Hey, Anyone want to talk about sales and stuff????
- Thread starter Battlecorals
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)
I used to love all the live sales when I first started the hobby. It was fun to try and "snipe" the $5/$10 frags. Also feels like they used to be better back then too. Now all the $5 ones are like gsp and corals that the vendor wants to throw away anyways.
Some newer vendors had decent prices. Once they start making it big and rent fancier places, prices also seem to double/striple! That's even before the pandemic. I guess that's everyone's goal these days.
Som evendors have the same company that automate their sales and website so it's not surprising when you see the similar stuff all the time.
Out of all the vendors, I only follow your thread mostly because when a notification comes up, it's normally something worthwhile to read.
R2R is great for information but a different atmosphere when it comes to the vendor forums. You have to pay a decent amount monthly (car payments) to be on here. So I am not surprise if every vendor have to increase their prices to make up the difference. The need to constantly barage consumers to make sure they profit from their monthly donation. The idea of vendor forums as a meaningful/thoughtful area for higher discussion, would surprise me more.
* I don't buy fancy cars. I have a ford
Some newer vendors had decent prices. Once they start making it big and rent fancier places, prices also seem to double/striple! That's even before the pandemic. I guess that's everyone's goal these days.
Som evendors have the same company that automate their sales and website so it's not surprising when you see the similar stuff all the time.
Out of all the vendors, I only follow your thread mostly because when a notification comes up, it's normally something worthwhile to read.
R2R is great for information but a different atmosphere when it comes to the vendor forums. You have to pay a decent amount monthly (car payments) to be on here. So I am not surprise if every vendor have to increase their prices to make up the difference. The need to constantly barage consumers to make sure they profit from their monthly donation. The idea of vendor forums as a meaningful/thoughtful area for higher discussion, would surprise me more.
* I don't buy fancy cars. I have a ford
Now this is pretty interesting and guess I never noticed the “lack” of new. Could be a detractor to some possibly as the website isn’t seen as “updated”
It works. There has been multiple studies on this affect.
People would rather buy a sale price that is higher than the "normal" price.
I used to have more time and would stalk some vendors here on their sites during "normal" times but right before a holiday. You'll notice that they will increase their prices right and do a "sale" with sale prices matching the original or even higher. Some of the pieces would sell too! It's amazing!
Not sure if those people still do that as I have not been buying much from majority of the vendors here anymore.
Nburg's Reef
High-Rise Reefer
I stick to about 4 vendors that I trust (you included). Those that do the live sale - I typically wait for the after sale to see if anything is left worth grabbing. At this point tho, I don’t have room for more coral so I’m very choosy in what I do get because it would likely require me getting rid of something else.
Live sales seem to prey on those looking to score a deal before others so it makes people pressured to impulse buy. I don’t impulse buy so there are not for me.
Live sales seem to prey on those looking to score a deal before others so it makes people pressured to impulse buy. I don’t impulse buy so there are not for me.
OP
OP
I totally hear this man. I can’t explain it but somehow my enthusiasm for taking pics just plummeted. I actually have another write up all about this in fact that I haven’t finished. But you are absolutely right. My process for shooting coral is too involved and I’m positive that once I started experimenting with bluer lighting, I’ve never fell back onto the groove I was in while shooting under radium halides. On top of that I have a separate tank for shooting thst I relocated to my office downstairs even about a year ago and since it’s been set up have not shot a single colony
And it sucks because it’s this problem I am fully aware of but have just done very little to solve it. Ultimately I think blue light kind of ruined it for me and I keep saying I need to just set the halide back up and shoot the way I used to and get here I am. Still procrastinating. All this before I even touch on the notion that I keep fragging my colonies before I shoot them and have provided myself the perfect excuse to hold off on shooting lol. I know, first world problems really but believe me when I say I hear your post very loud and clear and needed to hear that.
A word on pricing IMO.
The price in the sale is what it costs. I don't (no longer) look at the original price. I don't care that your zoa at some point in history cost $1k a polyp. you're listing it now for $500. that's too much. I'll pay $20 maybe. don't care about the name,, don't care about the rarity. My decorator crab will wear it all the same. I know I can get a gold hammer for under $50 bucks at a live sale. so I will wait for that sale. Factoring shipping, it will cost me $55 down from the $80 another vendor wants to charge. In short, it's worth what they are willing to pay. My standard practice now is gun for y limit of 1s or 5s, get that I can't live without (usually not a whole lot in this bucket), then wait for the after sale to fill the box up. Also I message the vendor about things I know they have but didn't see in the sale. Got a decent space invader pectinia that way.
A word on integrity: I haven't bought from Adam yet because in a grow-out contest thread he said wait till my tank is ready. I respect that. I think his prices are high, that's part of why I haven't killed any of his coral in my tank. But because he suggested waiting till my tank is ready, I will spend more than I want to on a box. I may even try to use the lurker discount if it's still available when I am ready. Which is soon, so soon. I think I have my alk figured out.
