[quote=“Gordonious, post:12, topic:3203”]
Well I won’t say where I went, but I didn’t get to a lot of places. I will say I wouldn’t recommend spending money at any of them. [/quote]
Ya know I’ve been thinking a lot about this opinion lately. We never want a merchant to dislike us personally or mistake our opinions of that of the whole club, but the more I think about it the mor I think we may be doing a disservice to the stores themselves by NOT naming them and publicly stating our opinions.
Maybe these stores are perfectly happy with what their stores have become. They have their loyal following of customers that come in every 2 weeks and buy food and salt and are getting by the way it is. Maybe they don’t realize that people out there come in and are absolutely disgusted with the condition of te store, the tanks, the animals etc.
I’m wondering if stores might step up and be more conscious of the outside perception of their establishments if more people publicly posted reviews? A prime example is www.tripadvisor.com - here is a website that allows anyone to post a review of any resort / hotel / B&B for the whole workd to see. If a resort is consistently getting bad reviews they start to make changes (well at least they SHOULD be) to improve the public perception of their establishment in order to be able to attract - instead of chase away - new customers.
So again I ask - are we doing a disservice by not calling them out? Am I cheating Just Fish out of a chance to improve by not publicly stating their tanks looked disgusting, the fish looked sick, the place smells and the service is non-exsistent? And that they are phenominally over-price?
Good point. I think that the service that you do for other members out weighs any negative impact that the club would receive. Is the store (Just Fish, as an example) really checking our board to gauge their public perception? If so, they’ve probably figured out you were talking about them. At least if posted you may prevent some of our newer members from impulse buys there on delivery day, etc. I know I gave less than stellar reviews for the Fishbowl a number of times before it changed hands and started its turnaround. Maybe we could sticky a rating system using the polls, so that everyone could list their experience and we would get an average opinion instead of one person blasting a LFS.
Being associated with one of the lfs in the area, i love the idea. And you r right. If the place doesn’t know, it can’t fix the problems. As long as the critiques are made in a constructive manner, no lfs should have any issue hearing the good AND the bad, i feel. Besides, they wouldn’t be in business if they didnt strive to please their customers, and how can u make people happy if u don’t know what you are doing right and wrong.
[quote=“fishguy9, post:3, topic:3236”]
As long as the critiques are made in a constructive manner…[/quote]
And there is the magic key. I believe as long as the reviewer sticks to the facts and observations of the store and not their opinions of the proprietor I think we could get some very valuable informaiton here. I also don’t think we should limit it to LFS either. I’d like to open a board regaridng trading / selling / buying from fellow reefers - both here and on other sites so that we can all feel more comfortable with those we choose to do business with online as well as online vendors.
I’m going to split this topic off now so we can continue discussing. I’d like to hear more opinions, from other users, but especially from other LFS owners / operators / employees, and sponsors.
Craig the reason I didn’t make comments on the other board is because I suspected one of the LFS I went into was doing some things illegally. I didn’t think it was right for me to post on a suspicion without proof they were breaking a law I don’t fully understand. A little different than an LFS that knows what they are doing, and couldn’t possibly know their store was in horrible condition, and has the ability to do something about it, but does not.
I can see someone posting something that happened with a LFS and the owner and followers harrasing people. In my opinion its not worth it. Everyone has a side to a story and the truth is sometimes hard to get out of people. In my opinion if you own a store, you know if people like your store or not. Its just a matter if the owner cares or not…
“Is the store (Just Fish, as an example) really checking our board to gauge their public perception?”
I’m pretty sure every LFS in this area has been on both the DRC board and RC. I know another store that has and frankly deserves a negative reputation that frequents the boards.
Joe your rating system would need some fine tuning. For instance a stores reputation would be reset if the owners changed? What if the owners used to work there and everyone else that worked their still worked there and nothing really changed, but someone’s title.
[quote=“fishguy9, post:3, topic:3236”]
Besides, they wouldn’t be in business if they didnt strive to please their customers, and how can u make people happy if u don’t know what you are doing right and wrong.[/quote]
BJ, I think you are COMPLETELY missing the point and the reason many of our reefers are upset enough to speak out about certain LFS. They aren’t really “striving” at all. They don’t really care if their customers are happy or not. It is very sad that they know how bad their store is and still do nothing about it, but that is the case and they are still in business.
Actually if you were looking at LFS from an outside opinion, whose business model would you follow? The LFS that has more employees than anyone else and has been around the longest or the LFS with fewer employees that is working hard and hasn’t been around to long? Some of our LFS who are actually striving to do things right need to stick around and do well to prove this way of doing things is viable.
Craig should we allow BJ to comment on DPA and should we allow Bill Rob to comment on The Fish Bowl? What about big_dlink or whatever his name is? I would strongly suggest we keep 100% of this in the Premium Members section only and not allow anyone to see or post unless they have been a part of the club for a bit and paid their dues. It is not hard at all to create a screen name, make 10-15 posts with little comments like, “nice pics†and then rip on your competition. While some sponsors may like the fact that we have a lot more users on our site it would really defeat the purpose of having a review section and really ruin its legitimacy.
