Jeremy180 said:
I will go out on a limb here.
I think there should be no marketing strategy EG buy 5 get 1 free or any of that nonsense. I think fish are too cheap and as a result people dont care as much about them, They become disposable, If I had it my way a Guppies would cost $70 each and you would have to buy at least 3, Bettas would cost $100 each and you would have to prove you can house the fish correctly. Doing it this way would reduce if not cut out impulse buying. People would think twice about fish care if they had to lay a $100 bill on the counter for just 1 fish.
While prices like this would cut out impulse buying, it would also cut out a lot of hobbyists, myself included.
The main reason I'll never even consider going saltwater is I just plain can't afford it
I'm finding that a lot of the high end or rarer fresh water are more expensive than most of the salt water fish now. I know the initial outlay for saltwater and ongoing maintenance is more expensive, but the fish themselves are becoming a more comparable price in
some regards.
Back to the overall question being asked, I don't think there's an easy answer unless you're selling the person a tank as well. When you sell a tank it should perhaps come with a leaflet explaining the stocking options for that tank. Get a 25 litre and you're not going to be able to keep clown loach in it but I bet you someone has tried it.
The problem with fish keeping is that there's so many pretty fish you want to keep! This is why many of us have multiple tanks. We all know that there's differing compatibilities between fish, and that's not just down to how many should be in a shoal. Someone new to the hobby will most likely not realise this and just want to have one barb, one gourami, a pleco, a red tail shark, a rainbow shark, some tetra and before you know it they're overstocked with fish that will just not work in the same environment.
How many people that are new to the hobby will research exactly what pH the fish they want need? They probably don't know which pH they have, let alone what will work for the fish.
The issue is with lack of information in stores. If you're lucky you get someone in there who really has a passion for the fish and knows their requirements. To others it's just a job they may not really like. If I ran a fish store I'd have details next to every tank of the requirements for the fish. Temp ranges, pH and keep tanks of fish next to tanks of other compatible fish so it's clearer to people what works with what in any way I could.
Truth is different fish shops are run differently in the same county, let alone how differently they're run across the world. I do think that if a fish needs to be kept in a shoal of six minimum then they should be sold as such. I see fish priced at £2 , £3.50 for two or say £7 for four - never, ever a price for half a dozen, but as has been mentioned, a price can usually be negotiated.
Sadly people will go out and buy a dog without knowing how to look after it, which is why I have three rescues. I know for a fact the youngest was too much to handle for the people that got a cute puppy. I think people will just go out and get what they want and not consider the consequences and we see this in our hobby. All we can do is try to impart some knowledge and help those that have made mistakes so they learn. I know I've made mistakes and learnt from them, no one is perfect.
I would like to see better education from fish shops and I think better trained staff and leaflets are probably the best way to go about it, I'm not sure changing the marketing is the way to get better end results. The objective of marketing after all is to increase sales and profitability for a company - this would best be achieved by selling after care products for the fish rather than focusing purely on the fish sales themselves.
