Why do So Many Corals Cost More if They're Labeled as Being From Australia?

[livinlifeinBKK]

Ok, im pretty sure it's just a marketing thing but i like to hear everyone's opinion...So what got me thinking about this was the fact that i bought 3 mini Scolys today as well as a pretty cool Acan (got an injured Scoly for free as well so i suppose 4 Scolys in all) for only $45. I posted yesterday trying to decide which to get and had several people tell me they'd buy em all for the price they were asking. I was curious so i did a search for Scolys on an American website and honestly think mine look better tbh even though theirs costed between 8x-30x more than i paid for each. I noticed they all said the magical words "Australian" and "ultra rare" under the pictures which i can only assume must somehow make them more valuable to at least some people...i can honestly think of no rational reason why the location the corals were taken from should dictate price except for psychological marketing purposes. Is this the extent of it? Let's be real, when you buy one you have no idea where it actually came from and even if you did why should that dictate price? A beautiful coral is a beautiful coral regardless of where it came from and a bland coral is bland regardless of where it came from. I can only assume people somehow hold these labels as giving the coral dramatically increased value for no rational reason. Am i right? Is it simply marketing and therefore any coral labeled Australian should be sold for much more even if it's a total lie (you really don't know if it's a lie or not, now do you)? Can someone present a counter argument as to why being from Australian waters makes anything from a grain of sand to a coral worth more?

 

[blaxsun]

Aside from the "catch words", I imagine harvesting from Australia is generally more expensive than from Indonesia.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Aside from the "catch words", I imagine harvesting from Australia is generally more expensive than from Indonesia.

But just take a look at the disparity between prices...it makes no sense...and besides if it is more expensive shouldn't the price reflect similar expenses to yield somewhat equal profit margins? I know the color variations play a part but check out this pic from online...it's insane to me what they're charging and the differences between corals taken from the same area.

 

[blaxsun]

Corals have become stupid expensive of late.

 

[snackpack]

Because people are willing to pay more money for something deemed as special or rare. Regardless of whether or not the item costs the vendor more money than an Indonesian variety, if you have something that is more expensive sitting right next to it, it creates a mentality that it's better, and people want the best thing they can afford.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Those replies sound along the lines of what i expected... interesting the more corals imported from Australia, the higher the price becomes...

 

[fish farmer]

Those replies sound along the lines of what i expected... interesting the more corals imported from Australia, the higher the price becomes...

Cost of living? Environmental oversight? I expect many things are more spendy in Australia than Indonesia.

 

[TerraFerma]

This is kind of a silly question. Australia is not a developing country like Indonesia - labor, cost of living, gas, permit fees, etc all cost more than Indonesia, just as something manufactured in the US/EU will be more expensive than something manufactured in a developing country. You can buy Australian corals or not - they ain't gonna sell it for a price that doesn't make sense for them.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I

Cost of living? Environmental oversight? I expect many things are more spendy in Australia than Indonesia.

M not talking about why corals in Australia are more expensive but corals exported from Australia. They're the same species of corals and prices for Australian corals of the same species certainly aren't linear by seller. It appears that the seller raises the price simply because the coral is supposedly from Australia.

 

[albano]

You can buy Australian corals or not - they ain't gonna sell it for a price that doesn't make sense for them.

I’d bet that a lot more corals are sold as Aussey, then is actually imported from Australia! … making many more ‘cents’ for the importers, wholesalers and LFSs!

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I’d bet that a lot more corals are sold as Aussey, then is actually imported from Australia! … making many more ‘cents’ for the importers, wholesalers and LFSs!

Exactly! Anyone can write Australian "super ultra rare" under a picture.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Corals aren't manufactured.first of all. What makes an Australian Scoly 10x more expensive than the same species from Indonesia? Furthermore, if the price was fixed by the cost of labor or other fixed expenses they wouldn't vary so dramatically in price.

This is kind of a silly question. Australia is not a developing country like Indonesia - labor, cost of living, gas, permit fees, etc all cost more than Indonesia, just as something manufactured in the US/EU will be more expensive than something manufactured in a developing country. You can buy Australian corals or not - they ain't gonna sell it for a price that doesn't make sense for them.

 

[dansyr]

Furthermore, if the price was fixed by the cost of labor or other fixed expenses they wouldn't vary so dramatically in price.

Prices can vary a lot between developing / less regulated countries and more industrialized countries. Not saying this justifies the price (there was a whole thread on [ab]using keywords for price hikes). But an anecdote for context:

I used to live in Micronesia in one of the places they did a lot of collecting. Bunch of my friends were working for the fish collectors who sold to distributors, and I know several who collecting deepwater butterflies. Going rate was about 1-5 US$ a fish depending on rarity. Something tells me australia / hawaii / etc cares more about divers not getting bent and the divers there would not survive on a dollar per flame angel. I don't actually know anyone in the Hawaii industry back when it was running, anyone have info to share? Again, this doesn't translate to coral as much, but there really can be a huge difference between the unregulated world and the regulated world.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

i dont know, import taxes are different.. maybe australia govt takes their cut?
ive never brought in anything from australia but have purchased iso containers full of goods from many countries, their are many hands to feed in shipping goods between some countries and less in outhers.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Prices can vary a lot between developing / less regulated countries and more industrialized countries. Not saying this justifies the price (there was a whole thread on [ab]using keywords for price hikes). But an anecdote for context:

