WWC pricing is going through the roof

[flsalty]

I have a small dream of creating a co op. Without going into too much detail, doing a crowd sourced fundraiser to purchase / rent a warehouse and turning it into a grow out facility.

then folks can send in all their names coral frags, receive credit for corals, and even recognition amongst members.

then grow stuff out to be given back to Co op members at a reasonable price / point system.

even thought of using volunteer hours as points to buy things.

you get the gist of what I’m saying. We the hobbyist could make a grab at it.

I've been thinking of this myself. I'm surprised it hasn't been done already. I think some hobbyists like that coral prices are so high. It makes them feel like they are in some exclusive club.

There was a thread not long ago where two guys said they were selling something like WD for super cheap. They weren't trying to make money. They were just trimming growth and wanted to share their corals. Several members told them to sell it for more money. Can you imagine hobbyists trying to keep the prices of their hobby up?

 

[amoore311]

very interesting post here. Seems it maybe isn’t as clean as people think it is.
I have never ordered from them, I am lucky to have a SPS guru local to me who many vednors re-sell his named coral so I buy from him typically. I guess according to this thread his system should be lest free since WWC has traded and bought frags from him. I don’t know, I think it all can be risky to some extent.

corey

I didn't have to go hunting for the pest algae either, there was small clusters of bubbles on just about every frag/plug. I had enough frags to fill an entire shipping box. If they had cared about the presentation of the corals, those would have been removed in my opinion.

No issues at all with the order personally. I love the corals, they were packed well, and the pricing for the live sale was fair. But to try and pass them off as pest free corals is laughable at best in my opinion.

 

[1stNoel]

I used to help my family run a business. We had the overhead, staff, certifications, etc that our customers insisted on, but then they'd still price shop us against the guy running a one-man business from his garage. Was it a fair price comparison? Of course not. But it's part of doing business.

You have your customers that expect to pay a premium for those costs, and you have customers that need to stay within a budget and will seek the lower price (and some that just want the lowest price possible).

There is a market for both.

My point is that pricing your corals too high makes the barrier of entry a lot less formidable, and makes it enticing for those that can provide good quality while maintaining low overhead.

 

[Hemmdog]

I've been thinking of this myself. I'm surprised it hasn't been done already. I think some hobbyists like that coral prices are so high. It makes them feel like they are in some exclusive club.

There was a thread not long ago where two guys said they were selling something like WD for super cheap. They weren't trying to make money. They were just trimming growth and wanted to share their corals. Several members told them to sell it for more money. Can you imagine hobbyists trying to keep the prices of their hobby up?

I support somewhat higher prices in general for livestock in this hobby. With higher prices comes more research before purchase, which comes better treatment of these exotic animals. If everything was cheap this would be like freshwater and have the millions of neon tetras and freshwater plants that die a year from inexperienced hobbyists.
I do also like the exclusivity a bit, this hobby is full of amazing people, very successful people who are wicked intelligent. If you drop prices too much you lose what makes this community so great, the people.
I mean all that in the best way possible.

 

[Zero1091]

Stopped buying from them,
I remember when it used to be fun shopping for multiple frags on their website for a reasonable price.

 

[Perry]

I fully understand the concept of running a business. You have overhead to cover. There is a cost to doing business. But you’re leaving out a massive concept beyond overhead and that is economies of scale. As you ramp up production to substantially larger levels, the cost of production should in theory go down proportionally in the increase in production numbers. The OPPOSITE is at play with WWC. They have increased their production level and intentionally increased their pricing along with it. Their revenues gained ought to be MORE than covering any increased cost of production.

Correct!
It's called the "double down", lol

 

[revhtree]

Could we focus on positivity more? LOL!

I know I'll get accused of trying to protect a sponsor but the way I look at it is like this.

1. There is much more behind the scenes that you don't know about as much as you think you do. You don't. You can debate it, excuse it away but you don't know and you can't know unless you are in their shoes. This goes for all sorts of retailers.

2. If you don't like the prices then buy elsewhere. Why complain when you can just choose to shop somewhere else. That's what I do. If I don't like a price or a store then I shop somewhere else.

Merry Christmas!

 

[MnFish1]

I would suggest buying several frags at once - and asking for 'a deal'. This seems to work - not specific to WWC. If you want something - and you think Its overpriced - make an offer - the worst thing that can happen is that it will be refused.

Companies are allowed (IMHO) to charge what they want when they want - and customers have the right to say 'I'm not going to buy from you - as many have in this thread' - No offense meant to the OP - but I think threads calling out specific vendors for pricing (which seem to be occurring much more often) lead to argument and unfriendliness - and doesn't serve any purpose. If we were to call out every vendor that has potentially overpriced items - we could make an entire website based on that alone

 

[MnFish1]

I heard that WWC bought Ecotech Radion XR30 Gen 4s for only $250 each and Ecotech was still making profit.

Curious - are you surprised by this? They didn't buy '1 or 2' radions - they bought a large number - first its called 'buying in bulk' - second - if they have good corals - its great advertising for Echotech. 3. Have you ever watched shark tank? Listen when they ask 'how much does it cost you to make, and how much do you sell it for' - if the prices to produce are higher than 25-30 percent of what they can sell for - people will say the margins are 'bad'.

 

[Jon Fishman]

I do also like the exclusivity a bit, this hobby is full of amazing people, very successful people who are wicked intelligent. If you drop prices too much you lose what makes this community so great, the people.
I mean all that in the best way possible.

