Selling Corals for Profit $$$

[neoh]

the capitalist agenda..

you should see my P&L statement for this hobby. If I could register and consider corals as inventory and claim amortization based on coral loss and fish, plus the cost of supplies, I would be a laughing stock.

But hey, my corals are pretty.

[acepumping]

Originally Posted by Slyguy00

Didnt see that coming lol. But I have a hard time believing that

FULLY AGREE!!!!!!!!
if you don't like the hobby and don't like the cost and certainly find yourself complaining alot.. then get out of it..


IMO

[canadianbudz604]

Wow.... The guys that buy huge colonies for say $100 and break it up into say 20 frags @ $10 a piece aren't making much of a profit AND it's the only way a lot of us get corals.... What's the problem?

[trilinearmipmap]

1. Laissez-faire

2. The knowledge which is freely given on these boards is more valuable than the corals we try to charge each other for

3. I would be inclined to start a coral bank, ie. established hobbyists can have a frag of whatever coral for zero, in return if my tank crashes you give me a frag back to restock. Kind of like insurance

4. It is a collegial hobby until money gets involved

Incidentally I'm sitting near a tank with 6 BTA's, bought one BTA from Samw something like 8 or 10 years ago, if I sold 5 of them for the original purchase price I guess I earned 25 bucks per year. Woohoo!


Just my view.

[Samw]

Originally Posted by trilinearmipmap

Incidentally I'm sitting near a tank with 6 BTA's, bought one BTA from Samw something like 8 or 10 years ago, if I sold 5 of them for the original purchase price I guess I earned 25 bucks per year. Woohoo!

Nice. You got a clone from the very first RBTA on Canreef as far as I know. Since I had a crash last year, my RBTA has shrunk and I was going to post a msg asking to see if someone had a clone of mine from over the years for sale as it has sentimental value. LOL. There should be hundreds of my clones out there now over the 10-12 years.

Ever come down to Vancouver?

[albert_dao]

Okay let me pose this question:

At which point does it become profiteering? Is it when the $$$ earned extends beyond the original value of the coral? Is it when the sale price is inflated to market value? Is it when a coral is parted out to recover costs? Etc, etc, etc... Seems pretty gray to me.

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

Okay let me pose this question:

At which point does it become profiteering? Is it when the $$$ earned extends beyond the original value of the coral? Is it when the sale price is inflated to market value? Is it when a coral is parted out to recover costs? Etc, etc, etc... Seems pretty gray to me.

I would argue the line is crossed when you full well know your taking advantage of a fellow hobbyist.

Let me give you an example;

Seller A buys zoas that lack a specific trade name from LFS. They then proceed to name said coral themselves to improve its ability to sell (lets face it, named stuff goes for more EVERY time).

This seller then posts these zoas for sale, priced per polyp at $35 exclaiming what a major deal these are. He/she goes on to state that if you don't buy now the price will increase DOUBLE to $75 per polyp.

Seller A is pretty much saying these are 50% off at the moment indicating they are heavily reducing the price to be an AMAZING person and sell you some unreal coral a wicked deal!

Sadly Seller A probably bought that unnamed zoa rock from a local LFS at around $50, if all 10 polyps sell @ $35 then $300 profit has been made or 600% profit.

That is personally what I consider profiteering

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Zoaelite

I would argue the line is crossed when you full well know your taking advantage of a fellow hobbyist.

Let me give you an example;

Seller A buys zoas that lack a specific trade name from LFS. They then proceed to name said coral themselves to improve its ability to sell (lets face it, named stuff goes for more EVERY time).

This seller then posts these zoas for sale, priced per polyp at $35 exclaiming what a major deal these are. He/she goes on to state that if you don't buy now the price will increase DOUBLE to $75 per polyp.

Seller A is pretty much saying these are 50% off at the moment indicating they are heavily reducing the price to be an AMAZING person and sell you some unreal coral a wicked deal!

Sadly Seller A probably bought that unnamed zoa rock from a local LFS at around $50, if all 10 polyps sell @ $35 then $300 profit has been made or 600% profit.

That is personally what I consider profiteering

Hmm, while I don't necessarily agree with the ethics of your example, I also don't think that's a strong case against profiteering. Where do you draw the line? 100%? 200%? When someone goes from being 'dude in a basement' to 'dude in a basement with a business license"? What if we extended that last frame to 'dude who has a storefront'?

Take Steve Tyree for example. All strikes against him, and I may be going out on a limb here, but that guy REVOLUTIONIZED the reef hobby. His 'LE' gimmick reinvigorated the entire coral scene well beyond "OMG, Fiji Aquaculture is so dope!" (and trust me, this was the state of the hobby circa 1999-2003). And he did it straight off the back of your example. I'd argue that this sort of, let's call it entrepreneurial, spirit is exactly what keeps the hobby healthy. Eagle eyed hobbyist spots a gem at LFS, sensationalizes it and drives a frenzy, creating a secondary market. I see no harm in this. The coral has already proven its worth to the original benefactor (the LFS that sold it at their expected markup) and now there is a new and unique strain of coral that will be hosted and propagated by steadily increasing numbers of hobbyist. Fast forward six months and the market value of the coral will steadily decline as supply exceeds demand. For most people, getting a nice coral isn't a matter of having money on hand, but patience.

Anyway, about to flood a tank, I'll be back to stir this up more in case y'all want to continue the dialogue.

[canadianbudz604]

Zoaelite, that's right, but you don't run across people like
That very often. I've been on this forum for a couple years and I usually buy corals off the same few people. Maybe they make 5$ or something off me but just in their time alone doesn't make them a profit. But sometimes there is a few people that find a really good deal and take advantage of it. But we wouldn't get a frag of that coral unless they were selling it.