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Petshop rant


lmsmith

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I was standing there when all of a sudden he comes with the bag AND PROCEEDS to put it in the tank. I asked him what he was doing, well of course his answer was putting water in the bag. I proceeded to tell him that the bag now has their tank water on it and that I don't put water in my tank from any pet shop. He then said and I quote, "Well, how am I going to get the water in there!". Hit me over the head with a wet noodle :o , I said "Ah, a container"! He said he never heard of that before or it being done in "their" shops.

Yep quite a few places do that here too (Actually its just animates :-? :lol: ) i dont see a problem with it

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Im so sick of not being treated like royalty. I wish these people would learn that I need silver service and I need them to wait on me hand and foot. What do these people think they are??? minimum wage retail assistants???

We're not all rude, ungrateful customers.. But if someone is in the service industry, then they should at least have a working knowledge of what they're selling. A waiter wouldn't go down well with a food critic if he/ she couldn't recite the menu for the night, so why should we accept mediocre service in an industry which handles live animals?

hey these people should be grateful that they even have a job in the recession :o

..which is why now is the time for us to buy tanks, accessories and fish! Stimulate the economy!

(That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!) :bounce:

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Im so sick of not being treated like royalty. I wish these people would learn that I need silver service and I need them to wait on me hand and foot. What do these people think they are??? minimum wage retail assistants???

Huh???

When I first started, before I found this amazing site with helpful people, what I saw & read was that it was not a good practice to put bag in water with other fish, well, as I stated above!

I wasn't looking to be treated like royalty at all! Geesh, I know that some amount of "whatever" is going into my tank, after all the fish did come out of their tank! I wasn't rude or disrepectful to the person, I explained why, and asked nicely. I'll admit when I asked "what are you doing" was a bit hasty but not in a nasty tone because I was surprised that he was doing it! But I did explain why, and I did thank him when he got the new bag. I tried to be really nice but was ticked off when I saw how his attitude changed!!!

I've always floated the bag in my tank.

Yes, I've seen where some use the bucket method, which I'd like to give a try.

But, what I don't get is if you put them in a bucket, how do you keep the temp up??? :oops: Plus, there's only a minimal amount of water in the bag, so when if I were to put it in a bucket wouldn't it cool really fast??? It was my understanding that part of the reason you floated the bag was to get the temp of the bag close to/equal to the tank water.

Caper

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Im so sick of not being treated like royalty. I wish these people would learn that I need silver service and I need them to wait on me hand and foot. What do these people think they are??? minimum wage retail assistants???

i think in these times we live in the minimum wage retail assistant would be doing all those things to ensure they keep their job

and if they were doing those things consistently they might not be on the minimum wage for long :wink:

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Caper, I think you have missed the kiwi sense of humour in yarimochi's post and have read it the wrong way. :wink:

As to the bag issue. I don't think I have ever heard someone saying not to put the bag in the water. I think what has been said is not to mix the water in the bag with the tank water when you get it home.

Someone who thinks those in the service industry should have a working knowledge of what they are selling has obviously never shopped in any of our chain electronic or appliance stores :roll: :lol:

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Someone who thinks those in the service industry should have a working knowledge of what they are selling has obviously never shopped in any of our chain electronic or appliance stores :roll: :lol:

Thats why you shop at a locally owned and operated store like mine :D:D:D

We make this our point of difference. Service is number one priority

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I'm posting here since it's titled "petshop rant", hope that's ok :oops:

I bought my first 2 fish from the new pet store today. The person who waited on me was also the manager. I was standing there when all of a sudden he comes with the bag AND PROCEEDS to put it in the tank. I asked him what he was doing, well of course his answer was putting water in the bag. I proceeded to tell him that the bag now has their tank water on it and that I don't put water in my tank from any pet shop. He then said and I quote, "Well, how am I going to get the water in there!". Hit me over the head with a wet noodle :o , I said "Ah, a container"! He said he never heard of that before or it being done in "their" shops. I told him I have seen it done before and I have when I've been away and in other shops, heck even the department store uses containers! He was nice enough to empty the bag and get a new one and came over with a scoop (still had sticker on it, so I'm quesssing he just took it off a shelf!).

I don't think he was too impressed but then neither was I!!!

Caper

Shop here does it, i have no problem with it. I just scoop the fish out of the bag and stick the water in some pot plants.

I mean what evers in the water the fish could well indeed have...

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Thats why you shop at a locally owned and operated store like mine

We make this our point of difference. Service is number one priority

Ah, but I wish I could...but it's that distance thing that keeps popping up :o :lol: :lol: :lol:

Caper

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I went into animates in Welly during the week, and saw a tank full of goldfish that looked like they were swimming strangely. I don't know that much about goldfish, but I do know they shouldn't swim upside down, nor head up, and they should have tails. Upon closer inspection, I saw that 4 or 5 of them had very obvious dropsy; the poor things were hugely swollen and had the pinecone scales.

I went to one of the shop assistants, and asked if she knew she had a tankful of dropsy. She said that they weren't dropsy, they were goldfish. I sighed, and patiently explained that dropsy was a disease, and that fish who have it die. I said they shouldn't be selling the fish because they were sick, and should quarantine the tank. She then said that she would know if they were sick, because she worked in a petshop. I argued a bit longer, then left without buying anything.

