Trident 2-months reagent $44.95, 6-month is $99.95....what????????

[ca1ore]

bulk purchasing is always cheaper. less packaging, easier to distribute, and a larger single sale. It's perfectly normal

Except the six month supply is just three two month supply boxes strapped together LOL.

 

[TheHarold]

Except the six month supply is just three two month supply boxes strapped together LOL.

Shipped once....

 

[ca1ore]

135 canadian dollar is $100.49 usd.

You are using Canadian website.

oh man, that made me laugh.

 

[ca1ore]

Shipped once....

one can also order three of the two months sets at once too .....

 

[TheHarold]

one can also order three of the two months sets at once too .....

But will they? Can’t only offer a $100 option for a reagent. Not everyone wants to spend that at once, same concept as people buying smaller containers of reagent or DI resin. Hence the discounted package if you buy a triplet set; I dunno, it makes sense to me. People are definitely buying multiple sets and hoarding a bit, which doesn’t help stabilize supply either.

Agree LOL re Canadian dollars

 

[ca1ore]

Was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. Made me chuckle when I got my 6 month set only to see it was three boxes strapped together. Not sure why Neptune wouldn’t just make the single boxes and apply the discount if you buy three at once. Only require stores to then stock a single SKU. Maybe I’m overthinking it .....

 

[TheKylersFire]

$200/yr to operate, yikes!

Well worth it. If you test 2x a week with a standard test kit you’re going to be $100 in test kits a year and 10+ hours of testing and not near as accurate. You can pay yourself $10 hr or get a trident. I would say it’s well worth it. I was on the fence but now that I got mine 4 tests a day is sweet. Peace of mind and the money I spent is a fraction of what it would cost to replace all my corals in my tank.

 

[iprayforwaves]

Buy more and save? What a concept!

Jokes aside, I haven’t had any problem finding the 6 month supply when needed. Running 2 Tridents set to 8 tests a day schedule. Between the 5-6 major online dealers I can normally find the 6 month supply within a few days when it get close to reorder time.

I can't find the 6 month supply anywhere. Purchase one when I bought the Trident and none to be found since.

 

[PmCarbrey]

I can't find the 6 month supply anywhere. Purchase one when I bought the Trident and none to be found since.

According to the neptune rep i spoke with they are not currently producing the 6 month, and will not be until the catch up on everything else

 

[DaneGer21]

Well worth it. If you test 2x a week with a standard test kit you’re going to be $100 in test kits a year and 10+ hours of testing and not near as accurate. You can pay yourself $10 hr or get a trident. I would say it’s well worth it. I was on the fence but now that I got mine 4 tests a day is sweet. Peace of mind and the money I spent is a fraction of what it would cost to replace all my corals in my tank.

Interesting, I guess I don’t test that much, or need to.

 

[radiata]

First off, why is the 6 month supply has a better value than the 2 month? With this kind of pricing structure, the 6 month supply is much more difficult to get because whoever has a Trident, that person would rather buy the 6 month supply rather than the 2 month supply.

Neptune should price the 2 month reagent supply to be about $33, not $45. 95. That is not fair when the 6 month supply is much harder to get than the 2 month supply. In fact, even the 2 month supply is already hard to find.

Economics 1.01?

 

[Crabby48]

$200/yr to operate, yikes!

Stop doing that. $45 is hard enough to think about. Best part is most test more and use the reagent faster.

 

[robbyg]

First off, why is the 6 month supply has a better value than the 2 month? With this kind of pricing structure, the 6 month supply is much more difficult to get because whoever has a Trident, that person would rather buy the 6 month supply rather than the 2 month supply.

Neptune should price the 2 month reagent supply to be about $33, not $45. 95. That is not fair when the 6 month supply is much harder to get than the 2 month supply. In fact, even the 2 month supply is already hard to find.

They do it because they can. If another company sold the reagents or you could DIY them, the price would drop to $33. I do believe them when they say the supply is short and difficult to get, but keeping the price difference shows that it is mostly just a calculated money grab.

Both Bulk Reef and Marine Depot offer free shipping on orders over $29 so shipping was always going to be a fixed expense regardless. What Neptune should have done was lowered the price of the two month to $33 dollars because it is their own internal issues that prevent people from getting the six month supply. They will no doubt argue that the $45.95 price tag is to prevent people from buying three packs at a time.

I honestly do not think it makes any difference to 80% of trident owners. They will still buy it and suck up the extra $39 of expense to get three of the two month boxes. So I think it only has a small effect on spreading out the reagents to more customers and a larger affect on Neptunes profits.
Anyway that is just smart business on their part.

 

[Kyl]

They do it because they can. If another company sold the reagents or you could DIY them, the price would drop to $33. I do believe them when they say the supply is short and difficult to get, but keeping the price difference shows that it is mostly just a calculated money grab.

Both Bulk Reef and Marine Depot offer free shipping on orders over $29 so shipping was always going to be a fixed expense regardless. What Neptune should have done was lowered the price of the two month to $33 dollars because it is their own internal issues that prevent people from getting the six month supply. They will no doubt argue that the $45.95 price tag is to prevent people from buying three packs at a time.

I honestly do not think it makes any difference to 80% of trident owners. They will still buy it and suck up the extra $39 of expense to get three of the two month boxes. So I think it only has a small effect on spreading out the reagents to more customers and a larger affect on Neptunes profits.
Anyway that is just smart business on their part.