[quote=“rbu1, post:6, topic:3236”]
I can see this getting ugly…[/quote]
Ditto, and while I think that may not be a bad thing. I do in fact think it could hurt the club and would be a PITA to moderate, especially if we continue to moderate by gut feeling vs. by a set of rules.
Lets face it stores are in it to make money…You would not be a buisness person if that was not true. I have had dealings with several stores/wholesalers/divers…You name it I have probably tried it. You can usually tell your good stores from the ones in it to make money. Sometimes its all about the money…
But this is the beautiful part about an open forum. I can come out and say Newark Salt Water Exotics is a horrible store and I wouldn’t support them by even dropping a quarter in their gum ball machine. But then someone else can come in right behind me and say they were just there and the place is clean, the fish looked healthy, and the prices were fantastic.
Everyone’s opinions, like the stores themselves, are subjective. It also gives the proprietor the ability to ask the OP a direct quesiton - -“What was wrong with clown tank?” I think this could open up lines of communication as well as let the stores that aren’t interested in bettering themselves know that there is at least 1 site where anyone that doesn’t know any better might hear about better places.
Again this would also be set up for other members - to comment specificallly on a trade or a buying / selling transaction.
And i was thinking the post count would need to be pretty significant 50-100 before being able to post on this board.
As far as moderating - it doesn’t get based on opinion but on the rules of that board. If it’s opinion it’s moderated, if it’s found out to be false or made up, it’s moderated out and the member banned. Comments can be positive, negative, or neutral. I think you;d be suprised - I think the majority of posts would be "I was in in “Salt Water Paradise today and it was awesome -I picked up an mis-bar orange shoulder tang mated pair for $40!!!” or “My tank cracked over-night and I was able to get everything I needed to fix it at 8am and suffered no losses - thanks Steve”
The concept is good. There are vendor feedback forums on several sites. I could just see there being a difference of opinion between the store and the member and the next thing you know the store no longer wants to sponsor the club. You know what they say about opinions…everyone has one. It would have to be controlled somehow but not sure how…You have some store groupies that seem to bend over backwards for there store and would probably go running like a school girl back to the store owner with every tidbit of information. In all I think its a bad idea…Most people already know what stores to go to and what stores to avoid…I am learning everyday…
[quote=“rbu1, post:11, topic:3236”]
…Most people already know what stores to go to and what stores to avoid…I am learning everyday…[/quote]
See I dont think people really know. And proof of this is the 1 store that I find absolutely horrible on so many different levels still has a loyal customer base. If there name were otu there more when people Google them maybe they’d learn something new.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with constructive critisism, or someone’s opinion being shared. I would like to see others comments on stores before, lets say i drive an hour to get there.
example: Joe Blow’s Aquatics: i give them:
selection…9
pricing…9
service…8
cleanliness 10
i think this is a great store, but the prices are a little on the high side, still worth the trip.
I guess im just old fashioned. If i have a heartburn about something at a store, i just talk to them in person. Discuss my observations and constructive criiticism and any corrective sugguestions i might have in the course of polite conversation. much better than anonomous blogging. then its up to them to make whatever changes might fit their budget and business model.
last time i checked, I’m still in control of where my car takes me to go browsing or shopping, not Google GPS maps. we all have our favorite places and thats where we usually go. No problem.
Only a few problems with boards, UPDATES… If it were kept up, not. It would have to be expressed on opinion?, and or, a checklist of conditions and dates? it would be a nice for the stores, not so nice for others (ones with bad reviews)
I’m in buissness , so opinions of me, would help me out with sales, so …
All in all, I think the sponsors should work with you (if you go with this) to get a checklist of points on what makes a store. , talk about it at a meeting, 2-4 people go in monthly and run a checklist compairing it to last time.
All in a nutshell, most buissnesses arn’t stocking dodo anymore, invetorys are down, some stores might just look at it, and shrug…
[quote=“justsayno, post:18, topic:3236”]
All in all, I think the sponsors should work with you (if you go with this) to get a checklist of points on what makes a store. , talk about it at a meeting, 2-4 people go in monthly and run a checklist compairing it to last time. [/quote]
I completely disagree. Having a monthly quality control check of local stores is not our concern. Having a forum where members may share their experiences is. I think that once there are ten or twenty people who post to a poll, the average “score” will show the true nature of the business.
Read our first review and tell me that this is a positive reflection of our forum.
Although I feel that it is great to communicate between each other and at meetings about different experiences we have had about local fish stores, I think we might want to take caution before posting stuff like this. We might have our own individual bias towards stores, but slandering others is a bit harsh.
I would question this whole section of reviews, these are all relatively bias and give us as a forum a rather negative light. I feel like we should be a more open and receptive forum.
Remember, LFS are part of our sponsorship, and it would be pretty crappy to start losing them due to these reviews. Negative or positive, I don’t feel stuff like this belongs.