zygote2k August 7, 2012 Share August 7, 2012 It's amazing what the mark-ups are on inverts. This retails for $500+, but sells for $35 at the collection station. You have to add CITES permit fees, handling/box charges, airfare from Vietnam to LAX, then repack, handling, customs, airfare from LAX to here. 12 of them fit in a box. Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epleeds August 7, 2012 Share August 7, 2012 im in for one at $35 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlem August 7, 2012 Share August 7, 2012 So do they sell just one box? Probably not. Wholesales probably need to buy 10-20 boxes of other stuff too. Lots of risk. And all that transferring and fees and the people involve? Maybe a bigger picture of these costs would give a better picture of the retail price the way it is. I would say 500, might be high, but not unreasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k August 7, 2012 Author Share August 7, 2012 20 box minimum to even make it worth the risk and associated costs. The same supplier sells Bluelined Angelfish for $28ea 8/box. They retail for $500 or more. FWIW, I've never trans-shipped anything. This is how wholesalers get stock. I could do it, but I'd want to work with a retailer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlem August 7, 2012 Share August 7, 2012 20 box minimum to even make it worth the risk and associated costs. The same supplier sells Bluelined Angelfish for $28ea 8/box. They retail for $500 or more. FWIW, I've never trans-shipped anything. This is how wholesalers get stock. I could do it, but I'd want to work with a retailer. so.. what's exactly are we discussing? Gauging interest in 20 boxes of fish/corals/inverts Group Buy with high risk and no DOA guarantee? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBVette August 7, 2012 Share August 7, 2012 Im not following the point here. There is markup on everything in the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind August 7, 2012 Share August 7, 2012 So what's the point here? You need to fully understand those addition charges like box fees, re-ox charges, cites permits, and so on. They are not cheap at all. That domestic flight runs over $50 a box. Why don't you figure up the total costs and then start a thread in the group buy area. I might be in for a couple red carpets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowieReefer84 August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 $35 in Vietnam is not the same as $35 in the MD/VA/DC area, assuming you are saying $35usd/ carpet in Vietnam... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treesprite August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 The point is that Americans want things cheap regardless of how much work and expense it costs other people to produce them. I don;t look at it as markup. Markup to me in this respect is what the final vendor charges the customer above the price the vendor paid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incredible Corals August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 It Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveS August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 FWIW, I've never trans-shipped anything. I think you should have started the thread with this statement. It Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hlem August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 (edited) Sounds like all this thread will do is start a flame war and create misunderstandings that will hurt relations between vendors and WAMAS (not just sponsoring but any vendor). WAMAS members are a lot smarter than this. I'm sure we have a pretty good understanding how tranship/wholesale/retail prices works... Edited August 8, 2012 by hlem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zygote2k August 8, 2012 Author Share August 8, 2012 so.. what's exactly are we discussing? Gauging interest in 20 boxes of fish/corals/inverts Group Buy with high risk and no DOA guarantee? I'm not organizing a transship group buy or anything like that. I just happened to get an email from a vendor in Vietnam and after looking at how "cheap" things were, I thought I'd post it here to my fellow reefers to show what things actually cost and some of the logistics involved in getting livestock from the collector to the consumer. I hope this post doesn't step on anyones' toes or cross lines that shouldn't be crossed. Just education/information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basser9 August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 (edited) Years ago before people knew jason fox supplied dr mac i was at his place and he was packing around 100 sps frags for the dr. Jason told me he charged 7 .00 for most of the frags which sounded dirt cheap until he explained that is they died dr mac was out the money.....no credits back. Edited August 8, 2012 by basser9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter0906 August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 im in for two please at $35 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 im in for two please at $35 He said he's not selling anything. He's merely pointing out an email that he received recently. As for the original post, this is pretty much the same as part of the topic that Bob Fenner talked about at the last meeting. He looked at the problem in two ways: First, the way that Rob is talking about - the markup in the supply chain from diver to aquarist. He also looked at it the other way: By how the market price drives backward toward through the wholesaler and right back to the collection station and then the diver, and how certain locations, even though abundant with livestock, are not economically viable collection points because of, for example, lack of inexpensive access to air transportation. The fact that there's a heavy markup (from our perspective) on livestock should come as no surprise to people. After all, these animals, when wild caught, come from half a world away where a diver probably earns in a day what you'd pay to buy lunch here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 I thought I'd post it here to my fellow reefers to show what things actually cost Unless you show a figure with all the additional charges added in I don't think we will ever see an actual cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tightline August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 So what's the point here? You need to fully understand those addition charges like box fees, re-ox charges, cites permits, and so on. They are not cheap at all. That domestic flight runs over $50 a box. Why don't you figure up the total costs and then start a thread in the group buy area. I might be in for a couple red carpets. i would be in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roni August 8, 2012 Share August 8, 2012 i would be in I'll take 2 as well................ kidding...Way back when I was more involved in the business side of the hobby, we used to transship in some fish/corals on occasion. Per piece, most things were in the $5-10 range. However, the landed price with permits and shipping was usually double. In addition, we had a fairly high mortality on the 2 shipments we did. If I recall, the landed price accounting for mortality was just a tiny bit less then normal wholesale price, and we generally did a 1X markup on high dollar items and 2-3 on bread and butter. Afterwards, I saw some of the bigger outfits in LA that transship more often. Most are located on the west coast to minimize shipping time and have perfected/improved upon acclimation procedures. Most are also fairly large outfits that bring in hundreds of boxes a week, which is how they get the rare items. Still, all things considered, I'm a little surprised at $500-800 for a red haddoni these days. I wonder if they've become rarer or more difficult to collect? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 9, 2012 Share August 9, 2012 Heck, it doesn't cost much to buy these things and they sell them in massive quantities. The fishermen that collect them are paid next to nothing and the markup grows from the time they are bought from the fishermen to the time that the actually land in a store or become a retail or even wholesale item locally. I had a stock list years ago from a supplier in Indonesia I think it was and you could buy almost any fish for less than $1, most were around $.25 or less, down to a nickel for some. The most expensive one was a Black Tip Shark for around $15. When we tried to get info on shipping costs the minimum order was a massive amount and shipping would have cost hundreds - hence a $.10 fish ended up being around $20. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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