Fish prices are insane!

[SebastianReefer]

Hopefully it won’t be like this soon as I want this fish in my new build. Very cool fish.

I have one he is a pig always ready to eat but he is cool

 

[Fishingandreefing]

I have one he is a pig always ready to eat but he is cool

Yeah I had a few in the past. Unfortunately they didn’t make it. Keep them in the 55 and 120. Not sure if tanks too small for them but seen plenty people had success with them in similar sizes

 

[Reva_loution54]

So far we have not had to raise prices. We have a solid relationship with our suppliers and we have been pretty well stocked. We still have Yellow Tangs for $39.99 and have been able to keep prices in check by increasing our focus on husbandry.

do you guys ship??

 

[cd459]

Yeah divers den has gotten ridiculous. $219 for “paired” skunk shrimp- yikes. Don’t forget the $10 boxing fee lol

Those were a Caribbean species, much rarer than the common skunks. They still sell common pairs for like $70-80

 

[ca1ore]

I wonder if they will keep the prices up after covid ends if people are actually willing to spend it.

That is a good question … I have been thinking about that. Hobbies have always been more about willingness to pay than a more traditional gross margin calculation. Depending on where supply/demand nets out after all this, we may well not see pre-COVID pricing again.

 

[Duffer]

I was in need of a skunk shrimp also and no one around my parts have any and warned me the price has skyrocket on them when they come in...

 

[DJF]

Maybe they’re just helping us redefine necessity. Just stack freight in the “middle seat” & kill 2 birds with one stone

 

[mickeysreef <*))))<]

hopefully its not like gasoline. prices always seem to go up but never come down!!!!! rather than supply and demand, its more like how much pain can you tolerate.

 

[K7BMG]

THE ONLY WAY TO COMBAT THE PRICE HIKE IS TO NOT BUY.

I find it interesting that everyone is pointing fingers instead of doing actual research.

Look at airline prices right now, way down, fairs are low.
Why are these not double triple or more?
Does not make sense to me, that only cargo is targeted so much higher.

Are there any people here on R2R who currently ship internationally?
Not speculators, I mean the actual people that pay the shipping bills.
Can you put factual, truthful information on your expense of shipping costs in todays market. What is the actual percentage of your increase?
If your shipping the same item(s) to the same place and the cost was ?$______ Pre Covid and now its what?

Has anyone paid more to ship or have something shipped personally? I have not.

This is a business and we the consumers need to treat it as a business.
If the cost is to high then the item can collect dust on their shelf. I will seek other vendors, when the price comes down then ok, we can do business again.

This is a HOBBY people, yes we have WANT'S but there are no honest to goodness livestock NEEDS.

I guarantee that the more people who don't buy the pricing will fall just as fast as it increased, and go back to normal.

 

[JaimeAdams]

THE ONLY WAY TO COMBAT THE PRICE HIKE IS TO NOT BUY.

I find it interesting that everyone is pointing fingers instead of doing actual research.

Look at airline prices right now, way down, fairs are low.
Why are these not double triple or more?
Does not make sense to me, that only cargo is targeted so much higher.

Are there any people here on R2R who currently ship internationally?
Not speculators, I mean the actual people that pay the shipping bills.
Can you put factual, truthful information on your expense of shipping costs in todays market. What is the actual percentage of your increase?
If your shipping the same item(s) to the same place and the cost was ?$______ Pre Covid and now its what?

Has anyone paid more to ship or have something shipped personally? I have not.

This is a business and we the consumers need to treat it as a business.
If the cost is to high then the item can collect dust on their shelf. I will seek other vendors, when the price comes down then ok, we can do business again.

This is a HOBBY people, yes we have WANT'S but there are no honest to goodness livestock NEEDS.

I guarantee that the more people who don't buy the pricing will fall just as fast as it increased, and go back to normal.

My shipment today was 2.5 X pre-covid

 

[MoreReefPlease]

Wow that sticks bud! It’s the opposite here in Illinois. Despite al this not much has changed on prices but inventory is way low.
Hopefully our lfs get some shipments in soon!! Wow good luck

I'm in the Plainfield area, just moved here a year and a half ago. TBH, the reef and coral selection, especially for being 35 mins from Chicago, is absolute trash.

