Steve,

I should point out that manufacturers infact do care about the prices retailers sell thier product for. If certain stores lower prices too far, the manufacturer will step in. Retailers slashing prices hard is not in the manufacturers best interest. Why? If stores don't make money on a product, they stop carrying it. Not in the manufacturers best interest.

If certain retailers upset the market with slashed prices, the manufacturers will step in and ask them to raise the price appropriately. It has happened and if you would care for an example, pm me.

I should point out, from a business perspective, no one should lower prices on salt, or any essential item for that matter. People need it, they have to buy it, so they will pay what it costs. If no one slashed the prices on essential items, retailers would make thier money on the essentials, which would bring down the cost of extra equiptment we all know costs too much. It would also translate into retailers being more willing to risk some bucks bringing in shipments from further abraod, which would increase the product and livestock availabilities. See europe for a CLEAR example of this. Why do you think they have acess to sooo much more then us? Simple, they are willing to pay for it.

It might feel good now to get a super deal, but in the end, your only hurting yourself.

Personally, I would rather pay 10X the cost for something I want from a store that is responsible to the hobby, rather then a cost slashing store with poor service that won't be in business in a year and only cares about making a buck.

I anxiously await the aquarium hobby in north america moving towards the status it has in europe as the majority hobbiests attitude matures.

your better with words than I...

what he said^

I know all about that but the fact is they haven't steped in and stopped J&L so they are not at that point yet.. and thats also what I was hinting at.. if a manufactur feels a product is being sold to cheep and is impacting on there outer retailers they will step in and ask for them to step in line.. if they don't they will cut off the supply to that black sheep retailer.. I have seen it done befor and I have personaly been involved in a instance from the distrubitors side.

The problem is when you think about it salt is realy not a fast mover. if you raise the price people stop doing water changes. so in the past salt has been over priced to the point where a lot of people were not doing water changes, heck at 120.00/bucket I was even hesatant but at 50.00/bucket its business as normal.

I digress what I was getting at is because it was so expensive people were not doing as many water changes and it droped the sales dramaticly, so companies had salt sitting around colecting dust.

so the business ask them selves how can we increase salt sales. lower the price and convinve people to do more frequent water changes after all if we sell 10 a month at 89.00/bucket and make 50 profit we make 500/month off salt sales, but if we charge 49.00/bucket and sell 50 buckets/month, we get a price break at 20 and another at 40 so we make 1000/month off salt sales, plus we made it a lot cheeper to start up a tank so more people can start which will have a spin off on live stock and other equipment sold. also if they are doing frequent water changes they will be back to the store to buy more salt and impulse buying will kick in while they are here.

see what I am getting at.
If they were selling salt to cheap out here then IO would have setpped in by now, this price has been there for almost a year, and when I was in the US I saw 200 gal IO for 29.95US so less than 40.00 CDN

Steve

Steve, well said.

Just because certain retailers have IO at that price, does not mean the manufacturers like it or condone it, or even know where this store is getting thier salt, because I garuntee you it is not directly from them. Garunteed. PM me if you want details.

If people want to be sucessfull in keeping a SW tank, they HAVE to do the required maitnence for thier system. If that includes water changes, then so be it. There is no way to avoid it. If people are worried about a $40 difference in a bucket of salt, they are not considering the total cost of running the system. What is $40 or even $400 in the big scheme of things? $40 is a DROP in the bucket. If $40 is a big issue for them, they are in the wrong hobby IMO.

I understand the point you are making, but it is not accurate. Belive me I see it everyday. There are no add-on sales due to the decrease in salt price. No one comes in for salt that was not going to buy it anyways, just because it is cheaper. I will say it again, people hate water changes. In our store, salt sales have not been any higher despite the fact the prices have been lower then ever as of late. We had 200G IO buckets for $38.88 and didn't sell more then any other week. People hate water changes no matter how cheap the salt is. From what I see, salt sales are very stable despite severe price swings.

Never in all my years have I every heard more then one person ask how much salt costs when considering the cost of a system. His system is around 4000G and if you consider a 10% water change monthly is 400G, that would be something to consider. However, salt costs nothing in the scheme of things. He even conceded this once we layed out how much the system would cost to build.

The smart thing to do would be to support the good stores, let them make some money. The money goes back into the store, which comes right back to the customers in increased quality and added service and availability.

Did you ever consider the fact the famous aquarium stores you hear about that are thousands of miles away from you must have an impecable store to garner this much respect? Ever once hear someone say how cheap those stores prices are? No, because thier prices are not the lowest. They have lots of stock, clean stores, great service and a wide selection. This costs the store money, and that means they have to make money. This means they need to profit, and that means they won't have the best prices in town.

Rock bottom prices to not bring more long term stable hobbiests into the hobby. If anything it brings the people who's tanks will be in the classifieds in 6 months and killed thier tanks inhabitants many times. Low prices do not carry a strong sence of responsability. They only make the item more spontainious and "throw-away". Am I the only one other then UnderWorldAquatics (Kyle?) that sees the importance of responsable price structuring and the advancement of the hobby??

:eek: Now, that is ridiculous. Unless those people were reluctant to do the necessary maintenance in the first place.

I'd get out out the hobby if I couldn't afford to do water changes.
:rolleyes:

Absolutely not!
Make this hobby too cheap, and you'll see people getting into it for the wrong reasons, like "it'll make a pretty piece of furniture". If you want what's best for your animals, price would not be your first consideration. High quality equipment, great customer service and ethical treatment of the animals should be the priorities.
A good aquarium store will look after good customers, both in service AND in pricing. You're not a good customer if you always want the lowest price. The lowest prices can always be found at stores that are going out of business, and they're going out of business because they're not making any money.
I imagine it's pretty frustrating for an LFS to put in HOURS of education to a person looking to get into the hobby, only to have the person then turn around and buy the product elsewhere, first because of price, and the store that got the sale had to do no work for it. (eg. mail order)
Support your LFS, and they'll support you.

Mitch

With all due respect Steve, I don't think that impulse buying is the sign of a responsible reefkeeper, and that will only result in the store carrying more junk IMO that is associated with poor purchase decisions, which attracts poorly informed and ultimately unsuccesful aquarists.
While impulse buying is a way for businesses to make a profit, I think that it should apply to gas stations that carry chocolate bars.
Using salt (or any other product for that matter) as a lost leader does not attract responsible reefkeepers.
Carrying top notch products, livestock and service does.

IMO, of course.

Mitch

Beyond frustrating, excellent point Mitch.

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