Odering Fish For Lfs

[kribensis12]

^^^^^^^^ FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!! Thats a great idea. I know we will have 2 "WOW" SW tanks. The counter holds a tank, and its around 200 gallons, and he is making it a SW tank, and then he has like a 150 tank with a Lionfish, some angels ect.

 

[malakye]

Why not get a questionaire printed up for customers asking what kinds of fish they would like to see stocked? Even if you have to run selling the common best selling fish for a month or so until you get a good cross section of opinions from customers. That way you can cater more for your customers. Happy customers mean happy shop tills. No point in stocking fish the average Joe public would only buy on rare occassions like the flowerhorns etc. Beautiful fish yes but how many of them are you going to sell compared to the dozens of neons, platys, mollys etc. Let your customers know that you will be prepared to where possible order in specific fish.
What you have to keep in mind if you are only working saturdays someone else is going to be messing with the fish all week and might not know how to take care of discus etc. that need that little extra.

 

[kribensis12]

^ Good idea, i will toss the idea to him on Friday!

Im working everyday.
Sat all day, sunday after 2 ( church)
Mon- Fri- 3:30-7:30

 

[Phage]

The popular fish I see around me (in Chicago) are

zebra danios and on one rare occasion I saw some ocelot danios (bought those), I would rather see the different types of danios over zebras personally I like ocelot and celestial pearl
hillstream loach
variety of angelfish types, scalare. I haven't seen altum or leopoldi...
gold, blue, dwarf, honey, pearl gourami
albino, bronze, panda, pepper, skunk cory
otos
blackwidow, rummynose, cardinal, neon tetra
kribs, german blue rams and german gold, bolivian ram
cherry, tiger, rosy barb
Harlequin Rasbora
a variety of colors for swordtails, mollies, platys and guppies
Boeseman rainbow, red rainbow
gold nugget, bristlenose, angelicus, clown pleco (and common but we all know most people can't house those properly...)

Bettas... I've never seen them in local stores, only big chain. Not saying you can't sell them though

I've seen a couple figure 8 puffers and a variety of synodontis but careful because some get big.
And as for cichlids... I honestly can't tell the difference
I've seen jack dempseys, parrots, oscars, convicts, green terrors, discus.

Do you plan to sell plants?
Java fern, java moss, moss balls, amazon swords, ludwigia, hornwort (lol), pennywort, wisteria, vals seem to be popular.

 

[OldMan47]

Don't forget the common plecs that nobody really wants but they all buy. Should carry bristlenose plecs which most people could keep in the typical smaller tank but it seems that the commons quickly outsell them. It must be the price difference.
If you keep good sized shoals of colorful cories like trilineatus, panda and sterbai they will sell themselves with their activity.

 

[shroob]

Like most people have said stick to the 'commoner' fish for starters, there's a reason why EVERY fish shop stocks guppies, platties, angels.

My LFS has a sign up saying that they buy these sorts of fish (guppies, mollies, platties, angels, corys, swordtails etc) of customers because they know they will sell. The owner say's if it wasn't for people bringing in guppies he wouldn't have any due to the poor quality of the ones he can import (from czech republic, not sure what the major source of fish is for USA, probably the far east) so your idea of sourcing local breeders sounds good - not to mention you will probably add a few more people to your customer list like this.

To emphasise a point someone else made about discus sitting there, my LFS has had the same (stunning) pair of discus in for well over 4 months now, if I had the tank room and dedication to keep discus I would have got them, but the point is they havn't shifted and it uses up tank space that could be used to house quicker selling fish.

Also congrats on your new job, hope you enjoy it

 

[kribensis12]

Don't forget the common plecs that nobody really wants but they all buy. Should carry bristlenose plecs which most people could keep in the typical smaller tank but it seems that the commons quickly outsell them. It must be the price difference.
If you keep good sized shoals of colorful cories like trilineatus, panda and sterbai they will sell themselves with their activity.

I dont plan on odering any Reg. Pleco's. Bristle nose are a definate.

Thanks shroob!

 

[Bigpig]

Congo Tetra - my fav fish also named pfk fish of the month this month. might get a few sales on the back of that
YoYo Loach - Botia lohachata
Threadfin Rainbowfish
Moonlight Gourami

 

[flash22]

bread and butter stuff is whats in most shops around here Stock

Gold and Blue rams Sell well
Dwarf Flag cichlids (curvicepts)
L134's imperial tiger plecs
Killies
Most Livebearers
Most Tetras
Loaches

 

[kribensis12]

^ Thanks. I fogot all about rams

 

[Phage]

I wasn't suggesting selling common plecs. It was more of an observation. Probably the only commons you would sell are the ones people bring to you because they can no longer house them.

Maybe you can get the angels from tolak

 

[kribensis12]

^ I was thinking that. The angels i got from him are spectactular. Im going to PM Tolak and see what he thinks. Like, if he thinks he could supply them, and how much he would want ect. Where are you located?

 

[ChrisXL]

If you have a wow tank, make sure to get some teacup stingrays. Everyone looks at them when they come to the shop, and everyone loves them.

 

[kribensis12]

Was thinking about that, but i dont want to overstock the " WOW" tank, besides, i dont know how Discus would do with them.

 

[Phage]

I'm in Chicago.

I'm sure if there are special fish a person wants, they could always ask you guys to order for them.