Local FW Club and LFS

[Pelvicachromis]

Looking for some thoughts and tips.

I am president of my local general fish club (Charlotte Area Aquarist Society )(Aquacharlotte.org). I have a meeting this week with our largest local aquarium shop to discuss how we can both be better partners.

Little background:
Currently we receive a discount at the store and they occasionally donate to our annual auction. We are adding forum for them on our message boards, where they can post events, inventory, sales, etc.
We are a smaller club with around 30 members, of which about 12 are active at any moment.
The shop is a large FW and SW store with about 10,000 sq ft. It is like most stores with bread and butter FW, with a few odd balls now and then. SW is more developed and more popular in the area.

So what I am looking for is some ideas to take to this meeting that some of you have seen work in your area. I want the club and store to benefit and grow.

Thanks in advance.
Keith Chitwood

 

[tjudy]

I suggest one of two strategies to take in with you. The easiest is simply to ask the store what they want out of the relationship and what it is worth to them. You might be very surprised to find out that they are happy to support the club and do not really expect to see an increase in revenue. They are probably happy with good word-of-mouth endorsement of the store.

The other strategy is to combine every thing you can do for the store into one easy package deal for a reasonable price. If your club is into giving away stuff at meetings or has a raffle at a show, payment in product is not a bad way to go (but be very careful to make sure you get to pick the stuff or they may donate only the old stuff they cannot sell). A package for them could include:

• ad space in your journal
• banner on forum/website
• forum space to promote themselves
• a vendor table at your events
• a speaker sponsorship at a meeting
• class or division sponsorships at your show

The more you can add to the package the better the package will be. As far as a fair price goes, determine what you need and charge that. Cover the costs and add a little for the club coffers. Avoid charging for promotional opportunities that do not really cost you anything, such as banner ad and forum space. That builds good will. The lower the cost and the more the benefit to the store the better.