Quote:
Originally Posted by Myka
Aquaforest is shooting themselves in the foot then. The only Aquaforest sales you vendors are going to get is from people that don't know they can get it cheaper on Amazon.ca and/or people that are willing to pay more to support to support you.
I'm wondering from a business perspective, why would you want to promote a product that will always run the "risk" of someone discovering it on Amazon.ca and ditching out on you? Why not promote similar products like Fauna Marin, Zeovit, or Tropic Marin where all vendors are on an even playing field because those salts are not available for a stupid low price on Amazon.ca?? From a business perspective it makes more sense to promote products that you can a) get a good margin on, b) be competitive.
For these reasons, I think Aquaforest is shooting themselves in the foot by not ending the relationship with Amazon.ca (and Amazon.com) and relying Canadian (and US) reef distributors instead. You don't see other brands doing this - like Tunze, Ecotech, Apex, etc. I'm interested to see how it pans out in the next couple years for Aquaforest. However, I'd much rather support our Canadian retailers than Amazon.  |
I think I can get the reason behind Aquaforest going through amazon. Amazon can move a large volume of their product and when a manufacturer is getting into a new market, a lower margin and a greater exposure to the new market sounds more reasonable than a larger margin and being competitive. No retailer can move as large of a volume that Amazon can due to reasons stated above already. And manufacturers love a secured volume of sale and although supporting local businesses is important for us, it means nothing to them since they are not from here. To them, the number of products sold matters and who sold it does not; and no retailer (well other than Walmart I guess but they are not in this business) can guarantee volume like Amazon can.
I am all for supporting local businesses and I am ready to take a damage of 10-20% if I get something locally instead of waiting for the thing to arrive at my door step (I have to pick up at the local delivery point anyways) but I can see the reason behind the market strategy of Aquaforest. And honestly, it is working really well for them. Even few months ago, no one was aware of this brand and look what happened when Amazon got them in stock
