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Wildwoods closing

kammaroon

kammaroon

Member
Joined
30 Jul 2020
Messages
116
Location
London
Wildwoods announced they are closing on Facebook yesterday. It’s a great shame as it was my go-to for rare fish and plants. I used to pop in about once a month, making a 2 hour round trip. Another London shop bites the dust.

Wildwoods Pond and Aquarium Supplies - Hertfordshire

Wildwoods Aquatic Centre - Pond Equipment, Aquariums, Tropical & Marine
worldofwater.com worldofwater.com
 
kammaroon said:
Another London shop bites the dust
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It is quite an issue...I'm as guilty as the next person buying filters, heaters and the like, on-line, cost, speed of delivery, things not being in stock in the local TFS etc., but the limits of not seeing, opening, sliding and touching fish tank cabinets etc., are significant. Shops can't survive selling only fish and P@H and M'Head Aquatics are close to a duopoly within a 50 mile radius of where I live.
 
Connswater said:
It is quite an issue...I'm as guilty as the next person buying filters, heaters and the like, on-line, cost, speed of delivery, things not being in stock in the local TFS etc., but the limits of not seeing, opening, sliding and touching fish tank cabinets etc., are significant. Shops can't survive selling only fish and P@H and M'Head Aquatics are close to a duopoly within a 50 mile radius of where I live.
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Our local maidenhead just closed, followed closely by an independent. I feel like some of the small local shops are a bit out of touch and haven't adapted well to modern shoppers e.g. the lfs would do a couple of fb posts showing stock (great!), then not post for months - if they showed stock I think people would follow/browse and go when they saw something that caught their eye. I've been to the lfs too many times and been disappointed by what they actually have in.

There is plenty of things I'd rather look at in person, but they just didn't actually have much of what I want. I went recently to buy wood/sand/gravel from lfs and all they had in stock was clown coloured gravel (two weeks before their next delivery of natural) and the fish are mainly guppies or and the handful of other look more sad and cost twice as much than if I just ordered them online.
 
tam said:
two weeks before their next delivery
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I've on several occasions been told so many weeks for delivery to the store - a bulk delivery of course - when an on-line delivery for the next day is the norm from the same company. Personally, I haven't bought fish on-line but I recognise that may have to change, I was quoted £60 per individual in-store for a "customer special order", £20 each on-line.
 
I dunno, there seems to be a fairly alarming trend of aquatic shops closing, and sure the economy is somewhat to blame. Heating costs don’t help etc.

But this isn’t the 90s anymore, trends and expectations of consumers have changed a lot. If your shop isn’t a “destination”, or quite small, or really heavily involved in online sales, then yeah you’re got some challenges.
 
I can only echo what others have written here - my local shop in Crystal Palace, SE London closed late last year, followed by another one in Beckenham. Looks like Wholesale Tropicals in Bethnal Green might have closed too. They had been all been going for decades. I wonder if they were more of a showcase for aquascaping and planted aquariums rather than traditional fishtanks they might have bucked the trend - might be a bit optimistic though. It’s a shame that there are practically no places to discover this awesome hobby out in the real world.
 
This is a huge loss, I really loved this shop, my dad used to take me when I was a child and I enjoyed visiting again as an adult even more. I haven't been able to visit for a while as I live on the opposite side of London, but it had the best loveliest staff and such a fantastic array of unusual plants and fish, when I visited I used to stay for hours just chatting to Dan. Real experts and passionate aquatic people. It was great for pond plants too.
 
Castlé said:
Heating costs
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Very true, my LFS manager was lamenting the lack of adequate insulation on his roof - sometimes the basics haven't been addressed, but your other points are well made and many shops seem unable to showcase the hobby with no display tank and very little attention to aesthetics - fish tanks normally go into our homes, some hardware shops look more attractive - limited tidiness, rusty or poorly accessible tanks, glorious displays of decaying plants and my personal bugbear dead, dying or emaciated fish for sale.
 
It's a shame to see another one gone.

I'm not dismissing the high costs for things such as business rates and energy bills (to mention a few) but as another poster has already touched on I wonder how much a lack of embracing modern shopper(s) habits and failing to embrace social media played a part...

Some of the independent shops that I knew (now closed for many years) really didn't embrace social media. There are a few others that remain open now that in my opinion will inevitably end up the same way. I hope I'm wrong
 
I'm sad to hear this. Not nearby but have used them for supplies and bought some fantastic cardinals from them last year (healthiest I have ever had).
However, they needed to pivot to support a changing market. No HOB filters on site, for example. In a store of that size, that's a problem.
I also think remaining shops need to look to entries such as ADC, Fishplanet, etc, to see that they are attractive to visit and don't have that air of decay that many now do. And recognise that buyers want an item of furniture that looks good, rather than an infinite selection of clearseal tanks.
 
tam said:
I feel like some of the small local shops are a bit out of touch and haven't adapted well to modern shoppers e.g. the lfs would do a couple of fb posts showing stock (great!), then not post for months - if they showed stock I think people would follow/browse
Click to expand...

In one of my day jobs I have almost doubled the revenue of a small motorcycle store with a simple advice: PUT YOUR STOCK ONLINE. You don't need to SELL on the internet, but you need TO BE on the internet. A Facebook Marketplace/Instagram post will go a long way. I don't expect a local store to be capable of beating something like Amazon, but I don't want to drive half an hour just to see if they have what I'm looking for either.
 
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