Quote:
Originally Posted by mark
isn't there also a step from the importer to the LFS as they're not necessarily the same?
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Most of the stuff that comes into Vancouver and goes elsewhere is transshipped, the Van importer does the paperwork and pops them on the next flight to your LFS's city. They may rework the bags if they need to.
There are a handful of operations that tank fish and sell wholesale on the west coast but most of that action still happens in LA. You see more direct and transshipped stuff in Canada than in the US but I bet about 75% of the industry in North America moves through the larger LA importer / wholesalers. There is about 10 or so of them all on 104st right by LAX and they provide fish, corals and some dry goods.
There isn't clear evidence that the wholesale or direct / transshipped model results in better quality for the consumer. Flights can get bumped either way, one fish that doesn't appear sick can spread something to the whole shipment etc. When you're looking at a fish it's probably not a bad idea to ask where it came from but you should still handle them the same way. QT and evaluate, don't put new fish in a display.
I need to comment the idea of direct sales as well. As far as I know there aren't any large wholesalers that do direct sales. What is kind of a new thing though is that some of the internet based livestock stores actually don't have their own facilities but instead drop ship direct from the wholesaler. The seller is just a web site operation that lists whatever the wholesaler has in stock and sends orders over when they are received. The seller has never been within 200km of the livestock you are purchasing. I'm not aware of and Canadian outfits that do this.
IMO this drop ship thing is pretty ugly and I hope it never happens here. I'm not going to even pretend I'm not biased but the last 2 years have shown some problems with the business model. Quality Marine is one of the oldest and largest LA operations and they partnered up with Doctor Fosters and Smith to sell livestock in a drop ship scenario like this. QM has always been expensive but was generally worth it because the fish were excellent. Once they started doing the drop ship with DF&S the quality went down significantly, they weren't awful or anything but it would be fair to say mediocre at best. There were a lot of DF&S / Live Aquaria customers that were unsatisfied, there was talk of class actions and stuff on forums in the US.