# indoor jungle space - New LFS move in



## vaporize

I've heard from another LFS that Mike (& partners) is going to take over the space previously owned by indoor jungle. Has anybody heard anything?


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## Chris S

Not sure...Mike who?


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## AquariAM

Bandera I'd imagine. That's just a bad idea man. You don't wanna set your store up that sells X, even if you're awesome at it, next to a conglomerate that sells X. That conglomerate can afford to operate that location at a significant loss just to take all your business away. 

Even Menagerie could open next to Big Al's and not make it. It's like opening up a little tiny asteroid next to the Death Star. 

Did you guys not see what they did when IJ started up? They started bringing in a much higher grade of FW fish and selling them for just absurd prices (example, 8" absolute show quality green terrors for like $7 50) across the board. At a loss, I'm sure.


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## duckyser

arent there laws against selling things very cheaply and raising prices when competitors quit?


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## Hitch

duckyser said:


> arent there laws against selling things very cheaply and raising prices when competitors quit?


not sure if it is. But in this case its not a matter of raising prices.....they just went on a large sale and simply ended it.


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## Pansophy

duckyser said:


> arent there laws against selling things very cheaply and raising prices when competitors quit?


technically it is but a hassle to prove x company lower price to starve competing company.


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## arc

> arent there laws against selling things very cheaply and raising prices when competitors quit?


It's called predatory pricing, walmart has been accused of it a while back. Like Pansophy said...its hard to prove since you have the records of the company and witnesses. All the company has to do is say it was a sale and you can't do more


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## Chris S

No, Mike isn't moving there. He is smarter than that =)


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## vaporize

Chris S said:


> Not sure...Mike who?


From what I've heard, it's Mike Finatics (not sure of his last name LOL)


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## WiyRay

If it is Finatics, then that won't be too bad. 
BA and Finatics are practically 2 completely different things.
Might be more of a plus. I've always though Finatics was a bit far down in the "Kennedy LFS chain".


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## vaporize

WiyRay said:


> If it is Finatics, then that won't be too bad.
> BA and Finatics are practically 2 completely different things.
> Might be more of a plus. I've always though Finatics was a bit far down in the "Kennedy LFS chain".


Well if the rumour is true, BA & Finatics won't be 2 completely different things anymore. Mike's awesome at cichlids but taking over 10,000 sq ft space, you will need to focus on the 'generalist' market but rather than just specialize a few things. However I do have to agreed that Mike is a great salesman and businessman, so he should have much better grounds than the amateurs.


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## WiyRay

Flazky said:


> Hey guys!
> Why is everyone getting all arguey abt this! If they them stores start going on "sale" then its just better for us =D!!!


Here's hoping


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## bigfishy

Let you guys know a secret or perhaps it is not a secret at all at this point

 

The store next to Big Als Scarborough wants to lease off the space 

 

There is a rumor that lucky's aquarium might move into the space next to Big Als due to Remington Mega Mall project

 

No stores in market village have a long term contract, if the mega mall project were to proceed, every stores will have up to 3 months to move out


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## AquaNeko

bigfishy said:


> Let you guys know a secret or perhaps it is not a secret at all at this point
> 
> 
> 
> The store next to Big Als Scarborough wants to lease off the space
> 
> 
> 
> There is a rumor that lucky's aquarium might move into the space next to Big Als due to Remington Mega Mall project
> 
> 
> 
> No stores in market village have a long term contract, if the mega mall project were to proceed, every stores will have up to 3 months to move out


Awww.. Luckys has always been known to be at the P.Mall. That's part of the fun with everyone I know that goes to the P.Mall & Market Village.


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## vaporize

bigfishy said:


> The store next to Big Als Scarborough wants to lease off the space


The store next to BA Scarborough as in that University of Toronto campus thing or the curtain shop?



bigfishy said:


> There is a rumor that lucky's aquarium might move into the space next to Big Als due to Remington Mega Mall project


Lucky's a very good business to be beside BA  Now we just need JOHN to move up together, then I don't even have to get back onto the car and visit 3 or 4 LFS.


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## bigfishy

AquaNeko said:


> Awww.. Luckys has always been known to be at the P.Mall. That's part of the fun with everyone I know that goes to the P.Mall & Market Village.


Lucky's aquarium is not in the p.mall, it is at the 2nd floor of market village. The mega mall project will DEFINITLY affect them!



vaporize said:


> The store next to BA Scarborough as in that University of Toronto campus thing or the curtain shop?
> 
> .


curtain shop


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## vaporize

bigfishy said:


> curtain shop


Oh was thinking that Campus b/c they are always pretty empty. woo hoo, guess we can expect to have 25% off at BA soon LOL ~ nice ~

If I am BA corporate, I will just buy out the curtain shop space to avoid competition


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## Zebrapl3co

Wow, if Lucky moved next to BA, they definately will be a bigger threat than IJ could ever possibly hope to be. It's hard to say though. Their pricing isn't that big of a difference. But Lucky offers a different line of products. So they don't exactly clash on every product.
Damn, that will be awsome though. I don't have to drive up Kennedy anymore.

