I see points from many different people with different ideas, and they all make sense in certain applications. One point I could make is that there are many niche markets inside of this niche market of marine life. In my opinion, and Im not putting anyone down cuz Im the same way in many aspects... hobbyists, like the ones on this board, are generaly "cheap", usually looking for a deal, some shop at wherever the product they want is cheapest, trading frags, buying frags, trading livestock of any sort. This is not a bad thing, I think it is a good thing, it keeps our hobby a little more enviro friendly, "a little". Then there are people that want a pretty tank in their house and have little time, or put little effort into maintaining it, this group in my experience makes up half of the costomers of this hobby. Then there are the elite hobbyists, they have lots of cash, and spend big bucks, they also usually put alot of time into the hobby, these folks make up a small portion of this hobby. Then there are the status customers, "I like the blue one, can we have that yellowish one, those are pretty, can you put lots of them in..." these are the customers who have loads of cash, no interest in learning the hobby, but want their friends and foes to envy them. Bling, Bling customers you could say. These make up most of my customer base, they dont care what things cost, with some things they would pick the more expensive item just to say that they have it. In kelowna there is a funny attitude among the more well off folks, they wont buy it unless its expensive, makes no sense but its true, if you give them a quote on something and they hesitate, tell them youll get back with them, let them know about the new inflated quote and they say, sure lets do it... works for me, I supply to mostly the later 2 groups, I setup and maintain their tanks, they pay a premium for this service, they pay more for livestock than I charge to caring hobbyists, people like you on this board are able to take the livestock and take care of it yourself, thus cheaper, less work for me, customers who make me work harder get charged more for the same thing. dont know if this makes sense to anyone, but running my business this way is the only reason I have been doing well business wise. my product and quality are top notch, you get what you pay for, but it does come at a premium. I know the way i run our business dashes the economic laws to pieces, but thats the way it is.
When I ran my business the way economic laws would dictate, I was not doing very well at it, now things are peachy.... since this thread was origionaly about salt, sorry if I kinda ruined you thread. I too think that if the quantity of salt is less in the new buckets, i would like to see the price adjusted accordingly...