New 160g Instant Ocean buckets
 

I guess Instant Ocean has a new pail with a twist on lid..?

Anyone catch a price on those yet or seen them around?

My guess is they wanted to go less than 50lbs for worker comp.

Twist-on lid! Finally, they're thinking! I hate those other lids. The kent ones are a bit easier, but I didn't switch because of the lid :razz:

I think I saw it advertised in the Boxing Day sale Flyer for Big Als at $49.00


Jason

Heh heh, same price as the 200g but you get less. So thats their angle! :confused:

I think the ones at Big Al come w/ a T-shirt too though.

Well, you know it was the air getting into the bucket that was causing all the high alk problems. So they had to design a new lid to fix that. :evil: Jack, from what I read on the US boards, the price remains the same.

Nope, didn't know that!

jeez, air gets into the bucket I had all the time (I really hated getting those lids off and on) and my alk was super low not high. weird. :confused:

Not to worry. I was being facetious. They should add a Maxijet and a T-Shirt to make up for loss salt. :lol:

haha, nice one Sam :mrgreen:

I guess we can use the T-shirt to mop up the floods or clean the front of the tank :rolleyes:

They have them here at Big Als - $65.00 w/shirt - only $10.00 less than a 200g pail :confused: The lid is a good idea though

They're $49.99 for boxing day only though, with a 6 pail maximum. I guess they're considered really cheap :question: :exclaim: :rolleyes:

that just matches J&L's everyday price.

Hopefully, J&L will have a maximum as well so nobody with a really huge tank buys it all up.

everyone out west whines unceasingly about salt prices, salt is being sold at far less than its suggested retail price, this is kinda ****ing of salt manufactures that feel the quality of its product is being poorly represented by its price. try buying salt back east, expect to pay about double what your used to. at 89.99 retail salt is dirt cheap, at 49.99 they are probably not even breaking even, even if they are buying by the truckload. its nice for you that some of the big stores move so much volume and can afford to take a loss on a product to get people in the doors, but the smaller guys that dont move the huge volume are suffering cuz they cant take such a loss, they end up folding eventually, everyone likes a good deal, including me, but its sad when most people in this hobby will see a sale price, or already low price, and whine and ask for a deal, these are usually the same people that complain unceasingly about poor quality livestock. if they are not making decent return on their products, they cant afford to keep quality livestock, we need to quit perpetuating the problem, dig a little deeper and pay a reasonable price for what we are buying. take a min and think about the work that goes into getting livestock into your tank, livestock is so cheap its almost free....
Im done my little rant now....lol

so concidering it is even cheaper in the US I guess they are going to be so mad they are going to close there businesses :rolleyes:

the Price does reflect what people are willing to pay and it doesent matter what the big companies think as if people won't pay 89.00 for a bucket they won't sell any. Remember when it says "Sugested manufactures price" it is only a sugestion not a requirment, as long as the manufacture gets it's 40.00 per bucket (just a fictisious price for simplicity) they don't care how much there retailer sells it for. the only time you will see price setting is in a monopoly type situation.

Steve

Sorry that our clowning around was perceived as whining.

I bet if everyone had to dig deeper to run a reef tank, there would be less pockets to dig and stores would go out of business because reefkeepers simply quit the hobby. The reason why more people are getting into reefing now is because prices keep coming down. This can mean more business to the stores when lower prices attract new customers. Lower prices isn't always a bad thing for the industry or store if the total revenue and profit increases because of it. The market isn't saturated yet. Lots of freshwater hobbiests out there waiting to convert or start up a marine tank.

Try selling computers. I heard that the profit on systems is like 2-3%.

I guess what Im trying to get at is that the "salt wars" (see gas wars) are getting ridiculous, people will buy salt at 64.99 which is more than reasonable, selling it for your cost or below your cost to fight for customers is getting old, reefers have never had it so good, I just hate it when you see hobbiests complaining about stores selling salt for a reasonable price, when its the lowest price they can afford to sell it for. This isnt about my business incase you are wondering, I dont sell salt. My point is that if you dont want to have any complaints about livestock and inventory, you cant be complaining about price, cuz when you complain about price and they feel they have to lower their prices, their margins go way down and they cant afford to keep things the way they were...
If I lived in the states and was to mailorder salt, which is the cheapest way to get it in the usa as far as I know, I would be paying between $66 and $75 USD before any local taxes, thats the cheapest way they can get it to their door. that is more than we pay for sure! Sure it says $34.99 on their site but wait till it gets to you... the west coast of bc has the lowest salt prices in north america to my knowledge,
I just dont think reefers out west know how good they have it...

I don't mind the price of the 200g pail but if the bucket size gets drastically smaller(by 40g) and the price doesn't budge... that ain't right.

Salt isn't where LFS make thier money.

And honestly who cares about the free T-Shirts and plastic plants that they try and kiss your butt with. Although the MiniJet's were cool. :smile:

I say, keep the damn shirt and give me the rest of my salt!!! :mrgreen: :lol: ...but I do like Christy's idea for the shirt :mrgreen: :squarewi:

I agree. I have enough shirts already. :razz:

If only I could trade my T-shirts in for salt :lol: :lol: :lol: :exclaim: :mrgreen:

The flip side is, I don't think reefers know how bad they have it out in the East. Hehe. :lol:

Sam, good point ! :razz:

Does J&L have the new buckets in yet? I haven't been there in a week. :rolleyes: :smile:

A week?!?! Jeez Jack, you're slippin'! :wink:

:redface:

I guess it must really suck for all those guys in the east. More $ for salt. I guess you make up for it with your on average lower standard of living and lower costs of housing though.

I don't. Most of my wardrobe comes from freebies so I can always use more. That way, I can save my money and buy corals. Let's see, I have several free shirts from work, free shirts from About.com, free shirt from 3COM, free shirt from Reefs.org, free shirt from Mitsubishi, free shirt from Supra (old modem maker), free shirt from Volleyball, free shirt from Softball, free shirt from Honeywell...

:biggrin:

I have one from Compaq...maybe I should donate it to your collection!!

Akamai, netsol, amd, intel, etc etc etc ;)

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.

molson canadian, molson canadian, molson canadian :razz: