Dr. Foster and Smith warehouse and website closure.

[Dan D]

There used to be protection against all monopolies federally. With the removal of most safeguards against that, with the Reagan era, the ability to stop them has been removed. The bean counters and corporate people now own your world. Campaign with your federal reps to combat this. Get on a first name basis with your house and senate reps both in your state and federally houses. You would be surprised at what you can accomplish,if your rep will listen of Course.

My rep is Tulsi Gabbard, she is for the people of my state and the US and she listens.

Just m h o.
Aloha

 

[Feet4Fish]

Maybe I am paranoid but it makes me worry for LA and DD. DD is on a short list of retailers I trust.

 

[jgvergo]

There used to be protection against all monopolies federally. With the removal of most safeguards against that, with the Reagan era, the ability to stop them has been removed. The bean counters and corporate people now own your world. Campaign with your federal reps to combat this. Get on a first name basis with your house and senate reps both in your state and federally houses. You would be surprised at what you can accomplish,if your rep will listen of Course.

My rep is Tulsi Gabbard, she is for the people of my state and the US and she listens.

Just m h o.
Aloha

I respectfully disagree. We are not facing a monopoly in the pet or aquarium industries. Not even close.

That being said, it surely hurts the 289 people who will have to find other work.

 

[doughboy]

I see they moved all the aquarium related products to liveaquaria site.
it's strange they will only keep the aquarium/fish side of the business, considering dogs/cats side of business is probably 10x bigger, maybe more like 50x bigger market.

 

[5altkreep]

@Ocean Lotion Try Ace Hardware in weston. They have a great selection, including LRS, Rods, and more.

 

[Livinlocal]

Have they though? I suppose one could infer or assume based on the announcement, but I have not seen definitively that the website will close - perhaps there was a further press release that I have not seen. Still makes no sense to me, particularly since the Petco website is just awful. Maybe the pet industry is bucking the trend in almost all others and there's massive growth in customers coming to their physical stores LOL ….. DFS website is still offering/accepting auto deliveries ….. which you'd think they'd suspend if the site were closing. We shall see I suppose.

I will see if I can find the link, but they already told all their employees that the online store and the warehouse will be closing with the exception of live aquaria. The way I found out about this was from one of the employees who posted it in a Facebook group I am a part of.

 

[shred5]

Maybe I am paranoid but it makes me worry for LA and DD. DD is on a short list of retailers I trust.

Well if they are keeping a chunk of employees and also moving products and equipment onto the LA web site and since the distribution center is next the Steven Point LA which is also divers den, I am guessing they will stay open.

I would bet they are keeping that warehouse open to ship dry goods.
There is also the retail store there.


This is all funny because DR F&S got so big by buying places up like Flying fish express.

 

[ReeferReefer]

Any good deals?

 

[jda]

IO boxes for $41 after 25% off with free delivery. Everything is 25% off.

Anybody who thinks that PetCo is responsible for this is fooling themselves - this is what big corporations do. The BOD that sold the company should have seen this coming and are actually the ones who sold their people down the river.

 

[ca1ore]

I will see if I can find the link, but they already told all their employees that the online store and the warehouse will be closing with the exception of live aquaria. The way I found out about this was from one of the employees who posted it in a Facebook group I am a part of.

Interesting. In a prior life as a finance guy I did post audits on acquisitions - most of them end up as a major DUD because companies overestimate 'goodwill' or 'synergies'. Petco's acquiring DFS, and then closing it seems right in line with that. Hard to imagine they made the buy just for LA/DD LOL. Clearly Petco hasn't learned much about how to manage a website, so it is hard to envision that DFS online customers will move to the Petco website (shudder). I did order a bunch of frozen foods using the 25% coupon though …….

 

[ca1ore]

Maybe I am paranoid but it makes me worry for LA and DD. DD is on a short list of retailers I trust.

Should Petco deem LA/DD as non-core, I'd imagine they would look for a third party buyer. I wonder if they did that for the broader DFS business?

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Wow.

About the only thing I get fish-wise anymore from DFS is salt. I used to shop with them much more a decade ago but I get almost everything through BRS now.

I do however get all my cat & dog prescriptions through DFS (and there are quite a few) so that will be a big change for me. Anyone with cats & dogs have a suggestion for an online pharmacy?

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Are they just shutting down the DFS brand and website to consolidate under the Petco brand? I can understand that it doesn’t make sense to maintain two facilities, websites, brands etc that essentially do the same thing.

 

[jokerman826]

I see they moved all the aquarium related products to liveaquaria site.
it's strange they will only keep the aquarium/fish side of the business, considering dogs/cats side of business is probably 10x bigger, maybe more like 50x bigger market.

Liveaquaria started selling equipment a while ago, the shift wasnt due to this. I just hope that they stay open and give us a second purchase point other than BRS. I like both places.

 

[siggy]

Well folks Guess who owns Petco? Cerberus or at least part of it. They are the same capital ventures co. that ran Chrysler into the dirt and now own Remington arms. Rem. was once the leading manufacturer in long guns preferred by hunters is now in Bankruptcy. These guys are a wreaking crew!

 

[Peekay]

Non-sale priced goods are 25% off. I picked up a Hanna Alk Checker and a Milwuakee pH monitor!

 

[Matt Carden]

The 25% does not apply to everything. I tried a radion to see

 

[doughboy]

Liveaquaria started selling equipment a while ago, the shift wasnt due to this. I just hope that they stay open and give us a second purchase point other than BRS. I like both places.

they probably (I think they have to) knew this was coming, a while ago. anyway, my point was they have an online place to sell fish stuff, but not dogs/cats stuff considering that market is way way bigger. perhaps they lost market share to amazon. amazon seems to have made itself the go-to place if you want to buy anything online, to the point that people automatically think they are getting the best price there, which they are not. amazon prices on most things are typically higher if one takes a little time to shop around.

 

[Z3speed4me]

Just used the 25% to buy all sorts of random stuff I happened to need... they always had great coupon on there, even worked on discounted / clearance items sometimes

 

[4FordFamily]

Has anyone noticed that Petco has silently started selling marine fish again on their website? Petco always used the same distributor as LA even prior to the acquisition (Quality Marine).

I am almost positive they stopped for quite a while after the acquisition. I've been watching, their available fish are growing. The selection is still not very large, but I've noticed a progression. Perhaps this is unrelated, but perhaps they're trying to compare net profit from each source to evaluate. It could also be a way to capture more market share. Or, it may be one of the first signs that LA and DD are either going to be sold or closed.

I wasn't initially alarmed by Live Aquaria changing their warranty/guarantees on fish. Their customer service has taken a bit of a dive, in my opinion. This indicates to me, at a minimum, that they're changing the business model. Whether that's the "save it" or to "drive traffic back to Petco some day" I do not know. It could simply be that people were taking advantage of them, and they would like to turn a better profit. My understanding is that they've never been very profitable.

On the other hand, I could be wrong in my assumption that Petco stopped selling fish online for a while, although I am 90% sure I am correct. I know for sure that over the past few months, they went from having 20-30 fish species available to the 81 they now show:

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/category/fish/live-fish/live-saltwater-fish