Vendors are Doing Nothing Wrong by Raising their Prices.

[AKG]

If you want to be the change you wish to see in the world, show up at Macna and start a local frag swap and dedicate time and effort into growing frags hoping someone else is out there doing it too.

There's nothing wrong with that. I'd rather have a local group than feeling like I have to order online to get anything decent anyway because all the fancy coral collectors are at home spending their day off mashing f5 for -- wait-- what's this? A frag of Watermelon Psammo.

But understand that these vendors really don't have to go the extra mile looking for anything interesting, they could bring in the same stuff every week, and some do.

It's no doubt times are tough, but are we really going to scoff at coral prices? They have a business to run just like any other business is ran.


I'm tired of hearing people complain about coral prices. Especially people on Facebook groups.

If it's good enough for me to pay $150 for a frag from someone, it's good enough to charge you the fellow hobbyist $150 and make my money back. I have never done this, but I know many people try and do.

Honestly I'm surprised vendors haven't tied the price of coral to the producer price index yet given their reliance on some consumables to stay in business. I'd much rather pay extra money knowing I supported a business and get a covered plug than think I got some deal and be disappointed AND out that money anyways.

Maybe I'm crazy but if I had to pick one, I go with the vendors who I see generating content to support their customers. Right now, that's WWC, Unique Corals, POTO, Tidal Gardens, Reef Bum, Telegraham, ReefBuilders, Bulk Reef Supply, Humble. Fish, Coral Euphoria, Melev's Reef, Battlecorals, and surely I am missing more, but my point remains that the key to success (with me at least) is valuing their consumer base enough to attempt to educate them. I really don't care about what people have to say about BRS being evil this, or WWC that. At the end of the day, my money pays to help them generate more educational content that I'm sure you all watch.


This is in response to the thread about vendors being shameful and raising prices.


Honestly? Do it. I don't care. I know your margins blow. I know this industry sucks. I know you need it, and I know it's going to a good cause educating more reefers Including but not limited to myself and paving the path for future generations.


I might not be speaking for all Americans, but my local reef club is nowhere to be seen in these respects.



Thank you for all you do, vendors. I know you don't have to do jack for pricing sales during the holidays, but you do it anyway.

 

[Spare time]

I was going to say that its hard to tie price rises to simply scamming people during black Friday events rather global inflation so I'd be curious how people are telling the difference.

 

[ninjamyst]

I fully support you paying ridiculous jacked up prices for corals so the rest of us don't have to. Please continue paying $800 for ultra instinct holy mother grail indo shining armor gold torch and $1000 for a tiny nub of newly released passion fruit ultimate joker blazing blue acro. Thank you for your service. Others should definitely follow you.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Lol, go for it then. Enjoy paying for the overpriced corals. The vendors will reap what they sow.

 

[ninjamyst]

Don't forget to grab that amazing bouncy bounce diablo heaven mushroom! Super rare and totally worth it. And totally not the same as the other mushroom that looks exactly the same but has a different name and no longer trendy. This one has sparkles of fairy dust and grafted with gold flakes.

 

[Poochaku]

You're ascribing a weird amount of altruism to businesses who are here to make money.

They are absolutely not running holiday sales out of the goodness of their heart. They are wisely using human buying patterns to optimize profit during this time.

You think BRS is doing their giant giveaways out of the goodness of their hearts? Someone has run the numbers and determined that x amount of money spent on giveaways leads to y amount of increased sales.

Yes vendors are doing nothing wrong by raising prices just as much as consumers are doing nothing wrong by complaining about them.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

As I stated in the other side of this debate, I don’t begrudge our vendors and sellers for having to play games to make a profit. We don’t know their situation nor do we know their economics. As such, I am generally agnostic as I see both sides of the story and am more than happy to spend or not spend my disposable income on something I think is worth it or not worth it to me. With that being said, I say thank you to the people that make this hobby possible.

 

[Dburr1014]

Do we really need another thread on this?
Did you post your point on the other one?
I say close this.

Why are the prices so high?
I realize everything is up these days, gas prices, Trucking prices, electricity, Etc.
But I think their profit margins exceeded that and probably doubled for their own pockets. It's getting to be too much. It seems now it's all about the name, got to have a fancy name. I'm not into fancy names I don't remember half the stuff that's in my tank with its fancy name and I don't really care, but I'm happy to frag it and pass it on to another local reefer for free or barely a price so he doesn't have to pay all these high prices. If I can afford one, I'll buy it and pass it on it's all good to me.
OP, I guess I won't be buying from you anytime soon.

 

[kenchilada]

The ONLY reason prices are ridiculous is that people are buying at these prices. It’s not like all the coral vendors got together and decided to screw everyone over. There are plenty of reasonably-priced SPS. You don’t have to have the hot new thing with the goofy name.

