy a 5 buck fish bowl for a single betta than an entire 5-15 gallon setup. Chains are about quick sells whether they're appropriate for the animals or not.