Coral pricing
Being as this appears to be a sore spot with people about coral prices I figured I would start a post here
Now to be clear there are very reputable coral dealers out there who are very responsible with their prices and size of their frags and I have my suppliers I use and as Tim stated in the Poll buying coral from suppliers is getting harder and more costly for the LFS and that gets passed on to the customer which I have no issue with. If you wish to vent please be respectful of sellers even if you feel you are unfairly treated by them My biggest beef is when a hobbyist gives a LFS store frags either at cost or free then the LFS turns around and tries hawking it for exorbitant amounts of money sometimes as much as 10x the price they paid for it that is bad business practise I also have issues with hobbyists that frag their colonies then want LFS store prices I understand wanting to make money from the hobby but that is going overboard IMO. |
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also gotta factor in cheapskates when pricing. theres always one chump out there asking for $5 off a $25 frag when they are only buying 1 thing. to be clear im not against asking for a deal/ price break during initial contact (its easy to stop replying to txt's or just laugh at them). I take issue with ppl who show up after agreeing to a price and ask for a discount. its like they think i will feel pressured into saying yes because they are in front of me, but in reality i just tell them to leave. rant over. |
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Interesting thread Dearth. I can see where you are coming from and can see why hobbyists are upset when LFS make a good buck from what was bought off them or when their peers are demanding same price as LFS. I'm going to put another perspective to this. This is reflective of an inefficient market where liquidity is low. If there are a lot of buyers and sellers trading then there is going to be an equilibrium. You will get the odd ones from time to time even in a highly liquid market but they are the odd ones. Titus |
Issue is that it was several big coral farmers that started raising prices on frags with their made up name corals. They take pics under blue light, use orange lens to make colors pop, photoshop the crap out of the picture, slap a silly name on a coral and ask for $200 for a tiny frag. I know several folks have started trying to crash the market if you will, by offering those same frags at fraction of the cost. I hope that they succeed.
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Like I said in another thread, I found that prices have stagnated or ever gone down on a lot of common corals. "Designer corals" are a whole other issue altogether. Those prices are pumped up by the novelty/desirability factor, which is very subjective. But, if you look at the median price of coral frags in the hobby I disagree with the assertion that the prices have gone up. At least not since 2012 when I started in this hobby.
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I think the LFS needs to make money and should do so.
I'd like to see frag sizes go back to that 1-2 inches, well encrusted or showing new growth and people realizing just because your 1" frag has 2 branches doesnt make it a mini colony. I remember when people were called out for small fresh glued frags and smurfs pictures. Those were the good old days. |
That is the only thing I am dreading about coming back to the Hobby right now. The price of coral has skyrocketed in the last 6 years since I got out. But I suppose that only means that it will take longer to populate my tank. And I'll just have 2 frag my tank more often so I can purchase the next unique Coral to grow.
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As long as hobbyist pays $200 for a five-polyp frag, the price of corals will continue to rise.
So when will this end? Stop creating demand for this overhyped craziness. Wait maybe a year or 2 when nobody buys them anymore. I remember when Red Diablo came out and they were charging $100+ for barely an inch frag. Same is true with a Red Planet. And guess what a couple of months ago I purchase a huge colony Red Diablo for $40 as this colony just taken over his tank. I don't have a problem LFS charging X $$$ amount, they need to make money to keep their business afloat. What I don't get is when hobbyist charging for an arm and a leg for a five-polyp frag of a common coral like red planet. I understand as a hobbyist you invest money to get this so called high-end corals and spent several buckets of salt and electricity to grow it, but dude you already made money for charging an arm and a leg for a couple of inch-2 branched red planet that you call a colony for almost a decade. Please make it affordable for noobs who just starting so that this hobby can continue and be sustainable. That's my rant for today, I'm out! |
Hello
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Titus |
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Will they all drop down to an affordable level? Probably not because some are very slow grows and its a major factor in prices next to availability. But many will come down. |
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Look at the cost of colonies now vs 8 years ago. I remember buying Walt Smith colonies from Red Coral for $50 a colony (baseball size) $60 if you didn't nab them on the pre buy. What's a colony that size worth now. |
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Now we do have a lot of really nice corals out there right now that have justified prices because their colours are absolutely amazing and they are slow growers so it's really hard to get the supply to match the demand. So in those cases I understand |
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I get coral envy all the time. There are so many pieces I want and so many I'll never have because it out of my price range. But I still have lots of nice corals I'm happy with. I suggest getting a bunch of common corals and then dish out for a show piece if you can. Thats what I did and I'm happy. Don't let the envy get the best of you. |
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Maybe thats Calgary and I can't speak for you. Maybe it's due to the shit economy you have going there at the moment. When the economy what good, saltwater was huge over there. Then is started to crash when oil took a hit and there were a ton of tank shutdowns from what I remember. |
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If you want to talk vendors, yeah its gone up. But be real man. EVERYTHING you buy now from the stores are more expensive then 8 years. Cost of living is higher, wages to pay people are high. Hell apples from your grocery store at like 5 times more expensive. What are you expecting? |
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One thing for sure is real estate prices have gone up, especially in Vancouver. Whether a LFS pays rent or own the store that'd be a huge factor to the pricing. Titus |
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What has caused the price increase has nothing to do with cost of living. 2 things have attributed to it, one of which is the biggest player. The dollar exchange, which is still about 30-35%, so not too major. The second, and largest, is the internet. The collectors, have come to realize they are being given peanuts compared to what the corals are being sold for across the world and have increased their price. Vendors are still going to make their percentage so prices increase. People are willing to pay the prices so they keep buying coral. If hobbiests wouldn't pay large prices would come down. |
I generally give coral away especially if it grows in abundance in my tank like GSP I give this away at least three times a year to local reefers the only catch is I don’t have the room to keep it once I prune my coral so it goes in a bag and is held for no more than 2 days then it’s tossed.
Now technically once it is out of my hands and into another reefers hands they can do as they please but I get my hackles up especially if the pieces I give away are sold for huge profit. There was 2 people that regularly got GSP and when I had an abundance of them hammer coral and gave the GSP away and the hammer I charged 5 bucks regardless of size. Well these 2 individuals would take the pieces I gave them and sell to other reefers for large amounts of money. One would charge $60 for a piece he got free from me and another time he sold a 5 head hammer for $130 after I found out what they were doing I refused to give to them anymore which apparently made me a bad boy and a whiner but I can handle that. I can’t handle that my cheap coral is being resold for huge profit and not even taken out of the bag I gave to them. Call me petty but I don’t like people who do that and I have no problem shaming them if it is proven beyond a doubt. One has since left the hobby and the other is still in it but few people will deal with him because he takes advantage of people. |
Frags for ten and 20
You guys remember when you could go to a fellow reefers house and get frags for ten to 20 bucks of really nice pieces?
I think i got most of my millies that way back in the day, open houses for frag swapping and buying. got some really impressive stuff back then. circa 2005 |
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What is gone are the days of people actually going to look at tanks. Seems since the social media thing took over, people would rather see a picture on instagram rather than driving across the city to look at a tank in person. If your not going to make face to face contact, how can you expect to actually start a friendship and give each other coral. The hobby has become less of a community and more of a instagram follower, let's give likes, sort of a community. |
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