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## Jsu

Its a good thing to have more LFS around BA...well for us that is. 1. we dont have to travel far unless your from middle of nowhere like myself. 2. more competitors will bring down the price. (maybe 50% off at BA more often). 3. better quality fish. 4. maybe BA will take care of their fish better.


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## mandarin

duckyser said:


> arent there laws against selling things very cheaply and raising prices when competitors quit?


BA's being as large as it is would have some pretty good purchasing power. Common sense / common practice in the scm world, the more you buy the bigger the discount. BA's is free to offer sales when ever they want and most certain the sales they offer, even on boxing day, they are still making a pretty penny.


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## dchow

I definitely don't see anyone being able to compete with BAs on a dry goods level. The purchasing power throughout all the stores is substantially higher than any single store. Inherent with such buying power is also the cost of storing such items, and taking losses on items with expiry dates because they simply don't sell. It's all factored in to the mark up of the item.The selection, and selection of brands available, and variance of items at BAs is next to none. That particular BAs is also a corporate location so they can afford to sustain some losses or at least a lower profit margin for a time. But the bottom line is a red bottom line is still a red bottom line. I doubt even when BAs had its 25% off livestock sale it ever took a loss on any livestock.

The last owners lacked any sort of existing customer base but the fact they were next to BAs brought them some foot traffic. I know I wandered in there a few times simply based on proximity alone. They were also badly understaffed for the size of the store. The lack of staff, and questionable depth of knowledge ultimately led to less than stellar livestock conditions. 

From all accounts Mike knows his way around a fish room. That alone gives him a leg up on the previous store. If there was just a focus on livestock, maintaining similar quality to what he has now over a larger selection of fish I can see the store being competitive with BA. Livestock has great variance from species to quality.

Dry goods are iffy. They don't have the buying power, and the capital required to have items ready on shelves. A 2213 filter from BAs is exactly the same as 2213 from the other store. Obviously some amount of dry goods needs to be there but from a business plan it wouldn't be were I would focus my efforts.

I know in other markets (especially for high end electronics that aren't readily available) stores are willing to order in a particular model and sell it well below the MSRP because they know the one unit they have ordered will be paid for and they won't have to take a depreciation (ie a new model being released) loss, or a storage. That being said, electronics are a much more volatile market than fish products from my experience. But if I had to wait a week or two to save on something I don't need right away I probably would. Maybe I'm just a miser but if I don't need it right away I really could care less if I have to wait a short period to get the item at a lower cost. So perhaps a focus on special order items or ordering some common items on an as needed basis and taking a lower profit margin to build up customer base.

-shrug-


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## mandarin

Any chance a store would have on equipment would be brining in higher end products or well, anything other than coralife and aqua-medic.

If a store can offer higher end marine supplies that would definitely hurt BA's. Bring in names like Tek, IceCap, Bubble Magus, Royal Exclusiv etc

As for live stock, it is very easy to compete with BA's.


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## TBemba

I really liked the quote someone said about BA's being a gateway type store to serious fish keeping. 

The more advanced fish hobbyist does not always find the quality or rareness of fish that they desire at BA's. Example (Tropheus) until the last year or so you never seen this fish at BA's

So the serious hobbyist, the one willing to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a colony of Tropheus had to find someone Example on (PN Shelldweller/George) to supply the colony and meet in a parking lot on a certain day at a predetermined time to buy fish (always made me feel like I was making a drug deal (illegal Act) ) buying fish from a parking lot for cash. "Joking".

Then someone with some brains (Finatics/Mike) thought wait a minute maybe I can buy fish from (shelldweller/George) and resell them in a store front. More people are willing to pay a little more for the fish if they can see them first and you have a store front.

Now if someone had the Brains/Money to open up a Big fish/Pet store like BA's and sell fish BA's is not selling example ( Tropheus ) they might be able to corner the higher end market.

The only problem that I see is that you can only go so big in a niche store like this too big and you start to lose quality. Also the slippery slope of wanting to supply the bread and butter fish that just takes up tank space.

You also want fish that will move fast so you have a ever changing list of stock to bring in repeat customers. But to do this you have to provide fish that everyone seems to want at the moment. 

Then you have to have staff that are knowledgeable (hard to do when paying Minimum wage).

I wish who ever jumps into this new store the best of luck. I hope everyone in TO gives them a fair chance.


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## KhuliLoachFan

I seriously doubt Mike would move into a space that huge. The rent is over $10K a month. That's nuts.

