coral business
- Thread starter lclau
- Start date
GreshamH":369nzbgp said:
Hrm...I was under the impression that the Bali aquacultured stuff was the 'small colonies' he was talking aout.
They're not exactly larger pieces, are they? While having no first-hand experience (I will soon), they certainly look small...
Peace,
Chip
JennM":33cgvqlj said:Chip he said Bali aquacultures and/or a few small wild colonies possibly.
Nice to see you on this forum again, Chip
Jenn
Thanks, sweets. I need to get involved again, if only for the sake of the store I'm at...it's recovering from the shoddy business practices of the owners, and there's a new saltwater section on the horizon...
Prolly 75 glorious tanks...woo-hoo!
So anyway, I'll need to fill them with *something*...and I'm reading.
Peace,
Chip
Cripey man... I fall comatose when I get home. Exhaustion will do that It's the only cure for insomnia, although my sleep was fitful last night.
I'm heading off to work ... to my brown corals and a few really sweet specimens that will probably all go this weekend
Chip - 75 tanks... wow. Makes my little place look small - time.
Quality, not quantity
Jenn
It's the only cure for insomnia, although my sleep was fitful last night.I'm heading off to work ... to my brown corals and a few really sweet specimens that will probably all go this weekend
Chip - 75 tanks... wow. Makes my little place look small - time.
Quality, not quantity
Jenn
GreshamH":33ahhrlw said:Yah, I wanted to be exhausted from work yesterday, damn flaky shippers and slow thursday. BTW, wanna buy some stuff and help contribute to my sleep preperation
Gresham, for some reason I thought you guys only sold to wholesalers. You guys *are* a wholesaler?
Peace,
Chip
jenn, when did I ever say anything about running a chop shop. I would never buy wild colonies just to chop them up and sell for frags. You would get the whole colony save for the salvaged frags from shipping.
The only corals that I do frag are the ones that I have kept and do well within my tank, or that I happen to break off during cleaning.
We live in a society of free enterprise, do we not? What you are implying is to shut off all competition, especially from the small business. Each aspect of business has their perks and if you can boast the best product, people will come to you. I don't shop in any particular one place for all my items. I go back to those that have the healthiest livestock and the best service and guarantees. If your "larger" business cannot keep up with smaller businesses, then it is something your company needs to address rather than trying to prevent others from entering the marketplace.
Lawrence
The only corals that I do frag are the ones that I have kept and do well within my tank, or that I happen to break off during cleaning.
We live in a society of free enterprise, do we not? What you are implying is to shut off all competition, especially from the small business. Each aspect of business has their perks and if you can boast the best product, people will come to you. I don't shop in any particular one place for all my items. I go back to those that have the healthiest livestock and the best service and guarantees. If your "larger" business cannot keep up with smaller businesses, then it is something your company needs to address rather than trying to prevent others from entering the marketplace.
Lawrence
clarionreef
Advanced Reefer
- Location
- San Francisco
LARRY,
IT IS A FREE COUNTRY AND THE BEST DEFENSE THE BIG BOX MEGA CHAIN STORES HAVE IS ALSO THAT. It does kinda cover all behavior does it not?
I think what galls retailers the most is how the 'easy stuff' is denied to them as hobbyists 'use' them increasingly for the most difficult and often profitless matters like live food, disease control advice, heavy bulky items etc. No one can stay around for long only serving people without recompense.
Bringing in rock, frags and now 'garage and basement' coral is just another area that eats into the viability of maintaining a storefront with more expenses then most hobbyists could ever understand.
Whatever wholesaler hands off a box of Bali coral to a "garage-front" should be avoided by bonafide storefronts. Boycotting the wholesalers who cheapen the value of the product in this way should lose the real customer base that keeps them and the trade alive.
Retailers uniting to protect their own interests is intelligent. After all ...its a free country.
Steve
PS I just got a $1.60 drink at a restaurant. The drink goes in bulk for 70 cents at COSTCO. The restaurant had nice food, ambience, a busy staff. I should'a let em have it for overcharging and given them a lecture on becoming more competitive and less lazy. Perhaps someone could 'enter the marketplace' and set up his own drink stand outside their 'storefront' and undercut them. Then trumpet it on the net and the local media.
