Headie Corals Closing
- Thread starter Blitzie
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Just a correction, Fintastic is open by appointment only, and they are a CTARS sponsor as well. :)
Tweaked
Active Member
Interesting, is this also run out of a house? Where is Fintastic?
He's in East Hartford. I do believe it is not out of a house.
He is in an industrial zone, not retail location. By appointment only and he still specializes in tank install and maintenance.
Masedaddy
Well-Known Member
I think online sales have definitely hurt LFS but specifically in CT it seemed like multiple LFS all opened up in a small time frame...
I get that in CT we have a larger Reefing Community, but when you have so many choices for LFS it becomes very difficult to stay in business.
It used to be people would drive for a while to get to quality stores but when the area was over saturated with comparable stores, the customer base shrinks.
Plus, most LFS in CT all use the same suppliers so many stores have/had very similar stock. So in that case to be competitive stores have to lower prices to attract customers. This can be self defeating. You need to have nice stock but you can only sell with minimum mark up.
A LFS is extremely expensive to maintain and with taxes and rent rising every year. It becomes very costly.
You either have to sell massive quantities of stock at minimal mark up or sell extremely high end. But let's face it not every Joe schmoe is buying homewreckers, Orange passions, Walt Disney on a consistent basis.... Or you have to supplement with tank maintenance, branching out into other pets (which brings it's own issues with them) etc etc.
No one can compete with Amazon and other big box stores for supplies just based on the volume they deal in on a daily basis. Most LFS can't buy from suppliers for the retail price Amazon offers... It's a hard fact...
To survive now as a B&M LFS you have to have money coming in from multiple sources and have to roll with the trends. You have to offer something extra that will want to make people buy from you and not save a few bucks buying from Amazon or other online vendors. You also have to have excellent, healthy stock for a fair price.
Often times those things don't go together or are impossible to achieve....it's sad but True.
I get that in CT we have a larger Reefing Community, but when you have so many choices for LFS it becomes very difficult to stay in business.
It used to be people would drive for a while to get to quality stores but when the area was over saturated with comparable stores, the customer base shrinks.
Plus, most LFS in CT all use the same suppliers so many stores have/had very similar stock. So in that case to be competitive stores have to lower prices to attract customers. This can be self defeating. You need to have nice stock but you can only sell with minimum mark up.
A LFS is extremely expensive to maintain and with taxes and rent rising every year. It becomes very costly.
You either have to sell massive quantities of stock at minimal mark up or sell extremely high end. But let's face it not every Joe schmoe is buying homewreckers, Orange passions, Walt Disney on a consistent basis.... Or you have to supplement with tank maintenance, branching out into other pets (which brings it's own issues with them) etc etc.
No one can compete with Amazon and other big box stores for supplies just based on the volume they deal in on a daily basis. Most LFS can't buy from suppliers for the retail price Amazon offers... It's a hard fact...
To survive now as a B&M LFS you have to have money coming in from multiple sources and have to roll with the trends. You have to offer something extra that will want to make people buy from you and not save a few bucks buying from Amazon or other online vendors. You also have to have excellent, healthy stock for a fair price.
Often times those things don't go together or are impossible to achieve....it's sad but True.
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