W


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## vaporize

mandarin said:


> Any chance a store would have on equipment would be brining in higher end products or well, anything other than coralife and aqua-medic.
> 
> If a store can offer higher end marine supplies that would definitely hurt BA's. Bring in names like Tek, IceCap, Bubble Magus, Royal Exclusiv etc
> 
> As for live stock, it is very easy to compete with BA's.


To succeed in business, it's all about bringing in the numbers, the reason BA stock the average items is because it allow them to have higher than normal markups especially at store-retail. All those brands you listed will not give you a very high markup, and therefore BA does not carry them. BA want around 100% markup on dry goods and 300-800% on live goods.

It does not necessarily mean they are greedy, BA have HUGE operating overheads keeping a huge warehouse in mississauga, hiring a dozen or so staff per store, corporate staffs to keep track of things, keeping up with perishable inventory. Their target audience is the newbies, not the advance aquarist that knows the brand names IceCap, Tek, Bubble Magus.... let alone bubble king LOL. The cost of stocking high end item is huge and with a less than desirable margin (in their eyes), the return is just not there.

A good comparison is to anybody that is operating that size like Petsmart or Aquatic Kingdom. Petsmart more or less have a fish department just because they are a "full range" petstore; majority of their revenue comes in on the dog/cat sides followed by small animials.

Aquatic Kingdom originally targeted themselves as a higher end marine & fresh store with a heavy concentration on a more profitable drygoods inventory set. Both of the owners are very experienced in marine and at some point used or sell those high end items, but given their space and operating expenses, they do not necessarily focus on targeting the high end marine and the majority of their revenue do not really come from that market segment.

As a business it's where it is more profitable and yes, those stupid colorful ornaments do make alot of money LOL


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## Flazky

AquariAM said:


> Why don't some people understand the concept of a constructive conversation? Seriously?


>.O take a chill pill!


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## Big Jim

Big Al's as good as some stores are definitely needs better competition. If any independent owner operates beside them hopefully they can manage to stay afloat. I will check them out


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## Ciddian

Hey... Calm down!  SMiles and junk.. I deleted the Rawr threads. Stay happy/friendly.


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## AquaNekoMobile

Ciddian said:


> Hey... Calm down!  SMiles and junk.. I deleted the Rawr threads. Stay happy/friendly.


LOL... A friend of mine was just checking out the thread while I was bringing some cold drinks from the parking lot. You know that could be taken another way.   Haha.... funny wording Cid.


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## aln

Big Ray said:


> also, when it comes to reefing, quality speaks first, not the price.


for sure i'll pay a bit more for quality


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## KhuliLoachFan

Thanks Cid, for being such an awesome mod. 

W


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## crxmaniac

duckyser said:


> arent there laws against selling things very cheaply and raising prices when competitors quit?


Dont think so, Have you seen the way gas prices are made?


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## Ciddian

HAhahaha!!! OOppss!! I am totally pg here! lol


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## AquariAM

aln said:


> for sure i'll pay a bit more for quality


Me too. IMO quality comes first period.


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## Chris S

Just to put an end to any rumours here, Mike from Finatics is *not* taking over the IJ building.


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## KhuliLoachFan

The nature of rumours is that facts-to-the-contrary only stir up the hive. 

W


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## vaporize

KhuliLoachFan said:


> The nature of rumours is that facts-to-the-contrary only stir up the hive.
> 
> W


That sucks, we aren't gonna get another 25% off at BA ... LOL


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## KhuliLoachFan

I hope Mike expands to a larger location eventually. He's a smart guy and would probably look to expand 30% or so, and be able to keep his current level of stock quality. If you expand 200% in one go, on quantities, you can't keep your quality standards as high.

W


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## Zebrapl3co

KhuliLoachFan said:


> I hope Mike expands to a larger location eventually. He's a smart guy and would probably look to expand 30% or so, and be able to keep his current level of stock quality. If you expand 200% in one go, on quantities, you can't keep your quality standards as high.
> 
> W


I don't think he will. The reason he is doing so well is because he himself is doing everything. If he expands, he will need to hire some one to help him out. The will eat into his profits and make it more difficult to compete with BA.
It's not that easy to go up against BA unless you are running a family business and your entire family is helping you out.
Hiring a good helper is the hardest part. Don't know if you notice, but most hobbiest has an affinity to protect the well being of the fish. That does not go well with the general population that see fish as equal to ants. The leaves us to easily get upset with people, hence bad customer service ...

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## Ciddian

I think he was interested in some rental space beside him but the land lord was a dink. You'd have to ask mike yourself if that's changed at all.


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## Tbird

Ciddian said:


> I think he was interested in some rental space beside him but the land lord was a dink. You'd have to ask mike yourself if that's changed at all.