I don't understand how people can be like this!!!

You were obviously talking to the Monkey instead of the Organ Grinder.

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most shops have a "fish" person (this person is not a fish :lol: , they just might know their stuff) try asking for him/her. most shops will also try their level best to stay clear of too many fish "experts" cause that just ends in nuclear_explosion.jpg

:lol:

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isn't that amazing??...... "they're not dead"...... and "they're not sick"..... it's like..... ummmmmm ...where to even start with that?!!! complete ignorance and arrogance. one time i was in a petshop here in tga and i saw their prize discus display tank had the water level below the air-driven sponge filters.......and ALL of the very nice fish incl heaps of cardinals, rummynose, glowlight tetras, and of course discus were gulping at the top. i informed one of the guys there.. his immediate reaction was "they're fine".... so i insisted and said no you can see there's not enough water it's not working. suddenly he realised and just took off out the back presumably to get water. no apology or thank you. only takes a bit of common sense ay??? :roll:

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Yup. Totally astounding and shocking. The best thing ever is when a fish has died and the others are eating the dead one. They say 'oh, that's just what they do'. Yeah, when you LEAVE THE DEAD FISH IN THE TANK!!! They make no effort to take the fish out. Agh, it annoys me so much!

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I have had 2 instances of awful service in the last week. One of the stores has been excellent up until then and must have been having an off day

1) I was in the local branch of a nationwide pet store in P.Nth 2 days ago (store to remain nameless and sorry to the person who posted 3 before me who was not there at the time) I had wallet in hand and some fish picked out.............

Almost 20 minutes later I when I thought I had been ignored enough I went to interrupt the woman chat session in one of the back rooms to ask for help. An assistant said she was busy and would be there in a few minutes if I didn’t mind waiting, so off she went back to the gossip session which I could hear from the fish area. If it had been a team meeting I would understand but it clearly wasn’t

Money is still in my wallet.

2) In one of the Upper Hutt pet stores and asked what was in one of there own packed fish food. It had "Ciclids Love It" written on it. Was told its just stuff that fish eat you know. Like all fish food is exactly the same it’s just dried out stuff for fish made from dead fish and stuff. So I offered to sell her an "H" so they could spell cicHlid properly and left.

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It's amasing how many people cant spell the name Cichlid or pronounce it,

I was in a Pet Shop a couple of weeks back and heard the guy in there calling them chill-lids, I had to walk away before I cracked up laughing :lol: :lol:

I was always told Cichlid is pronounced Sick Lid, I'm hoping this imformation I was given is correct, otherwise I have also been pronouncing it wrong after all these years :oops: :oops:

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Just trying to remember peoples posts, first time reading it.....

Well shop around if you are not happy with a store.... vote with your $$$. If this shop is so bad, why do some keep going back?

Fish are viewed differently to other pets. How many RSPCA cases against fish keepers do you see.

Multi pet stores will employ kids, its cheaper. Most people know how to look after a dog right? How about the consumer know what he is on about & study what fish he/she wants.

As for its all about the $$$, these stores value badly. The best shops have the best staff. Any muppet can sell something to a point. Repeat sales is where it is at. Sure they will still turn over $$$ by share volume of people. But they miss out on so much more. It's no hard to get people back. Especially if you sell a tank set up, it's so much easier. & once you talk to people, if they like a fish that isn't compatible, easy to recommend a few other species.

I would love to see more posts here about great stores, that offer great service & know what they are doing.

Some LFS stores lack this service. I am sick of seeing dead fish at this end. Even by shops that are meant to be good. I don't visit lfs much anymore either. Most of it is to do with comfort zones, being slack. I only enjoy visiting a couple of lfs now. Thats here in Aussie where we have plenty of LFS.

As for the person earlier who mentioned car salesmans. They are just that. Firstly they are on commission. & in theory with what you are saying, they should be able to give me km's to litre, how do I services on the car? can you show me how to change a tyre? etc. Its all to do with keeping a "car" aye lol

As for mark up on livestock, whether it be cats, dogs, fish etc. What are these compared to other products sold in any industry? Then think about what costs there are because of this.

Also dry stock tends not to have the mark up it used to. Especially here in Aussie. With online stores & specialist dry goods stores to compete with. So another excuse for mark up on live stock more. Need to make money somewhere.

Most of this has been a weak ar..d sook. Leave that to the poms. If service annoys you that much, see the manager. If that doesn't work... do as I do, line 2.

Also with dogs.... sorry to say they are all hybrids.

Frenchy :D

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I will say in response to most of that, that pet stores are mostly very good and even the ones we have issues with from time to time are good. We have heard some wild stories from staff from arawana breeding tanks to foot long dwarf cichlids but we have also heard some great things.

If it wasn’t for them then probably most of us would have never started with the hobby so as a recruiting agent for the aquarium, dog, cat and bird hobby's they do a fantastic job and should be forgiven there faults. I think the stats are roughly 1 in 100 people keep fish and 1 in 100 of those become serious about it. With that said 92.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot :-)

I will return to both of the stores I mentioned and will buy products in the future from them also because even though it’s fun and a bit of a laugh to have a go at them, we need them as much as they need us. Our hobby would be a much poorer place without them.

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