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Below is a letter from the AMDA BOD to the general membership and the public at large.
Dear AMDA members,
During the past year your AMDA board of directors has worked to resolve two important issues facing our business. The first relates to the impact of marine ornamental fishing on the environment. The second centers on E-Commerce’s growth and its subsequent detriment to brick-and-mortar retailers – the predominant group within our association.
During the first part of 2003, your AMDA board worked to investigate the problems related to the acquisition of healthy animals for our retail trade. One of the charter responsibilities of the AMDA organization is to seek ways to protect the environment and create a sustainable fishery for the animals we sell in our shops. There are many facets to this mandate that involve wild caught and lab or farm raised animals for the trade. For now, we turn our attention to the wild caught part of our trade.
Since we are users of a resource and the resource found in the tropical areas of the world (of which the United States is not a part), we lack the necessary political leverage to effectively promote environmental protection. What we can do, however, is promote the purchase of fish from organizations or villages devoted to good fish husbandry after capture and appropriate catching techniques.
Your board believes that we have an innate responsibility to do what we can to establish networking relationships with the fishermen and shippers in these countries, and help wherever we can to engender good collection practices for ornamental marine animals no matter where it is. We have hoped that distributors in this country would do more to stem the continued use of cyanide and poor handling and shipping, but that does not seem to be happening to any great extent.
In order to get a better understanding of the current situation, we sent our president Steve Robinson to the Philippines to investigate possible solutions to the gross destruction of the environment food fish trade and to a lesser extent the impact of the ornamental fish trade. For years, various well-meaning organizations have tried to correct this using all sorts of grants and words to no avail. Your board has come to the conclusion that on site training, making proper equipment available directly to the fishermen, and frequent site inspection is the only way to assure that our desires as customers are being met.
As a group, AMDA needs to be committed to the concept that we should not support those that do not protect their resource. And as customers, we need to impose our will and believe that our will is beneficial to the environment and the establishment of good husbandry practices at the catch sites.
Since Steve has had extensive experience in field collecting, and understands the issues involved in the endeavor, we thought a tour of an area in the Philippines would help us understand the breadth of the existing problem.
As part of the trip, AMDA bought and delivered a small amount of hand netting to the fishermen of the Philippines. They were thankful for the gesture and it illuminated the need for someone to help organize a disparate industry that needs to do its part in preventing damage to the coral reefs of the Philippines. We found that appropriate equipment was not made available to the fishermen, but there was no shortage of cyanide for them to buy.
The process of collecting, holding, transporting to shipping hubs, and the subsequent delivery to the United States is arduous for fish and fisherman alike. Steve's trip certainly expanded our knowledge of the complexity of the issues at hand and in the future we will try to educate our members as well.
The concept of net-caught vs. cyanide or chemical caught fish has been a topic of discussion amongst hobbyists and professional aquarium people for many years. For some unknown reason the food industry in the Philippines and Indonesia has not questioned this reprehensible fishing practice. The AMDA board believes that the only way we will ever achieve cooperation in regards to cyanide use is to have established delegates that answer to our needs within the laws of the land in the areas where our fish are caught, held, and delivered. The issues are not just in the procurement of fish. Handling and shipping procedures also need supervision, and it appears that this area of the chain of custody is actually equally as problematic as cyanide fishing.
As a follow-up mission, two AMDA board members have been involved in establishing a village in Bali to produce only net caught fish (Burton Patrick of Pet Supplies "Plus" in Pittsburgh and Steve Robinson of Cortez Marine). This village, through their own determination and Steve's training in the village, completely switched to net caught fish. Unfortunately the saga does not end there. Training the village to hold and ship the fish successfully to the States will be the next project and the final step toward more successful marine fish keeping at the retail level.
The second area of concern for your AMDA board is to define retail concerns at home. Brick-and-mortar retailers are stuck in the trenches - face to face with their customers every day and serving as the cornerstone of the education in the hobby; it is upon the backs of these retailers that the business is built. It isn't the mass merchants that cherry pick a few fast turning items like marine salt or E-Commerce that supplies the expensive and easy to ship hard goods, leaving local retailers to bear the burden of hard-to-ship and low-margin items left by the cherry-pickers.