Last time I was there, maybe 2 months ago, Mike was looking to see what was around. A differenct plaza, maybe even the basement of the building he was in now. Not sure what has transpired since though. But it did sound like he would like more space.


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## bigfishy

Zebrapl3co said:


> I don't think he will. The reason he is doing so well is because he himself is doing everything. If he expands, he will need to hire some one to help him out. The will eat into his profits and make it more difficult to compete with BA.
> It's not that easy to go up against BA unless you are running a family business and your entire family is helping you out.
> Hiring a good helper is the hardest part. Don't know if you notice, but most hobbiest has an affinity to protect the well being of the fish. That does not go well with the general population that see fish as equal to ants. The leaves us to easily get upset with people, hence bad customer service ...


Hire from Gta-Aquaria


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## gucci17

would be nice if Mike found a place more north on Kennedy...I would drop by more frequently.


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## vaporize

Zebrapl3co said:


> It's not that easy to go up against BA unless you are running a family business and your entire family is helping you out.
> Hiring a good helper is the hardest part. Don't know if you notice, but most hobbiest has an affinity to protect the well being of the fish. That does not go well with the general population that see fish as equal to ants. The leaves us to easily get upset with people, hence bad customer service ...


Aquatic Kingdom out west seems to be doing okay while the two owners hire 4-5 employees to handle their day to day operation. The owners work there too but focus on larger sales items. There are different ways to operate a business.


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## KhuliLoachFan

AK does a lot of marine right? If you get a good following, marine is probably MORE profitable than freshwater sales. Marine livestock is in the range of $40-$400 rather than $2-$20.

W


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## Darkside

Large stores like AK need to move a lot of dry goods to turn a profit.


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## AquariAM

Darkside said:


> Large stores like AK need to move a lot of dry goods to turn a profit.


There's no profit in dry goods. You have to move fish to really make money. Dry goods have a much lower margin.


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## vaporize

AquariAM said:


> There's no profit in dry goods. You have to move fish to really make money. Dry goods have a much lower margin.


Depending on where you source it from.


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## Plaid

I talked to him about a month ago. I think he said that's he's just about broken even, and that he's not going to be expanding for 2010 at least.
Although, I may be mistaken. Or he may change his mind.

Wes


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## vaporize

Plaid said:


> I talked to him about a month ago. I think he said that's he's just about broken even, and that he's not going to be expanding for 2010 at least.
> Although, I may be mistaken. Or he may change his mind.
> 
> Wes


Who's this?


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## Plaid

Oops, my bad. Talking about Mike. : P


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## KhuliLoachFan

Mike clearly says to all his customers, "There's no point in me stocking [insert dry goods he doesn't stock here]. Just go buy your [thingy] at Big Als". 

W


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## TBemba

I have always been told that dry goods are where all the profit is in the LFS business. You can mark it up 100 - 200 % 

also they are very stable as apposed to fish or live goods. Fish die and you can only sell so many fish to people. 

But food,tanks,heaters,filters,lights,medication, and all other supplies have to be bought a couple times a year. just think about how many things(dry goods) you can place in the space that 3 * 55 gallon tier tanks would take up. When I look at anyone of my tanks I figure I have spent 80% on equipment/food and 20% on fish/plants.

I think Finatics should consider putting more dry goods in his store like Menagerie's. I kind of like one stop shopping and would buy all my stuff from one place if I could.


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## KhuliLoachFan

I have moved to buying my fish flakes and pellets from people who sell in bulk. Various people on Pricenetwork.ca and on here, sell stuff in bulk.

W


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## TBemba

KhuliLoachFan said:


> I have moved to buying my fish flakes and pellets from people who sell in bulk. Various people on Pricenetwork.ca and on here, sell stuff in bulk.
> 
> W


Yes and the people that sell bulk fish food/supplies can sell much cheaper because they have lower overhead (no store front). You can also find fish on the same networks that sell the dry goods the same fish that often supply the LFS for much cheaper prices.

If you belong to Fish clubs or go to fish Auctions you can also find dry goods/fish much much cheaper than both online or at lfs.

The question is how does this really effect the quality and availability for the hobbyist ?


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## Cory

TBemba said:


> Yes and the people that sell bulk fish food/supplies can sell much cheaper because they have lower overhead (no store front). You can also find fish on the same networks that sell the dry goods the same fish that often supply the LFS for much cheaper prices.
> 
> If you belong to Fish clubs or go to fish Auctions you can also find dry goods/fish much much cheaper than both online or at lfs.
> 
> The question is how does this really effect the quality and availability for the hobbyist ?


The people who sell on PN and here also bring in most of the product illegally smuggled across the border, pay no taxes on them and sell them against the wishes of the original manufacturers while also undercutting the local retailers and bypassing Canadian distributors. Basically, if you buy from them you are buying "hot" goods. Not to mention killing legitimate Canadian businesses.


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