The price in the sale is what it costs. I don't (no longer) look at the original price. I don't care that your zoa at some point in history cost $1k a polyp. you're listing it now for $500. that's too much. I'll pay $20 maybe. don't care about the name,, don't care about the rarity. My decorator crab will wear it all the same. I know I can get a gold hammer for under $50 bucks at a live sale. so I will wait for that sale. Factoring shipping, it will cost me $55 down from the $80 another vendor wants to charge. In short, it's worth what they are willing to pay. My standard practice now is gun for y limit of 1s or 5s, get that I can't live without (usually not a whole lot in this bucket), then wait for the after sale to fill the box up. Also I message the vendor about things I know they have but didn't see in the sale. Got a decent space invader pectinia that way.
A word on integrity: I haven't bought from Adam yet because in a grow-out contest thread he said wait till my tank is ready. I respect that. I think his prices are high, that's part of why I haven't killed any of his coral in my tank. But because he suggested waiting till my tank is ready, I will spend more than I want to on a box. I may even try to use the lurker discount if it's still available when I am ready. Which is soon, so soon. I think I have my alk figured out.
Troylee
all about the diy!!!!!
What I have noticed since I’ve came back is… back in the day everything was photoshopped and we knew it and we called it out! Didn’t change much but hey… at least it would give the original poster a complex at best! Todays posts and photos are pure blue and uv leds with an orange filter “some still photoshopping that saturation” and people accept it! Well it looked like that on fb or r2r In the photos it must have just lost color due to shipping stress
How many times has that excuse been used?!? Don’t get me wrong each piece will look different “to an extent” in each persons tanks but really nothing like 80% of these photos nowadays… if you google Walt Disney acro wow!!! There’s some real unicorns out there and it’s accepted
ronnie
Acro addict
Amen. As a side hustle, some of these great photographers should be selling canvas prints of their frags/colonies post processing because it’s the only time they’ll ever look like that again.What I have noticed since I’ve came back is… back in the day everything was photoshopped and we knew it and we called it out! Didn’t change much but hey… at least it would give the original poster a complex at best! Todays posts and photos are pure blue and uv leds with an orange filter “some still photoshopping that saturation” and people accept it! Well it looked like that on fb or r2r In the photos it must have just lost color due to shipping stress
I think this speaks to your bias about not wanti g to show an attribute of a coral you can't prove. Blue light brings out a lot of qualities you won't see under radiums or T5s, and it's easy to be disappointed in both aspects of this...
"Yeah, I know it's not pretty under whites, but you should see it under some obscure combination of actinics and aquas" doesn't hold much value for the guy running basic AB plus on his G5 Radions.
"This coral is stunning under daylights" as well doesn't help the guy running so much blue his tank looks like a windex bottle with some neon plastic inside.
Photos are meant to display the optimistic best of a coral's potential, and sometimes you can only see that potential in person. (A photo doesn't do it justice).
ronnie
Acro addict
Dang. Stole my money maker. Back to the grind I suppose.
There are some of us, who do not care about price, and find sales, especially heavily marketing influenced companies repulsive. I like getting high quality, day in and day out, with consistent pricing, with periodic sales. Sometimes, there are so many sales, it's hard to EVER gauge a said companies true baseline pricing, hmmm... Clever... This is how the marketing game is played out, and I slowly shift towards dealing with companies, of all sorts with the same mindset, and pay fair consistent pricing.
My take
My take
my final(?) word. I told my wife the other day that I am getting tired of frags in general. I don't have a massive tank, but it's big enough and I sit far enough away that I can have trouble seeing a single polyp of lps (euphylia excluded). I am pondering shifting to one colony at a time as budget allows. so probably one colony per year (got a kid coming).
I've noticed there seems to be at least one live sale going on every weekend. In the few months that I have watched and participated in these live sales, I have noticed that all vendors are different, and I choose to purchase from the vendors that I feel like care more about their fellow reefers than how much profit they can make.
The question really is do you want to grow your sales or are you happy where you are at. A lot of business end up in a comfortable place where they do as much of the work as they like and less of the stuff they don’t. You are probably passing up some growth and profit but the personal trade may be worth it to do more of the stuff you like.
ninjamyst
2500 Club Member
I participated in a lot of live sales last year. I am over them now. It's not a "sale". The corals and prices are always the same. Once in awhile, I still check things out but usually for the smaller but established vendors like yourself, Unique Corals, POTO, etc. I no longer participate in TSA, LRO, WWC even though they are local to me and I save on shipping. They just do way too many live sales and their prices are ridiculous. It hurts me to see noobs fighting over overpriced corals from them.
OP
OP
lol! classic! I thought you were just making fun of me there lol. I totally did the print thing
OP
OP
Honestly, been toying with this idea for a while now, but anytime I browse my wholesalers LPS, Im kind of blown away at the cost of this stuff Eve n at Wholesale. I mean the thought of marking the stuff up just seems crazy to me.
But I have been very seriously considering taking one of my 11'x4' tanks off-line of the main and running it as an independent LPS, or essentially non-SPS tank. It's a big move for me, but I've been thinking about it a lot more lately.
Similar threads