We have not talked to a retailer that isn't tired of finding remedies for the mass merchant and E-tailers - and still not get the sales to warrant the effort. These mass merchants merely start their customers, who inevitably fail and become disillusioned with the hobby because they were originally given faulty or non-existent advice. E-Commerce and mass merchants (Petco and PetsMart are a part of the mix) know very little about the animals they sell. Just because a body in a far away place can write an animal care article for a corporate website, doesn't mean anybody in the stores servicing those customers knows anything about it.
It is also our belief that the bulk of AMDA members are bricks and mortar retailers and that e-commerce and mass merchants are taking advantage of their efforts without paying their dues. Bricks and mortar retailers pay high rents, high local taxes, have high payrolls and payroll taxes to service customers and keep their stores looking presentable for the public. All of these things have to be paid through sales of pet supplies. Taking away the ability to compete in selling pet supplies under the guise of free enterprise is to ignore that your neighborhood store is taxed to death while e-commerce is given benefits they have not earned.
In contrast to the local retailer, the e-commerce company doesn't have to worry about algae or a little slop on the floor. They don't get sued by every Tom, Dick, and Harry that walks in the door, up a curb or over a speed bump. They also don't have to worry about spending $2500 a winter salting parking lots or removing snow.
We sell hard-to-move aquariums at very low margins. We have to provide the help to get these bulky items into their cars or even deliver them - oftentimes for very little or no compensation. We provide the salt, the frozen food, and the live food; none of which are profitable enough to pay labor, rents, and taxes. We provide these services as part of the whole business, but people who don’t provide these services are whittling away our profitability. Obviously some things will have to change.
City and commuter taxes penalize employees who work in the city. Sales tax is mandated by states to be collected by local retail, yet interstate E-Commerce oftentimes boasts of the government’s inability to tax them. Local business has audits for use tax. Local businesses pay permit fees to have scales, pricing scanners, and point of sale systems. Local business pays township taxes based on gross sales. E-Commerce may eventually be forced to adopt these burdens as well, but they won’t have to take possession of their “inventory.” Many times the products are drop shipped from distributors and manufacturers without the company ever taking possession or paying the taxes on the gross sale.
We sign leases for 5 and 10 years on real estate that a government can close for road construction for months without compensation. We are part of the community that expects us to be a part of that community. We are visible center of commerce and we must keep our facilities scrupulously clean at all times. We are always in the public's eye and responsible to our customers on a moments notice. And most importantly, we create the business upon which the e-commerce businesses are built.
While we hoe the fields, our E-Commerce comrades sit lazily in the woods enjoying the good life and laughing at us for doing all the work while they enjoy the benefits of our labors… without working too hard at it.
For the above reasons we believe that companies that are major players in E-Commerce should not be a part of AMDA. This includes livestock, hard-goods distributors, and manufacturers. Livestock companies in particular cannot be fully functional without the local retailer acting as support. They may sell some things cheaper, but this would become a very expensive hobby, and it would shrink considerably, if everything were to be purchased via the Internet.
The states then would want to collect use tax, freight companies would be doing well, and E-Commerce would be spread throughout the areas without anybody to initiate an interest in the hobby.
Additionally we believe that distributors to AMDA members should not sell to people that do not have a wholesale license for the retail pet trade. Producers of livestock have the same responsibility to the organization as the livestock distributor. They cannot sell direct to the public.
In return, the AMDA member should at all times support those distributors that support the retail trade. We are not intending to influence competition, but to support those that create the hobby for the benefit of all. Since we are primarily a retail group, we believe our focus needs to be on retail and not supporting those companies that play both ends of this.
We would certainly like to hear any comments you have regarding these issues. If you would take a moment to write to the board regarding your feelings in these areas it would help us to represent the overall position of your organization.