In things we all understand...the drink markup is critical...natural and important. In things we don't understand...the knee jerk charge of price gouging seems reasonable.
IT IS A FREE COUNTRY AND THE BEST DEFENSE THE BIG BOX MEGA CHAIN STORES HAVE IS ALSO THAT. It does kinda cover all behavior does it not?
I think what galls retailers the most is how the 'easy stuff' is denied to them as hobbyists 'use' them increasingly for the most difficult and often profitless matters like live food, disease control advice, heavy bulky items etc. No one can stay around for long only serving people without recompense.
Bringing in rock, frags and now 'garage and basement' coral is just another area that eats into the viability of maintaining a storefront with more expenses then most hobbyists could ever understand.
Whatever wholesaler hands off a box of Bali coral to a "garage-front" should be avoided by bonafide storefronts. Boycotting the wholesalers who cheapen the value of the product in this way should lose the real customer base that keeps them and the trade alive.
Retailers uniting to protect their own interests is intelligent. After all ...its a free country.
Steve
PS I just got a $1.60 drink at a restaurant. The drink goes in bulk for 70 cents at COSTCO. The restaurant had nice food, ambience, a busy staff. I should'a let em have it for overcharging and given them a lecture on becoming more competitive and less lazy. Perhaps someone could 'enter the marketplace' and set up his own drink stand outside their 'storefront' and undercut them. Then trumpet it on the net and the local media.
In things we all understand...the drink markup is critical...natural and important. In things we don't understand...the knee jerk charge of price gouging seems reasonable.
Respectfully, Glenn I don't see any personal attacks on Wayne. I do call him on the carpet when he advises somebody to work the trade to learn it and he doesn't do that himself... that's attacking the POST not the POSTER. Last I checked, that was open season. No worse than him scolding me and telling me to "be nice"... :roll:
Lawrence, I am not accusing you of trying to open a "chop shop" but there are plenty of them out there, and many are garage/basement businesses such as you are attempting to start. You might find that there is more money however, in hacking up that softball-sized acro.. because hobbyists don't want to pay $50-100 or more for it, but each branch can fetch you $10 or more... doesn't take a degree in Kalkulus *g* to realize that 10 broken branches makes for more profit... most heads have more than 10 branches... frags are cheaper to ship... and so it goes, the chop shop is born... often the stingier hobbyists are drawn to etail... and while I have no problem with people trying to save a dollar... my best customers find value added in the extras they get from me and they don't care to price shop because they know they get their money's worth. Unless you can create hype about something you've got that nobody else has, nobody will care about anything but the PRICE - and that is one of the biggest foibles of this industry and attempts to reform it. Hobbyists don't care about how the specimen is collected, handled or housed, it is and always will be, all about PRICE. And the minute you have it figured out, somebody else will hang up their virtual shingle and sell it for a dollar less than you.
As for small businesses - doesn't get much smaller than this! I'm the only full-time staffer here... my husband has a "real job" ( Right, Steve? ) and he helps on evenings and weekends. We provide full service... installation, maintenance, help and advice... all that stuff that etailers don't.
Yep it's about competition, but the playing field isn't level. Anybody can pick up a business licence for just about anything, and major wholesalers will ship to them - regardless if the business is the retail pet trade or not. Just last weekend I had this guy who fancied himself an "expert" saunter in and ask if I ordered my stuff from "X.Y.Z" in Calfornia, because *sniff* "Yeah I order boxed lots in for the customers of my BOAT SHOP..." this guy builds and modifies fancy boat parts for rich folk, and it seems that many of them are hobbyists, so as a "favour" to them, he orders boxed lots of corals and fishes for them... oh and would I be interested in picking up HIS stuff when I was at the airport picking up MY stuff? 8O 8O 8O
I asked him what made him think that I would want to help him compete with me... enabling HIM to sell to my (potential) customers and more than likely undercut me... he said it wasn't *really* competition, he just did it for personal use and favours... so do I believe he's running a LFS out of his boat shop, or do I just believe that X.Y.Z. sells direct to hobbyists? Take your pick. I don't buy from that wholesaler anyway, their quality wasn't up to snuff for me in the first place, they didn't send me what I asked for and did send me what I asked them NOT to send, I got a shipment with Vibrio once that nearly wiped me out, and when I found out ages ago that they sell to anyone/everyone, I dumped them. I've dumped more than one wholesaler too... for the same reasons. I support wholesalers who value their retail customers enough to not let jobbers/cherry pickers in AT ALL, and who don't sell direct to hobbyists if they live within a fair distance of one of their retailers. The one who sells to hobbyists does so at retail prices, so there is no advantage to locals to buy direct when they can let me pay for shipping/box, let me make the trip to the airport and let me assume the risk that the fish will arrive and remain alive.
