Petland

[Henry]

Well I was bored today and made some rounds at the local stores. I stopped by Petland off 281&bitters. I was shocked by their lr prices. They had live rock---"cured" live rock $8.99, tonga $6.99, figi $5.99, Foxface $69.99, and other assorted dead fish. They did however have Chemi-clean for $18.99 and the legs for the coralife fixtures for about $10.
The price for the figi was pretty much in line with alamo and fintique, but not the other ones.
Maybe its just me, but those prices seemed just a little on the high side.

Henry

[captexas]

Henry -
Petland has a very small fish section therefore as they don't order very much they pay a higher cost than other stores. Then they mark it up to help cover their store operation costs and have some kind of small profit margin and there you go. Truthfully speaking, the fish section is really of little concern to the owner as they make their money from the dogs and cats they sell as they are the big money maker. They sell some of those dogs for $700 each! As long as people are crazy enough to pay that kind of money for a dog you can find in the classifieds for $150 to $250 why worry about the other little stuff?
Not bashing them or anything, it's just the the facts of life.

[DeletedAccount]

They may have a small selection and slightly high prices, but the fish guy (Tona?) is very helpful and will bend over backwards to help. We also have a member, Louis, who works there (or did).

[captexas]

There was a guy that worked there back right when the club changed to MAAST and had been on the Yahoo site. He was very positive about how things were going there and the owner's talk of improvements for corals and such. After awhile the owner never did anything and he got frustrated and left. He was over at Polly's for awhile and then I don't know what happened to him. Again, just a matter of an owner being willing to spend money on fish and related products that generate a low profit margin versus spending less money on keeping some dogs in cages and selling them for $500 to $700 each (a very high margin!).

[GaryP]

Petland used to have pretty decent prices when they were over in Central Park Mall. It was one of those things that you just had to keep an eye out for the occasional "deal." I did get a great deal there on a magnum that was obviously mismarked.

I think the problem with most of these pet stores is that they try to be all things to all people and the owner and staff obviously aren't as knowledgeable in a specialty such as salt water. The really bad part is that most of their customers are probably beginners that are even more clueless and end up having a really bad experience that results in everyone they know hearing another saltwater failure story. Those stories are what end up scaring people away from the hobby.

OK, I think I'm up to 4 cents by now.

Gary

[robertpower3]

I think Louis still works their, he spent alot of time helping me get a few things from there a couple of weeks ago. There prices are pretty high though.

[Henry]

I guess I was a little suprised to see the prices for live rock more so than the fish. Their prices on some of the dry goods were pretty good however.