Great article by Felicia McCaulley. Great great article. And that's exactly how it works. Nailed it.

The big chains (which, ironically all started from tiny fish store with wooden floors and steamy windows) are displacing the small stores like crazy. I know of one store in LA and two in Ontario Canada that are decent. When I was a kid growing up we had two in town and one in the next town over and three in toronto that were superb (one became one of the big chains here now).

I know these guys pretty well. Jim in LA told me flat out he makes zero n fish and only makes money selling complete tank setups which a the time was a65 acrylic and all the gear for about 450.

He's run that store for 30 years and does ok. But he's not a lot better off than he was 30 years ago, but ok. This is LA and the Lakers are a customer, most of them. That may be all that's keeping him solvent frankly.

Harold in Toronto knows more about fish than anybody I know. certainly more than me (except for kilies and crypts) and I'm both amazed and impressed that every time to go there I see some fish I've never sen or never even ear dof. I'm pretty jaded and that doesn't happen often. It happens every time at his store.

Hes there because of all the places in Toronto (there's a lot) this was the only one that said "yeah you're good enough, ok you can work 9-5 m-f. Working saturdays and evening all your life wears thin.

So what's going to happen?

Will little stores continue to get eaten up by chains? I'm guessing so.

I don't see chains diminishing letting small stores prosper. One store opened up in town here and lasted 18 mos. Sayonara. The guy had saved 10 years and sold his house to open it, it was sadder than hell. But that's the world we live in.

It probably won't stay the same, nothing does. So we're looking at the inevitable demise of the LFS, I believe it's inevitable.

Now, the wildcard is the cooperative. Both in Toronto (although it may be closed I haven't heard in years) and in a town in Norway there are such cooperatives. A bunch of people all throw in some money and rent (or build) some space and all throw their tanks there and it seems to work.

So, what so I think the future hold? A combination of the two. Imagine a building where the front is a fish store but the back half is just a bunch of guys who pay the rent and utilities to house their tanks (and thus prevents divorce in many cases). It's a ready market for fish bred there and supplies are close. Costs are shared and no longer unreasonable, and all the fish people have a place to go they're not spread out all over. I think thats a working model for the future that benefits everyone and can keep these small local LFS's going. Maybe it won't work I don't know, but nobody's tried it yet and the idea of 24x7 access and decent coffee in an LFS is awfully appealing ;-0