That's not entirely what you would expect would happen. Their alkalinity competitors all have DIY methods for reagents, yet the OEM refills for those units have not dropped in price. If a DIY reagent came out for the Trident you would instead most likely have some statement about voiding warranty, or another boogeyman like that. They would most certainly not drop the reagent price, it's a perfect vendor lock into an ongoing cost with a lower front-end outlay. Pretty much inkjet printer business model 101, but with an ecosystem lock-in on top of that.

 

[robbyg]

That's not entirely what you would expect would happen. Their alkalinity competitors all have DIY methods for reagents, yet the OEM refills for those units have not dropped in price. If a DIY reagent came out for the Trident you would instead most likely have some statement about voiding warranty, or another boogeyman like that. They would most certainly not drop the reagent price, it's a perfect vendor lock into an ongoing cost with a lower front-end outlay. Pretty much inkjet printer business model 101, but with an ecosystem lock-in on top of that.

The price as far as I know on the competitors reagents have not gone up, they remain unresponsive to the situation but as you pointed out this is no different than the Ink Jet printer market, and as you might remember, when 3rd party cartridges first came out it took years for the public to embrace them and then when they did the Chinese started to dump crap cartridges on the market and drove most people back to OEM. In this case since it's DIY I think once people see that it works long term it will probably become very popular.

The annoying thing with the Trident is that they are even breaking up the 6 month supplies into two month supplies because they "Don't have enough" but the reality is that sales per month are pretty much going to be the same, whether it's a 3 pack or 3 orders of a single pack. So one has to wonder why are we paying a penalty, is it a real shortage or not. Anyway they did say in the last video that the problem would be solved shortly, so lets hope so.

BTW my contacts in China tell me the place is fully open for business. The problem is that overseas companies are not ordering much of anything.

 

[IEReefer]

Can a third party make regeants for them so we can generate market competition. What a concept! How hard can it be to make reagents? Any chemist here want to chime in? That's a 200 vs 300 difference to operate a year with their current pricing. And who really needs to test 4 times a day. I'd be fine with once a day and can always do manual testing if additional testing is needed. C'mon Neptune, I know we live in a capitalist country but how much does it really cost to make these reagents.

Maybe if we keep addressing this issue, they will chime in. I messaged them on IG and haven't heard back from them.

I know most of you are frustrated with their control of their reagents. Bulk reef supply, make a competing reagents only like you've done for other products. I vote BRS on this one.

Thanks,
Mel

 

[User1]

Can a third party make regeants for them so we can generate market competition. What a concept! How hard can it be to make reagents? Any chemist here want to chime in? That's a 200 vs 300 difference to operate a year with their current pricing. And who really needs to test 4 times a day. I'd be fine with once a day and can always do manual testing if additional testing is needed. C'mon Neptune, I know we live in a capitalist country but how much does it really cost to make these reagents.

Maybe if we keep addressing this issue, they will chime in. I messaged them on IG and haven't heard back from them.

I know most of you are frustrated with their control of their reagents. Bulk reef supply, make a competing reagents only like you've done for other products. I vote BRS on this one.

Thanks,
Mel

I'm not frustrated. We are in the middle of a pandemic and all supply chains are being tested. It doesn't matter what the line of work is or product. From toilet paper to paper towels to ordering something online and no longer guaranteeing that it will arrive on time. Everything has pressure. Hobbyist are testing more than what they projected. This was talked about during the Feb 20th live stream (Neptune). Pandemic isn't helping. If you don't think this is a high priority to them then you don't understand that reagent shortage is the limiting factor of selling the Trident overseas.

Yes, reagent shortage is stalling overseas sells. Why? Because they are trying to ensure reagents are available to the existing user base.

With that out of the way it is a bit more complicated than some new group building a reagent to test with. If it was we would have had a trident like device a lot earlier. We don't. So that leads me to believe there is a bit more to the reagent than whipping up some magical cocktail.

They have data and I'm sure they are probably looking at it. Give them some time to work through the analysis and see. First, however, everyone has to adjust to the new workplace rules. They are located in California and we just got placed on another round of business essential only lock downs. I don't think this is going to end anytime soon.

 

[robbyg]

So is Neptune closed again? I see some online stuff about Santa Clara county being on the list of mandatory closures for everything non essential.

 

[User1]

So is Neptune closed again? I see some online stuff about Santa Clara county being on the list of mandatory closures for everything non essential.

California as a whole is, yes. As of four days ago. I forget what all businesses but we are talking about restaurants, bars, hair salons, gyms, movie theaters, and a slew others. Some of it depends on location within the state (city, county, etc) and how it is trending and of course the business type (essential or not).

As far as Neptune goes I am not sure and I didn't ask them last week when I spoke to support. If I had to guess support is open as they can more than likely work from home. Reagent manufacturing and some of the last mile stuff on the trident I honestly have no idea. It could be that they can do some stuff in office if they are able to isolate, distance, and/or shift work.

TL; DR - It isn't slowing down here at all or any other place around the world. The virus wants to live and you know what that means.

 

[robbyg]

TL; DR - It isn't slowing down here at all or any other place around the world. The virus wants to live and you know what that means.

It's has slowed down to almost a halt in some major countries and even though you see more cases added daily they are mostly citizens being repatriated back to their home countries from hot spots like the USA, Europe etc.
If your living in the USA right now and you have have an Australian, Japanese citizenship or citizenship from any of the relativity low Covid case countries your heading back home as fast as possible. There are no Jobs or nothing else for you in the USA / other hotspots right now. The repatriated are often an added case to those countries but they are not really an issue since they are in isolation for 2 weeks and tested at least twice before being released. I read about some smaller countries like Barbados offering the rich a place to ride out Covid long term in Villas and expanded hotel suites.