“Hey ma! Walmart is all out of RSR 3xl 900’s!”

“Well shoot bubby!!! Put some pants on and go to Target!”

 

[sde1500]

I ordered from WWC for the first time during one of their live sales in february/march of this year. I feel the pricing was fair, but the corals were FAR from pest free.

Just about every single frag had bubble algae on it. Some of which got through QT and I'm of course now fighting it in the display.

That should go without saying. But with all the people here touting how pest free WWC Corals are, some proudly stating they do not even dip anything..... I guess not lol.

I find it amusing that I keep seeing pest free tossed about in this thread knowing that they have shipped corals out with aiptasia on them.

These are likely a majority of folks who watched a YouTube video by brs or even one of the wwc guys hyping their cleanliness and were convinced they are in the absolute clear. I mean no offense. There’s just no other explanation as to why someone would assume they’re absolved of risk

Very true. A good friend of mine got a shipment a few months ago, it included aefw and wiped out his entire tank
I’ve had good luck with clean frags though. Few aiptasia but not too bad.

Interesting when I asked in this thread for documentation of their QT process as hyped by so many, it was crickets. And then I see the exact opposite sort of examples.

 

[Dragon52]

Not sure if this has been said, WWC also sells on E-Bay. I've bought from them & will do so again.

 

[trmiv]

As far as "clean" corals go from WWC, in my opinion there is a huge difference between a few pieces of bubble algae or the random aiptasia, and things like nudi's, flatworms, red bugs, spiders etc. Although it's nice if they are, I don't expect that the corals I purchase from them are completely 100% algae or aiptasia free. I do, however, expect they won't have coral pests like nudi's, flatworms, red bugs, spiders etc, and that's why I trust my purchases from them. I'm not overly concerned with things like bubble algae or aiptasia, as I consider both easy to deal with both before putting the corals into the tank, and if they made it into the tank. I've personally never noticed bubble algae or aiptasia on the things I've purchased from them, and I don't see that stuff in the coral tanks at the store, nor did I see it in the farm when that was open during the grand opening of the new store. That's just my opinion on what I'm looking for when I purchase from them. I do think the new farm is better equipped than the old one for dealing with pests like bubble algae and Aiptasia, so hopefully even that stuff will not be something to worry about either going forward.

 

[DzidtheReefer]

I agree prices are very very high, but I simply do not buy from them. One thing I would admit though is if I was a billionaire and wanted a custom huge tank designed and serviced and stocked and maintained, WWC would be the only company I would want to do that. They can charge me whatever they would want.

 

[flsalty]

I support somewhat higher prices in general for livestock in this hobby. With higher prices comes more research before purchase, which comes better treatment of these exotic animals. If everything was cheap this would be like freshwater and have the millions of neon tetras and freshwater plants that die a year from inexperienced hobbyists.
I do also like the exclusivity a bit, this hobby is full of amazing people, very successful people who are wicked intelligent. If you drop prices too much you lose what makes this community so great, the people.
I mean all that in the best way possible.

I get what you are saying, but I meant exclusivity among the community. In simpler terms: snobs. These are the people who think they are experts because they spent way too much money on an easy to grow acro. These are the people who would completely lose interest in something like HW if it dropped to 25 bucks a frag. These are the people who refer to no name acros as garbage and look down on people who grow them. Even in this thread there are people making silly statements like people want what they can't have. That's nonsense. I can afford to buy any frag I want.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

How'd selling cheap corals work out for your LFS?

In order for the hobby to sustain, we need a LOT of coral farmers. Especially if they start closing more imports down, due to the health of the reefs.

We will be able to sustain, but that will mean paying higher prices for people to farm corals, not just rip a bunch out the ocean and sell for 30 dollars.

He’s still in business, so pretty good I guess. I’ll be seeing him over the holidays when I head back “home”.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

I’m honestly surprised that WWC is getting this much heat for an $800 WD yet battle corals gets a pass on a $1M frag?

;-)

Fairy Food

Almost mythical acro. While it does exist, I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to actually frag this thing. Sorry for the tease. ;) Sure if you want to make me a millionaire and become instant lore by all means go right ahead and buy it. I'll probably deliver it personally as well. :)

battlecorals.com

 

[Hemmdog]

I get what you are saying, but I meant exclusivity among the community. In simpler terms: snobs. These are the people who think they are experts because they spent way too much money on an easy to grow acro. These are the people who would completely lose interest in something like HW if it dropped to 25 bucks a frag. These are the people who refer to no name acros as garbage and look down on people who grow them. Even in this thread there are people making silly statements like people want what they can't have. That's nonsense. I can afford to buy any frag I want.

Oh I see. Yea those types of people are frustrating I just get what I like, and if it happens to be expensive, so be it. My max is $200 a frag/coral though.

 

[sde1500]

I’m honestly surprised that WWC is getting this much heat for an $800 WD yet battle corals gets a pass on a $1M frag?

;-)

Fairy Food

Almost mythical acro. While it does exist, I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to actually frag this thing. Sorry for the tease. ;) Sure if you want to make me a millionaire and become instant lore by all means go right ahead and buy it. I'll probably deliver it personally as well. :)

battlecorals.com

One is an obvious joke, one is just a joke.

 

[Jon Fishman]

My max is $200 a frag/coral though.

Hence my conundrum on these amazing rainbow chalices......