Introducing new fish to your local market?

[Frost]

I know the advice has been given to see what a local fish store actually might want from a local breeder instead of just trying to dump whatever random fish you've spawned on them, but I'm wondering if anyone has success stories doing just that.

So in my case I accidentally spawned more Indian Ricefish than I know what to ever do with, and I've never seen any sort of ricefish available locally (let alone the rather drab Indian Ricefish.) Now I've been enjoying these fish a lot for a purchase that was somewhat out of the blue, but I get the feeling that none of my local stores will be too keen on taking any, I'm unaware of any local clubs I could offload them at (and good luck with covid, I'm guessing) and I'd rather not try shipping them in freezing temperatures. Considering how easy it is to make more of them, I wouldn't mind doing so, but I'm not going to if nobody around my area wants any.

So how would you approach this? Go in and ask if the store would be interested in trying to sell a few, then go from there? Have any of you had success doing this?

[JettsPapa]

My only experience selling to a store is guppy grass and pearl weed.  It occurred to me that I never see it offered for sale at any of the stores I go to, so I emailed one of them.  I had it packaged in clear food grade containers with neatly printed labels, so it was ready to sell.  I wound up taking almost $100.00 worth in store credit to them.

Sorry for the long response, but because of my experience I'd encourage you to contact them, via email so you can send pictures.  It won't cost anything to ask.

[Frost]

1 hour ago, JettsPapa said:

My only experience selling to a store is guppy grass and pearl weed.  It occurred to me that I never see it offered for sale at any of the stores I go to, so I emailed one of them.  I had it packaged in clear food grade containers with neatly printed labels, so it was ready to sell.  I wound up taking almost $100.00 worth in store credit to them.

Sorry for the long response, but because of my experience I'd encourage you to contact them, via email so you can send pictures.  It won't cost anything to ask.

I've asked one store about plants previously and they said they'd really only be willing to take Anubias and Java Fern, and even since then I don't have either in amounts I'm comfortable parting with. There are a couple other stores I haven't asked at all though about plants or fish. I'll have to remember to try Email when these fish get more size on them, it would save a lot of leg work

[Alexa]

It may be worth just bringing them a free sample so they can see how the fish sell without any real investment. I’ve done this method with plants but haven’t tried it with fish.