HUGE shipment of BIG fishes at Big Al's in Richmond

[Chin_Lee]

Dropped by there this afternoon, they just had a big shipment of fish. Lots and LOTS and L O T S of display size fishes!!! Quite impressive display of fish however the posted prices for the marine fishes were quite on the high side (ie Clown trigger $198, emperor angel $249). A lot of the fish prices weren't posted yet and I saw one and only very nice 4.5" powder blue and asked the price. The guy didn't know and guessed at around $49. The blue was already eating nori and the guy fed it some food which it attacked...... now I'm a proud owner of a very nice PBT that had a very cheap adoption fee!
If anybody's around that area, take some time drop in to see their fish... they are also in pretty good shape.... and no I don't work for them

those are very reasonable prices for display sized fish, buy yourself a plane ticket to the solomons and figure the size of box required to ship such a fish and compare it to the ammount of space a person takes up on a plane..... 1 display fish=1 approx 20"x20"x17" box..... sometimes much larger

[DBM]

Kyle,

You beat me to it. I can't believe people think $250.00 is unfair for a large fish. 7 or 8 years back our show Imperator and Blueface use to retail for $400 to $500 dollars and the retailers would be fighting over them.

The only North American places cheaper than Vancouver on fish that I know might be L.A. or Miami. Hobbiests have it really good here, and I think alot of the new guys don't realize it.

[rodsboys]

The prices were dirt cheap in Virginia and Florida when I lived there.Come to think of it Illinois had some pretty reasonable prices too.I just assumed like many other things in Canada , fish cost more here.

[Chin_Lee]

Well I guess we are lucky in the Lower Mainland to have good competition amongst the lfs and I guess i'm also lucky buying fish now and not 7-8 years ago.
I hope I didn't offend anybody with my opinion on the prices.

no offense taken by anyone Im sure....

We understand that some dont realize the logistics of the "pretty" fish in their tank......

I remember my wholesale costs on fish 5 years ago were higher than you can buy them for retail now, personally I think this is a bad thing , and it has nothing to do with the fact that Im in the business......

It seems that fish prices have been driven down, and coral prices have skyrocketed over the past few years....

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by UnderWorldAquatics

I remember my wholesale costs on fish 5 years ago were higher than you can buy them for retail now, personally I think this is a bad thing , and it has nothing to do with the fact that Im in the business..........

so were fish stores selling at a loss 5 years ago? I paid and average of about 30% less 5 years ago for my fesh water fish not more.

Steve

Hypothetically........

5years ago fish cost me $5, I sold that fish for $10
Today same fish cost me $12, I sell that same fish for $14


Profit marging has gone the way of the Dodo bird..... the prices are abit higher for the retail customer, the prices have skyrocketed for the wholesaler/store, except for the big money fish such as display specemins, where for some reason the market has driven the price down, I think they should be $400+ again, mabey then some folks would take better care of them.....

[Samw]

Could the wholesaler's margin have gone up instead? I've read that the collectors hardly make any money on their catches so the profits are going somewhere.

no....It covers their costs but hasnt gone up a ton, I used to wholesale....when I was setup for it, dont want to get into wholesaling again....


A large portion is the rise in air freight costs...