“Sorry state of the French aquatics market“

In Sera’s opinion, the French aquatics market harbours great potential, but it is not being exploited. The company regards the mostly inadequate training and poor remuneration of sales staff, leading directly to a severe lack of motivation, as the main problem. This in turn results in employees engaged in the sale of aquarium products not having up-to-date information or sufficient expertise in the subject to handle customers’ queries efficiently. Problems in looking after their aquariums properly, for instance fish dying and plagues of algae, then cause many newcomers to fishkeeping to abandon their hobby after a short time. According to Sera, hearing about experiences of this kind from acquaintances puts off further potential new customers from acquiring an aquarium, meaning that the sector stagnates or even that sales decline, because the growth in sales that is urgently required slows down or fails to materialise at all.
By no means all pet product stores in France are as visually attractive as the Animalis store in Herblay, close to Paris.
One of the main factors responsible for this sorry state of affairs in Sera’s view is the restructuring of the retail landscape. The big retail chains employ poorly trained and largely unmotivated sales staff and cheap, inferior products are pushed at the customer. Failure is thus preprogrammed from the outset. The direct consequence of this is a far from satisfactory sales trend.
Calling for more quality in the French pet product industry: Sera’s owner Josef Ravnak (above) and André Muller, managing director of Sera France.
Sera sees the key to solving this problem in high-quality, high-income branded products on the one hand and in a commitment on the part of trade and industry to communicate with the customer on the other. The company therefore offers regular sales seminars for the speciality trade in its head office in Heinsberg. Sera also organises specialist seminars worldwide for traders in well-known conference centres by arrangement with the respective importers and sales organisations, and prominent speakers are engaged to address these gatherings. These further education courses are complemented by training in the speciality businesses themselves. Apart from intensive training courses for employees, Sera also engages with the agreement of shop owners in direct contact with the customers in the shop, for example via water testing promotions or product demonstrations.
To be able to reach new aquarium hobbyists…