Burton Patrick
AMDA BOD, Director at Large
Dear AMDA members,
During the past year your AMDA board of directors has worked to resolve two important issues facing our business. The first relates to the impact of marine ornamental fishing on the environment. The second centers on E-Commerce’s growth and its subsequent detriment to brick-and-mortar retailers – the predominant group within our association.
During the first part of 2003, your AMDA board worked to investigate the problems related to the acquisition of healthy animals for our retail trade. One of the charter responsibilities of the AMDA organization is to seek ways to protect the environment and create a sustainable fishery for the animals we sell in our shops. There are many facets to this mandate that involve wild caught and lab or farm raised animals for the trade. For now, we turn our attention to the wild caught part of our trade.
Since we are users of a resource and the resource found in the tropical areas of the world (of which the United States is not a part), we lack the necessary political leverage to effectively promote environmental protection. What we can do, however, is promote the purchase of fish from organizations or villages devoted to good fish husbandry after capture and appropriate catching techniques.
Your board believes that we have an innate responsibility to do what we can to establish networking relationships with the fishermen and shippers in these countries, and help wherever we can to engender good collection practices for ornamental marine animals no matter where it is. We have hoped that distributors in this country would do more to stem the continued use of cyanide and poor handling and shipping, but that does not seem to be happening to any great extent.
In order to get a better understanding of the current situation, we sent our president Steve Robinson to the Philippines to investigate possible solutions to the gross destruction of the environment food fish trade and to a lesser extent the impact of the ornamental fish trade. For years, various well-meaning organizations have tried to correct this using all sorts of grants and words to no avail. Your board has come to the conclusion that on site training, making proper equipment available directly to the fishermen, and frequent site inspection is the only way to assure that our desires as customers are being met.
As a group, AMDA needs to be committed to the concept that we should not support those that do not protect their resource. And as customers, we need to impose our will and believe that our will is beneficial to the environment and the establishment of good husbandry practices at the catch sites.
Since Steve has had extensive experience in field collecting, and understands the issues involved in the endeavor, we thought a tour of an area in the Philippines would help us understand the breadth of the existing problem.
As part of the trip, AMDA bought and delivered a small amount of hand netting to the fishermen of the Philippines. They were thankful for the gesture and it illuminated the need for someone to help organize a disparate industry that needs to do its part in preventing damage to the coral reefs of the Philippines. We found that appropriate equipment was not made available to the fishermen, but there was no shortage of cyanide for them to buy.
The process of collecting, holding, transporting to shipping hubs, and the subsequent delivery to the United States is arduous for fish and fisherman alike. Steve's trip certainly expanded our knowledge of the complexity of the issues at hand and in the future we will try to educate our members as well.
The concept of net-caught vs. cyanide or chemical caught fish has been a topic of discussion amongst hobbyists and professional aquarium people for many years. For some unknown reason the food industry in the Philippines and Indonesia has not questioned this reprehensible fishing practice. The AMDA board believes that the only way we will ever achieve cooperation in regards to cyanide use is to have established delegates that answer to our needs within the laws of the land in the areas where our fish are caught, held, and delivered. The issues are not just in the procurement of fish. Handling and shipping procedures also need supervision, and it appears that this area of the chain of custody is actually equally as problematic as cyanide fishing.
As a follow-up mission, two AMDA board members have been involved in establishing a village in Bali to produce only net caught fish (Burton Patrick of Pet Supplies "Plus" in Pittsburgh and Steve Robinson of Cortez Marine). This village, through their own determination and Steve's training in the village, completely switched to net caught fish. Unfortunately the saga does not end there. Training the village to hold and ship the fish successfully to the States will be the next project and the final step toward more successful marine fish keeping at the retail level.
The second area of concern for your AMDA board is to define retail concerns at home. Brick-and-mortar retailers are stuck in the trenches - face to face with their customers every day and serving as the cornerstone of the education in the hobby; it is upon the backs of these retailers that the business is built. It isn't the mass merchants that cherry pick a few fast turning items like marine salt or E-Commerce that supplies the expensive and easy to ship hard goods, leaving local retailers to bear the burden of hard-to-ship and low-margin items left by the cherry-pickers.