The reef store I shopped at in Podunk, Iowa had better stuff for less money than the stuff around here. Color me disappointed.

 

[K7BMG]

My shipment today was 2.5 X pre-covid

Well that sucks, but at least you know.
But as expected as they will hit businesses as they feel every business has deep pockets.

As we all know, and as a business owner myself, we get all the profit, have all the wealth, 0 debt, and take advantage of everything and everybody, oh yea almost forgot, and its all a write off.

Sorry to hear your being ripped off on shipping.
Its an ugly thing, I don't know how you can or plan to keep the doors open.

You have to have product to sell, so your forced to pay higher fees, and on the other hand you have people like me that refuse to pay double let alone triple.
Yes I know I am part of the nightmare. Retail is a nasty way to earn a living.

 

[Silver14SS]

This is a business and we the consumers need to treat it as a business.

But it’s not fair, I deserve to get all livestock and equipment at cost! I won’t pay a penny over what it cost to collect, package, transport thousands of miles, market, and sell!

 

[ThRoewer]

In all honesty the reason for increased cost is air freight on nearly empty airplanes. 95% of the air traffic nationwide is gone. The normal air traffic world wide uses 24,000 planes a day. Now over 16,000 of those planes are parked and many will never fly again period due to age and the cost to keep them usable. Most fish move with extra space on passenger aircraft. So canceled flights mean lack of supply and the only movement is on higher priced shippers like FedEx and UPS. I got quotes for 25 lbs of live rock to the Midwest via Delta airfreight at $70.00 and the same shipping via the other two was $285.00. See the problem here? We currently have no air service even though I live 6 miles from an airport that I used to receive Fish, rock and inverts all the time. Now the closest airfreight is 100 miles away and has no regular service. Fish would be very hit and miss. Most people in the industry do not want to take the chance of a dead shipment. This is affecting freshwater less due to some regional wholesalers who can deliver in limited areas via truck.

Supply chain is completely broken due the very reduced air passenger service. It is possible we will never see a recovery as the supply chain is broken all the way to the fish collectors and farms. Many other businesses are affected as well. Even the postal service purchases space on passenger planes...no way to compete with full air freight services since they have to charge much higher prices per pound since the passenger is not providing profits to the aircraft.

Yes.

Also, some airports are closed for overseas shipments. One of the LFS here told me that nothing comes into SFO at the moment, all shipments have to go via LAX. For the wholesalers here that means they either have to pay for shipping from LAX to SFO or OAK or drive down to L.A. and pick it up themselves. All that adds cost and limits availability.

As for the supply chain, I'm not so much concerned about the fish catchers/collectors. Many of them just switch (back) to fishing food fish if they ever fully stopped doing that in the first place. Ornamental fish collecting is for many just a side business.
The exporters are the ones that may get hurt the most as they are specialized in this and have usually no easy alternatives.

 

[ThRoewer]

As we all know, and as a business owner myself, we get all the profit, have all the wealth, 0 debt, and take advantage of everything and everybody, oh yea almost forgot, and its all a write off.

Only if you are a large corporation or a billionaire. Many small businesses, especially owner-operated ones, get pummeled by this.

 

[ThRoewer]

WOW! That was a cheap fish before around here...

 

[Lowell Lemon]

THE ONLY WAY TO COMBAT THE PRICE HIKE IS TO NOT BUY.

I find it interesting that everyone is pointing fingers instead of doing actual research.

Look at airline prices right now, way down, fairs are low.
Why are these not double triple or more?
Does not make sense to me, that only cargo is targeted so much higher.

Are there any people here on R2R who currently ship internationally?
Not speculators, I mean the actual people that pay the shipping bills.
Can you put factual, truthful information on your expense of shipping costs in todays market. What is the actual percentage of your increase?
If your shipping the same item(s) to the same place and the cost was ?$______ Pre Covid and now its what?

Has anyone paid more to ship or have something shipped personally? I have not.

