Pet Store Employees

[Sqwee]

Does anyone have a pet store by them whos employees know anything about bettas? I made the mistake of asking for help yesterday...

[starlight]

No...don't ask them anything.

I was in my lfs the other day. They had around 20 females in a 10G with the corner bubble filter running at full blast from the central system. The females were all fear-striped up, the current was so strong they couldn't even remain motionless for a second. They couldn't even hold their ground. They were being blown all over the place by the bubbles and the current. They were fighting, a few were torn up and they all were stressed. I spoke to the manager and told her what was going on. I could see that she didn't understand a word I was saying. I said look if you don't turn down that filter to a trickle they'll all be dead and you won't be able to sell one of them. She said she would but had to do it after they closed, since it was a central system. I thought about that tank of females after I left. I was so mad that I stopped by the next day to see for myself. I didn't think she'd listen to me but I was surprised to see she did. The tank had settled down, the corner filter was just a trickle. The females seemed much better. When she saw me, she came over and actually thanked me.

The worst thing you can do is ask for advice. If they don't know the answer, they won't admit it; they'll just make up an answer.

[twoluvcats]

ya, they usually don't even know much about fish in general and then even less about bettas. It's sad...but they are trained that the bottom line is "make the sale" so they often tell people what they want to hear, or they give placating information. It is very frustrating. You learn to look everything up on the internet before you go shopping. The only thing I ask store employees now is where stuff is LOL

[Flurry]

At our LPS, they get their Bettas in every Thursday and they all usually sell, but the ones that don't within a few days, instead of leaving them in those plastic cups until they sell, they decorate a 1/2 gallon tank put the Betta in and sell them that way. I noticed that was what they did when I went to pick up my Betta, the next day there were four left, the day after that they had one left in it's own tank.

But what the lady said to my dad, and those who have been paying attention to my other posts, this is not a good thing, is that with the filter on, the betta will live longer and the water won't be come stagnent. Is there any truth that a Betta will live longer in a filtered tank? I took out the filter and hid it earlier today, it hasn't been running much when I got the Betta, only when my dad snuck in and turned it on, so today I took it out and hid it =P

[Rekall13]

I learned the hard way not to trust pet shop employees. When I got my first betta few years ago he died 3 weeks later because I got some bad advice from the store. When I went back to the store to find out what happened, they acted like it was my fault my betta died.

I wish at the time I had known that it wasn't a very good LPS. The last time I was there was in June (I haven't been in the city much this summer because its 4hrs away but I live there most of the year) and they had a couple of dead bettas. The store wasn't even busy at the time so you'd think that one of the employees would have spotted the dead bodies and removed them.

[Rachel]

Yeah, I'm at the point where I basically don't even talk to the employees anymore. Or if I do, it's just to quiz them on their knowledge, lol. Meanie Rachel.

The whole thing really is sad though. I have almost 10 places around town where they sell bettas/fish and none of them really seem to educate their employees. I could see if these were all major chain stores, but unfortunately they're not.

[Sqwee]

In all fairness to pet store employees who do know things about bettas, I thought I would post this.

When I took my new betta up to the counter to purchase him, the girl at the counter comented on how beutiful he is. We started talking about bettas, and it turned out she knew what she was talking about. She seemed pretty informed on bettas. I was impressed.

Just thought I should add that to this thread...

[amanichen]

With retailing you get people with a wide range of skills and motivation. Some people care, and would like to help, but don't know enough to. Some employees don't care -- to them it's just another part time job. It's difficult to find employess who are both motivated and skilled -- the retail environment usually doesn't pay enough to these people.

Basic training is given to some people, but that can vary among different companies. There's also a the constant conflict between retail and animal needs. Management usually ends up making sure the retail stuff always gets done, while the animal needs may be taken care of on an as-able-to basis. Aquatic sections are usually understaffed, and underbudgeted, which doesn't help the problem at all. If you've ever seen the fish section of your LPS routinely empty when you go in there, then don't buy from there. The aquatics section needs the attention of at least one person, for eight hours a day. Every minute of time is valuable, but management often pulls the employees away on other things, whether or not their time would be best used caring for the fish. At the store I worked at, things would literally fall apart if I wasn't there for two days. During my second year I got extra help, but when he and I were both off, things didn't look pretty when we came back.

Then there's problems with customer returns, etc. People are fine when the fish death was the store's fault, but when you try to explain to them that a particular death was their fault, it gets hairy. Refunds usually take priority over an education, and a problem-solving session -- where the employees are just instructed to give people a refund without sitting down to help prevent the problem in the future. At any rate, people are usually lucky if the fish person knows enough to determine a cause of death when it's not as obvious as something like ich.

The operating model of pet stores vary, right down to the store level, and thus so will your experience at them. Suffice to say there aren't many people like me left, because the job just doesn't pay enough. I spent three years at a PetCo -- two years into it I decided I wasn't going to work in retailing again. The third year was a short stint during christmas vacation -- they wanted me back, but I never ended up returning (partially due to the fact that I needed a job in an engineering field =)

I know this sounds bad, it's just the way it is. You're going to have to pick and choose, and test out the pet stores near you to find someone who knows what you need to find out. Going in and asking them basic, innocuous questions that you know the answers to is a good way to get an idea of what kind of help you'll receive.

[Lucy]

That would be WONDERFUL to have a betta specialty store...however in my neighbourhood the next best thing is a specialty fish store. They don't sell as many medicines and tanks as the large chain stores but they have an excellent selection of fish. They have really nice bettas and whenever a fish auction is on, they often go and purchase bettas to sell in the shop. From the auctions they get top notch bettas from breeders across the country. That is how I got my newest betta, Sophie, who originally came from BC Bettas, but came to a show here in Nevada(by the way she placed 2nd in her class and then she was bought by my local specialty fish store where I found her. So I think that the best place to purchase bettas is a specialty fish store (if possible).

Lucy

[Jenova]

ickyfishywishy said:

im actualy thinking now to print out some nice color pamplets about how to care for bettas and sending them around to petstores so they can give them out with every betta sold but i doubt they will agree any sugestions guys?

It's worth a try. I mean, they will make more money on food if people feed their bettas twice a day and more money on water conditioner if people twice the water more often....