We have not talked to a retailer that isn't tired of finding remedies for the mass merchant and E-tailers - and still not get the sales to warrant the effort. These mass merchants merely start their customers, who inevitably fail and become disillusioned with the hobby because they were originally given faulty or non-existent advice. E-Commerce and mass merchants (Petco and PetsMart are a part of the mix) know very little about the animals they sell. Just because a body in a far away place can write an animal care article for a corporate website, doesn't mean anybody in the stores servicing those customers knows anything about it.
It is also our belief that the bulk of AMDA members are bricks and mortar retailers and that e-commerce and mass merchants are taking advantage of their efforts without paying their dues. Bricks and mortar retailers pay high rents, high local taxes, have high payrolls and payroll taxes to service customers and keep their stores looking presentable for the public. All of these things have to be paid through sales of pet supplies. Taking away the ability to compete in selling pet supplies under the guise of free enterprise is to ignore that your neighborhood store is taxed to death while e-commerce is given benefits they have not earned.
In contrast to the local retailer, the e-commerce company doesn't have to worry about algae or a little slop on the floor. They don't get sued by every Tom, Dick, and Harry that walks in the door, up a curb or over a speed bump. They also don't have to worry about spending $2500 a winter salting parking lots or removing snow.
We sell hard-to-move aquariums at very low margins. We have to provide the help to get these bulky items into their cars or even deliver them - oftentimes for very little or no compensation. We provide the salt, the frozen food, and the live food; none of which are profitable enough to pay labor, rents, and taxes. We provide these services as part of the whole business, but people who don’t provide these services are whittling away our profitability. Obviously some things will have to change.
City and commuter taxes penalize employees who work in the city. Sales tax is mandated by states to be collected by local retail, yet interstate E-Commerce oftentimes boasts of the government’s inability to tax them. Local business has audits for use tax. Local businesses pay permit fees to have scales, pricing scanners, and point of sale systems. Local business pays township taxes based on gross sales. E-Commerce may eventually be forced to adopt these burdens as well, but they won’t have to take possession of their “inventory.” Many times the products are drop shipped from distributors and manufacturers without the company ever taking possession or paying the taxes on the gross sale.
We sign leases for 5 and 10 years on real estate that a government can close for road construction for months without compensation. We are part of the community that expects us to be a part of that community. We are visible center of commerce and we must keep our facilities scrupulously clean at all times. We are always in the public's eye and responsible to our customers on a moments notice. And most importantly, we create the business upon which the e-commerce businesses are built.
While we hoe the fields, our E-Commerce comrades sit lazily in the woods enjoying the good life and laughing at us for doing all the work while they enjoy the benefits of our labors… without working too hard at it.
For the above reasons we believe that companies that are major players in E-Commerce should not be a part of AMDA. This includes livestock, hard-goods distributors, and manufacturers. Livestock companies in particular cannot be fully functional without the local retailer acting as support. They may sell some things cheaper, but this would become a very expensive hobby, and it would shrink considerably, if everything were to be purchased via the Internet.
The states then would want to collect use tax, freight companies would be doing well, and E-Commerce would be spread throughout the areas without anybody to initiate an interest in the hobby.
Additionally we believe that distributors to AMDA members should not sell to people that do not have a wholesale license for the retail pet trade. Producers of livestock have the same responsibility to the organization as the livestock distributor. They cannot sell direct to the public.
In return, the AMDA member should at all times support those distributors that support the retail trade. We are not intending to influence competition, but to support those that create the hobby for the benefit of all. Since we are primarily a retail group, we believe our focus needs to be on retail and not supporting those companies that play both ends of this.
We would certainly like to hear any comments you have regarding these issues. If you would take a moment to write to the board regarding your feelings in these areas it would help us to represent the overall position of your organization.
Burton Patrick
AMDA BOD, Director at Large
