Coral Pricing and Inflation

[ChrisV]

“ Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” they say. The true value of anything is really set by the consumers. Anyone can set an obnoxious price but the buyer ultimately makes the decision. On the other hand, there’s some serious online price gouging that cannot be justified in any way or means. Best thing is do your homework and ask around for the fair market price of the corals using pictures and not names before buying to avoid overpaying. Pictures are worth a thousand words, there can be a hundred different names for the same coral…unfortunately I’m a sucker for some of these so-called fancy named corals but much more or so for it’s colors and looks and no so much because of names. I try to support our LFS as much as I can, it’s a struggle for them daily, many livestocks don’t make it due to shipping stress and what not and lots of time, they dont get to cherry pick the coral shipment, so any cherries are marked up a little more to cover for the hard to sell typical corals. Sadly, many have closed down due to the nature of this business since I’ve been in the hobby. That used to be my weekend thing, go visit multiple LFS for goodies but now not much out there.

@luu78 and you have sold me some incredible frags at incredible prices. So thank you!

 

[kgstei]

Unfortunately this hobby is getting hit the same as a lot of other products. All it takes is an increase in the first step of the chain for it to grow each step of the way till it reaches the consumers. I’m in the building materials business and have seen increases on so many different items it’s insane to think it can keep going. It will eventually crash because it’s getting to the point where there’s no point buying or building if people can’t afford it anymore. Scary times out there! Maybe we need to start working more group buys to lesson the overall cost of supplies at least, just my two cents.

I think there's an opportunity for the club to do something along these lines. You see members selling large corals which could be purchased, broken down at a meeting and sold off/raffled to members at a meeting. Covering the cost of the person who picked up the coral and fragged it.

 

[ChrisV]

I think there's an opportunity for the club to do something along these lines. You see members selling large corals which could be purchased, broken down at a meeting and sold off/raffled to members at a meeting. Covering the cost of the person who picked up the coral and fragged it.

Long ago I was a member of another club in the DC area and they had a "frag fest" meeting once a year. The club bought colonies from local reefers and everyone paid a flat fee and got a frag of everything that was chopped up. It was fantastic.

 

[luu78]

@luu78 and you have sold me some incredible frags at incredible prices. So thank you!

Glad to do so, if they’re not growing in my tank, I’m not selling, doesn’t matter where it comes from.

 

[luu78]

I completely agree and I'm 100% okay with people spending what they want to on coral if they have the means. What I'm really disgusted by is the fact that now ALL of the major dry goods and livestock vendors offer in store financing. I think that it exploits the fact that new reefers are low key addicted to the hobby. Considering that the average time a person is in this hobby is only 3 months, I see that as an issue. Nevermind the fact that now everyone does "live sales" to get reefers to sit in front of their computer like it's a coral slot machine.

These big online vendors’ live sales are the biggest joke. Even after all their “supposedly” discounts, I can still get most of the corals at half the discounted price locally from fellow reefers or at my LFS. I’d be surprised if they would sell at all without the live sales. Why not start out with fair pricings in the beginning. The business strategy is straight up unethical. I feel bad for the new reefers who either got scared before even getting into this awesome hobby when they see these crazy pricings and changed their minds or they unknowingly overpaid for these live sales corals thus falling into the vendors’ business strategy. So, I always do my own due diligence and know my pricings before buying online with an understanding that online vendors need to make a living too and the pricings should reflect that but not a get rich soon scheme.