I want a boat but it’s too expensive to maintain and fuel. I don’t post giant manifestos crying about it. I don’t feel entitled to a boat and I don’t feel that it’s unfair that I can’t have one.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

The ONLY reason prices are ridiculous is that people are buying at these prices. It’s not like all the coral vendors got together and decided to screw everyone over. There are plenty of reasonably-priced SPS. You don’t have to have the hot new thing with the goofy name.

I want a boat but it’s too expensive to maintain and fuel. I don’t post giant manifestos crying about it. I don’t feel entitled to a boat and I don’t feel that it’s unfair that I can’t have one.

 

[Big Smelly fish]

Vendors are going to sell for what ever price they can. If people are will to pay it would be dumb to sell for less. The online auctions sites are doing pretty good these days selling 1 inch frags for top dollars because people are buying. Be bad business not to.
I also think it had to do where people buy and fill every free inch of their tank with frags . From my observation most tanks I see are full of tiny frags but only a few show larger colonies. To many reef tanks look more like frag tanks then a reef tank. Just my opinion.

 

[Cell]

I don't blame vendors for charging prices that people are willing to pay. If people weren't buying, then the prices would go down. Blame the consumers with no budget amd no restraint.

 

[ChiCity]

 

[Big Smelly fish]

Good one . Frags are like crack nowadays. Addiction and the dealer are cutting them to increase profits

 

[Pkunk35]

Just my 2cents,
Coral prices haves gone up since the day I got into the hobby in 1998. Tbh people were paying far too low for coral and esp fish back then ($20 ich-infest-doomed-to-die yellow tang from petco? That was the real crime).
The best (looking) coral always cost a lot. Please look at Reef Raft and Jason Fox pricing from the past. We bought them back then too and used to praise them for bringing it.
Shipping costs, regulation (please look up what Indonesia has done to regulate the catch, ReefBum has a great podcast guest from indo talking about this), DEMAND has all increased prices. It’s not just a vendor rubbing their hands together and laughing next to their coral-profit yacht. Lol.
yes, there are some unscrupulous vendors that do try to rip ppl off. Please have faith that this is a flawed business tactic and these people will probably fail.
I know and have known more than a few LFS vendors, wholesalers, website owners, successful coral-only stores, and while some do pretty well, none are there bc it makes them rich…they all do it based on perhaps what was, at one point, love.

everyone I just wanna say…one life, one love, one Reeftank. Let’s try to remember we all love reefing.
My 2 cents I’m out.

 

[ChiCity]

Good one . Frags are like crack nowadays. Addiction and the dealer are cutting them to increase profits

 

[exnisstech]

From my observation most tanks I see are full of tiny frags but only a few show larger colonies. To many reef tanks look more like frag tanks then a reef tank. Just my opinion.

I agree, I have a reefer 170 that is currently a frag tank. I think one reason so many DTs look like frag tanks is because so many new people are entering the hobby recently and getting the sps bug and the tanks haven't had time to grow out, if they ever do before many get fed up and leave. I've only been in the hobby for 7 years and recently started a smaller tank with a lot of sps frags because I wanted the challenge of trying to grow out sticks into colonies. I have enough frags that if a quarter of them mature the tank will be pretty stocked. I figure I'm going to loose some so I overstocked and if I'm lucky and most make it and grow I have a larger tank I can move them to.

 

[amoore311]

I’m not shaming anyone, I’m not complaining, etc.

I’ve been in this hobby 18 years, no one who’s been in the hobby any reasonable amount of time is paying these stupid prices.

anything I want I either pay 1/2 retail price or less from a hobbyist or I trade and pay nothing. If you don’t have a network of hobbyists friends to swap corals back and forth, you’re doing it wrong.

Just because there’s some idiot out there paying $45 for 1” piece of bubblegum digi, or $65 for a 1” piece of green slimer, doesn’t mean you have to.

edit: just had to mention I find it hilarious OP definitely wants us to know “he doesn’t care”, but expects the average person on reef 2 reef to care enough about their opinion to read that giant diatribe

 

[bobssecrtsn]

I’m not sure how long you were in the hobby for. Your account is only a few months old. So I’ll let this one slide…. The point is. This hobby will ultimately be dead if the prices of everything continues to climb and only the rich will be able to enjoy this hobby.

 

[ninjamyst]

Supply vs demand. Those that been doing this for a long time knows the only reason coral prices are up is because of demand. It's not like the frogspawns decided on their own they are worth more. What has changed is this hobby got really popular and tons of newbies entered the hobby with lots of money to throw around. And they want the latest and fanciest stuff. So of course vendors are going to jack up the price if demand is there. Look at clove polyps. We used to treat them as weeds. Now vendors sell them for $50 a frag because they pop under blue lights. Newbies that don't know better gonna buy them up. They already threw down $10k on their red sea tank with Radion lights and nyos skimmers. What's another $500 for a torch.