This is a business and we the consumers need to treat it as a business.
If the cost is to high then the item can collect dust on their shelf. I will seek other vendors, when the price comes down then ok, we can do business again.

This is a HOBBY people, yes we have WANT'S but there are no honest to goodness livestock NEEDS.

I guarantee that the more people who don't buy the pricing will fall just as fast as it increased, and go back to normal.

Sorry your statement has no basis in research or reality. Just Google the airlines parked planes and look at the cost of airfreight through non-passenger sources. There are pages and pages on the Internet about the broken supply chain and how planes are flying empty just to keep routes in Europe and other areas. Prices can not fall below the landed cost period unless you want the supply chain to go bankrupt and disappear. Please research the concept of landed cost. It is the price of the product plus the cost of delivery to the final location. If you buy 100 $2.00 fish the product is $200.00 now the freight for that same shipment use to cost $100.00 so landed cost is now $300.00 or $3.00 per live fish. If some of the fish die in transport you now divide the cost by the survivors. Now the cost per fish goes up.

In the current market the airlines are bleeding millions of dollars a month, so to keep the door open they raise prices on freight, people, and currently overhead by parking planes. Right now short trips of a few hundred miles cost as much as transcontinental flights due to all the factors of having to pay for planes and employees you can't keep busy. The airlines are just getting hammered like no one else right now. In this environment the local store owner has to decide to keep the doors open and sell product at a cost that allows them to survive or just give up and close. Many long term businesses are just going to close and some of those very likely will be airlines.

Please review the concepts of supply and demand before assuming the poor local store owner is daddy warbucks and is just squeezing every penny they can from the customer. The vast majority of store owners are hobbiest who have fallen for the dream of making a living doing what they love. At some point many of them learn to charge what it cost to survive or go bankrupt. I'll bet you World Wide Corals is wishing they did not have the cost of the their new store weighing on them so heavy right now. This is an unprecedented upheaval of the market and supply chain that has never been experienced like this before.

If prices are just to high just sit on the sidelines until you can afford to continue. This is a Hobby not a necessity. I am pulling for the business owner cause I am one and I have weathered storms before including some ugly ones in the aquarium industry. I am no longer in the aquarium industry for a reason and it is economics!

 

[ThRoewer]

Shipping was always a major cost factor in this industry. At the source, most of our fish are dirt cheap. It's the transportation from the origin to the exporter, from there to the wholesaler, and from there to the LFS that accounts often for more than half what a fish costs +the mark-up at each station. If you would buy straight from the collector on-site, most fish would be in the cent and single-digit dollar range.

 

[Costareefer]

Perhaps you need to re-read what i said. I said that prices have gone up 2x where i live.. but fish are still flying off the shelvs. And i said thats bad because it means prices probably wont come down if they are still selling.

And also not everyone got stimulus checks.. I didnt get one.. my mom didnt get one at least not uet. And who would spend that on fish anyway ? Honestly this virus hasnt affected me or my family or anyone i know. Traffic hasnt changed in NOVA. Life hasnt changed one bit for me. Were all still employed. But thats just us of course. we all have Jobs that will always be here and be needed

if unemployment is 15% where are you getting 90% from.. Are you assuming 90% in this hobby are the 15% unemoloyed ? Because that math isnt even close. Are you ssying the unemployed are spending their stimulus money on fish instead of their rent or mortage ? No the shut down has happened whoevee is unemployed has been for awhile now.. People that are keeping fish outa the tanks by buying em at high prices are stable have jobs.. So youre way wrong.

Most of the 15% that are unemployed couldnt even afford this hobby to begin with. So no i disagree

If you’re not suffering the economic blow then you’re living in a bubble for now. I don’t think you understand the effect of high unemployment for all sectors of the economy in the long run. You’re telling me about what’s happening over a short time. Real unemployment is much higher than 15% and the blows being suffered now won’t truly manifest in the overall economy for months. Like I said I made a long term projection. And yeah I think the hobby will see a massive hit.

 

[Costareefer]

Those were a Caribbean species, much rarer than the common skunks. They still sell common pairs for like $70-80

Caribbean species ?