Jenn
Lawrence, I am not accusing you of trying to open a "chop shop" but there are plenty of them out there, and many are garage/basement businesses such as you are attempting to start. You might find that there is more money however, in hacking up that softball-sized acro.. because hobbyists don't want to pay $50-100 or more for it, but each branch can fetch you $10 or more... doesn't take a degree in Kalkulus *g* to realize that 10 broken branches makes for more profit... most heads have more than 10 branches... frags are cheaper to ship... and so it goes, the chop shop is born... often the stingier hobbyists are drawn to etail... and while I have no problem with people trying to save a dollar... my best customers find value added in the extras they get from me and they don't care to price shop because they know they get their money's worth. Unless you can create hype about something you've got that nobody else has, nobody will care about anything but the PRICE - and that is one of the biggest foibles of this industry and attempts to reform it. Hobbyists don't care about how the specimen is collected, handled or housed, it is and always will be, all about PRICE. And the minute you have it figured out, somebody else will hang up their virtual shingle and sell it for a dollar less than you.
As for small businesses - doesn't get much smaller than this! I'm the only full-time staffer here... my husband has a "real job" (
Right, Steve? ) and he helps on evenings and weekends. We provide full service... installation, maintenance, help and advice... all that stuff that etailers don't. Yep it's about competition, but the playing field isn't level. Anybody can pick up a business licence for just about anything, and major wholesalers will ship to them - regardless if the business is the retail pet trade or not. Just last weekend I had this guy who fancied himself an "expert" saunter in and ask if I ordered my stuff from "X.Y.Z" in Calfornia, because *sniff* "Yeah I order boxed lots in for the customers of my BOAT SHOP..." this guy builds and modifies fancy boat parts for rich folk, and it seems that many of them are hobbyists, so as a "favour" to them, he orders boxed lots of corals and fishes for them... oh and would I be interested in picking up HIS stuff when I was at the airport picking up MY stuff? 8O 8O 8O
I asked him what made him think that I would want to help him compete with me... enabling HIM to sell to my (potential) customers and more than likely undercut me... he said it wasn't *really* competition, he just did it for personal use and favours... so do I believe he's running a LFS out of his boat shop, or do I just believe that X.Y.Z. sells direct to hobbyists? Take your pick. I don't buy from that wholesaler anyway, their quality wasn't up to snuff for me in the first place, they didn't send me what I asked for and did send me what I asked them NOT to send, I got a shipment with Vibrio once that nearly wiped me out, and when I found out ages ago that they sell to anyone/everyone, I dumped them. I've dumped more than one wholesaler too... for the same reasons. I support wholesalers who value their retail customers enough to not let jobbers/cherry pickers in AT ALL, and who don't sell direct to hobbyists if they live within a fair distance of one of their retailers. The one who sells to hobbyists does so at retail prices, so there is no advantage to locals to buy direct when they can let me pay for shipping/box, let me make the trip to the airport and let me assume the risk that the fish will arrive and remain alive.
Jenn
You may have just joined the forum but I can tell already that you represent the new breed involved in the ornamental trade industry.lclau":377bg26j said:
Those who rely on cyanide caught fish and wild coral to make a living will see their business fail soon.
The dated industry thinking that they have a right to rape the 3rd world of its most precious jewels, its reefs, is no longer tolerated stateside or by the youth in those island nations either.
Get ready for major changes as industry continues to ignore the warnings and continues on the path to its own destruction.
It saddens my soul because I know that a responsible industry, were they to take corrective reeform now, could continue to provide us with some of the beautiful wild corals.
God, I am starting to sound like Steve!
Sponsor Reefs
We're a FREE website, and we exist because of hobbyists like YOU who help us run this community.
Click here to sponsor $10:
