Bottom line is no, there isn't a huge profit in it, yes, it is expensive to set up for, and no, it doesn't make for repeat customers.
All of our LFS keep CFL, and many T5, in stock. I buy my fixtures online from places that aren't supporting "sticks and bricks" in their pricing. I buy bulbs only if I'm stuck by a sudden bulb death, otherwise I buy replacement bulbs online, too.
I do (well, did, I use very little nowadays thanks to mineralized soil) the same with ferts, as do most of you.
I go to the source for CO2 tanks, no need to pay a re-application of another profit margin to buy it at the LFS, assuming they even got into it.
We go to niche shops, buy two plants, propogate it out, and then we rob the next 20 customers from the LFS as we sell it inside our club. There is no profit in that.
We say their prices are too high on hardware, and shop it online. We complain about their pricing on plants, and order them online. We complain about their pricing on... oh, you get the point.
They have sticks and bricks to pay for. They'll never compete with online pricing on many of those items. Their job is to be profitable in the end, and there is not a lot of profit in selling to our niche - there is actually more in buying from our niche and selling it to those who will kill the plants and come back for more!
This is essentially saltwater reef (lite?) - the freshwater version; with the caveat being that no one can propogate a coral tank like we can a planted tank - and there obviously isn't money return in coral, either, as the big chains would all stock it if there were!
Even if the make a movie about a neon tetra, I think the "explosion" would be short lived - people will do what they do now; buy a couple plants, kill them, replace it with plastic and move on.
All of our LFS keep CFL, and many T5, in stock. I buy my fixtures online from places that aren't supporting "sticks and bricks" in their pricing. I buy bulbs only if I'm stuck by a sudden bulb death, otherwise I buy replacement bulbs online, too.
I do (well, did, I use very little nowadays thanks to mineralized soil) the same with ferts, as do most of you.
I go to the source for CO2 tanks, no need to pay a re-application of another profit margin to buy it at the LFS, assuming they even got into it.
We go to niche shops, buy two plants, propogate it out, and then we rob the next 20 customers from the LFS as we sell it inside our club. There is no profit in that.
We say their prices are too high on hardware, and shop it online. We complain about their pricing on plants, and order them online. We complain about their pricing on... oh, you get the point.
They have sticks and bricks to pay for. They'll never compete with online pricing on many of those items. Their job is to be profitable in the end, and there is not a lot of profit in selling to our niche - there is actually more in buying from our niche and selling it to those who will kill the plants and come back for more!
This is essentially saltwater reef (lite?) - the freshwater version; with the caveat being that no one can propogate a coral tank like we can a planted tank - and there obviously isn't money return in coral, either, as the big chains would all stock it if there were!
Even if the make a movie about a neon tetra, I think the "explosion" would be short lived - people will do what they do now; buy a couple plants, kill them, replace it with plastic and move on.