I used to live in Micronesia in one of the places they did a lot of collecting. Bunch of my friends were working for the fish collectors who sold to distributors, and I know several who collecting deepwater butterflies. Going rate was about 1-5 US$ a fish depending on rarity. Something tells me australia / hawaii / etc cares more about divers not getting bent and the divers there would not survive on a dollar per flame angel. I don't actually know anyone in the Hawaii industry back when it was running, anyone have info to share? Again, this doesn't translate to coral as much, but there really can be a huge difference between the unregulated world and the regulated world.

I agree with what you're saying but how do you explain the fact that the more prevalent Australian corals become, the higher the price? Also, did you see the attached file of Scoly prices from Australia and the enormous differences in prices? Sure some of them you can chalk up to rarer color morphs but more likely is that there are multiple exporters selling to the company marketing to consumers practically marking the price wherever they please. The company selling them (I'm going to assume) aims for close to the same profit margin more or less. More important than that though since there are so many unknowns involved would be an answer to my first question which pertained to the increase in price as Australian corals became more prevalent.

 

[YOYOYOReefer]

i never pay super high prices, i cant believe that some people pay what they do for corals. funny how whats hot today in a few years will be cheap and whats cheap today will suddenly be in high demand in the future.. .im not really cash limited , but i dont waste money either. I grow colonies and trade frags with others is how ive built up my collection. since i started in the 80s australian fish were more expensive for like a halequin tusk , but it did look different....

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

Personally I think it stems from the fact that the GBR is located off the coast of Australia and because of that people started believing they were recieving a superior coral at first (by whatever metric they used). After companies saw that people had interest in particular corals solely because of their perceived origin, they increased prices simply because they knew they would make more money from the false sense of perceived rarity. Exporters probably followed suit. If i were to guess, the profit margin for everyone involved in the selling of Australian corals is making much more than they otherwise would if it weren't for the GBR. We all know they aren't actually more special in any way, right? They know that too but as someone else said, people want the more expensive option a lot of times because it makes them feel as if they're getting a special or superior product when the fact is, they're just getting price gouged. And please don't present the argument that if you don't want it you don't have to buy it. That's not the point. The point is that they're charging a lot of money simply because they can.

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

i never pay super high prices, i cant believe that some people pay what they do for corals. funny how whats hot today in a few years will be cheap and whats cheap today will suddenly be in high demand in the future.. .im not really cash limited , but i dont waste money either. I grow colonies and trade frags with others is how ive built up my collection. since i started in the 80s australian fish were more expensive for like a halequin tusk , but it did look different....

Maybe they were different in some way...perhaps not at the species level but just due to the breeding habits...who knows...

 

[dansyr]

I agree with what you're saying but how do you explain the fact that the more prevalent Australian corals become, the higher the price? Also, did you see the attached file of Scoly prices from Australia and the enormous differences in prices? Sure some of them you can chalk up to rarer color morphs but more likely is that there are multiple exporters selling to the company marketing to consumers practically marking the price wherever they please. The company selling them (I'm going to assume) aims for close to the same profit margin more or less. More important than that though since there are so many unknowns involved would be an answer to my first question which pertained to the increase in price as Australian corals became more prevalent.

Oh yeah for collected corals that are reasonably shallow I agree 100% that Ultra Crazy Meltdown Holy Scoly Aussie is charging $100/word in there, and Aussie is one more $100 adjective. There is no explaining there.

But all my point is to say, insane markup on a slightly higher base number can change a lot. Silly numbers here just to make math easy:
wild indo coral collection price: 1
wild aussie coral collection price: 3
markup to final = 40x
final indo = 40
final aussie = 120

That's all I'm saying. And you get an extra adjective on the Aussie one so the markup factor is not necessarily the same, but all i mean to say above is just that a "small" difference early on in the markup chain can have a big impact on final price.

Edit: these numbers are literally not meant to be a guess at any relative values or anything, just in a rush to get out the door and making some numbers for illustration

 

[pandaparties]

Outside of the marketing/rarity/harvesting cost aspect... Corals from certain areas absolutely behave differently due to the conditions they are kept in and can drastically vary in shapes, colors and behaviors. Like Indo vs Aussie torches. Indo is longer and thin, as well as significantly hardier and Aussie is fat, die easy and fight with other torches more. I find they also like way more lighr. This isn't just for torches. Malaysian acro are way different than indo acro for colors and survivability and the list goes on. The source environment varies a lot in terms of water quality, water movement, light exposure etc. And it can be very important to know where they are sourced.

I'm not as familiar with Aussie vs non Aussie scoly but who knows - maybe Aussies are hardier, grow better in captivity etc. Or the reverse, they die a lot easier which reduces the supply and drives up the cost because not as many make it in captivity (not unlike high end acro)