[RHagemann]

My job requires quite a bit of traveling so when I'm out of town, I try to visit LFS's when I have the time. Personally, I don't think the problem is geographic. A city with more LFS's than usual has equal likelihood of having a more "bad" stores as it does "good" stores.

I talk to many owners all over the country and by far, their biggest problem is staffing their stores. Consumers want low prices. Most true hobbyists are probably willing to pay a little more to support their LFS of choice in trade for good service, good selections, healthy livestock, and reasonable prices. In this age of on-line shopping, most dry goods & equipment is bought via the internet due to cost. That means your LFS's sales are primarly based on livestock.

The local LFS's not only have to be competitive with their LFS competitors, but now their suppose to be competitive with on-line retailers or they lose even more business. Therin lies the problem.

Consumers in-general attract to stores with an educated staff in their stores and low, competitive prices (as read in this thread and all over RC). Not too many educated aquarists want to work for minimum wage to $7 even $8 per hour right? The store owners labor costs are part of their overhead, which (usually as a percentage) is added on to their livestock, dry goods, and equipment costs from suppliers.

The LFS owners costs (from suppliers) for these items generally goes down based on volume. i.e, if they only buy 3 skimmers a month, they're not going to get a huge cost break from their supplier. The higher cost they pay (based on the volume of their store) + their overhead + any profit = the price they charge and it's almost always more than the on-line stores sell the same items for. The difference is, the on-line retailer is buying and selling 200 skimmers a month so they get them for about 30-40% cheaper then the 3 per month LFS.

Just my 2C. Good discussion topic.

Cheers