Would You Believe?

[WDLV]

Originally Posted by AAK

very well said...but if they are at your finger tips...and you have the cash to spend on them would u do it....i have clowns cause i enjoy them..i like to care for them and i can't count how many times i have fallin a sleep looking at them before light go out. i guess it all matters on how much money you are willing to pay for it..

just my 2 cents

Of course I would do it. I'm a reef junkie!
I'll quit now. I don't want to deviate too far OT. But I have some interesting thoughts I'll share in another thread that I think a lot of us could relate to.

[AAK]

not trying to get OT but i always like to hear what you have to say....if people get mad cause you point out a few things. thats to bad for them cause i like info...other people on RCF like info also

[Mark]

Originally Posted by criccio

And this is what I don't understand. In an earlier post of mine, RC member "Chris" of the UK posted that his LFS just got in 10 Latz at $40 USD, while we are paying $250+. So why aren't they coming to the states when we are paying more???

Nothing personal schlecht, just thinking out loud.

Hey Kris, don't be throwing Old Town out there, that's my hometown secret. ;)

I agree criccio, we control the market per se', I think that if we said hey those prices are too high, we could potentially have an effect on the market. Let’s get with the rest of the world on these prices.

[traveller7]

Folks,

The "collector to wholesale" chain is a bit more complex then the discussions have captured. There are variables and dependencies at each level of geography which impact pricing at each tier.

Limited market clowns are hitchhikers in almost every case unless the unit price is very high to offset transaction costs, shipping, substitution, mis-ID, losses, etc.

As buyers, we can control at what point we buy or not buy, but at a low price, the clowns will not be brought to the markets without buyers. The volume of the limited availability clowns is not large enough for macro economic pricing to apply. Each transaction is per deal.

Nature of the beast until we generate enough captive bred supply with high quality.

JMHO of course.

[WDLV]

OK. So what am I missing here? If a consumer buys a fish in England that fish will have still been collected by the same collectors in the same region. Then you have the importers, wholesalers and retailers specific to that location of import. I can't help but think that one or more of them are to blame. I as a consumer don't claim to know the nitty gritty details of what happens between point A and point D but I see a huge discrepancy between the latezonatus clown sold in the UK for $60 US and the $250 to $350 that we are expected to pay here in America. If you really break it down, the distance is the same if not less for a fish from the East Coast of Australia to reach a California retailer than the same fish would be to reach the West coast of England. So, it can't be shipping costs effecting the price so dramatically. Someone on our side of the import to consumer chain is price gouging and we as American consumers should be rooting them out and publicly humiliating them or at the very least not being fool enough to support their business practice. Perhaps I'm wrong in my assertion, but I can't fathom a more complex system for the US to import something than for the UK to Import something from the same or lesser distance.
I'm not singling you out in this. I appreciate your reminding me of the situation. I think this is the kind of BS we are fed by those who are in charge of our interests when we ask about a discrepancy. "Oh, it's a complicated process and you (consumers, taxpayers, lower level employees) wouldn't understand." The fact is I think we understand perfectly. It's not about the complexities of a process. The only complexities are in the web of deceit. It's about simple supply, demand, economics and the desire of a greedy CEO to buy the latest model Mercedes Bens for himself. Capitalism at it's finest.

[WDLV]

I just wanted to add that I have always appreciated your posts and opinions on RC and I appreciate your posts and opinions here as well. So hopefully neither you nor others reading this interpret my comments as having any aire of disrespect directed at you but rather a passionate disgust for my perception of how things are sometimes handled in the ornamental aquatics trade.
If my comments are ever taken out of this context, I hope that I will be notified so that I can re-word them.

[traveller7]

Hi Walt,

The fish we are discussing are not:

- delivered through the chain in singles
- available to small order wholesalers
- are frequently picked out of the chain early and priced immediately to retail levels

Latezonatus are cheap enough to sell in the US for ~$50 but only if they are purchased by the right wholesaler (volume and connected) and brought directly to the right LFS (volume and connected). Even better to be picked up at a location that imports volume directly from the collection point and is a wholesale/retail operation.

You know a place that has sold Chrysopterus for $20ea, Latez for $50ea, Gasters $50ea, etc. That short of pricing does not occur in the typical distribution chain and rarely if ever on shipments hitting LA first. [b]Cherry pickers know the values retail will pay and this is where they make their money, finding homes for the "unpriced" low volume limited availability sale.[b]

Think about the real pink ricordia of past years, pinkish RBTAs in 2000 range, early Acan's, exotic zoa, etc. It worked the same way and the US wholesale model has not changed much in 15 years.

There are other factors, but when we are dealing with a volume of sub 1,000 high mortality units per year. There really is not enough of a market to establish a price, hence we should expect it to fluctuate wildly.....and it does.

Show me a price of $40 US in England over a long period of time and repeated at multiple shops and we can revise the concept. Odds are the fish came along with offseting items in the process and are not in high demand in the UK market.

It has nothing to do with elitism. It has everything to do with supply, demand, and opportunity cost. US is a bigger market, has levels where folks can capitalize on the demand, and unfortunately supply is artificially limited.

[traveller7]

Originally Posted by WDLV

I just wanted to add that I have always appreciated your posts and opinions on RC and I appreciate your posts and opinions here as well. So hopefully neither you nor others reading this interpret my comments as having any aire of disrespect directed at you but rather a passionate disgust for my perception of how things are sometimes handled in the ornamental aquatics trade.
If my comments are ever taken out of this context, I hope that I will be notified so that I can re-word them.

No sweat here my friend, not single a bead of it :)

Want to really get me started? Let's chat about "limited editions", named morphs, etc. :D

I share quite a bit of the sentiment, but it does not change how it works in a large opportunistic market of limited supply.

Although, I was in the business mid 80's to mid 90's; little has changed in the distribution model. More are importing, but the hobby has grown at a greater rate. Smaller businesses are still frustrated by having their orders partially filled while the high volume guy gets the benefits and the cherry pickers jump a stage to retail.

[hkt8646]

I must first preface my response by stating that I do not have any experience importing fish into the U.S. However, I have extensive experience with importing orchids and parrots into the U.S. and I do believe that much of what I have experienced with those importations can be applied to the importation of fish.

The most important thing to realise is that the importation process is not the same for every country. While CITES governs international trade of endangered species, each signatory is free to interpret the rules in their own way.

The U.S. government is notoriously strict in their interpretation of CITES and species which most countries allow to be imported are not allowed into the U.S. except under very special circumstances.

The number of parrot species and orchid species represented in the U.S. pales in comparison to what is represented in Europe and other parts of the world because our government does not allow their import.

When the circumstances are met that warrant the approval of an import, the process is ridiculously long and complicated and expensive.

For example, I recently attempted to import a group of four birds from New Zealand. it took 14 months for US Fish and Wildlife to grant the initial permits to bring this species in. Once that initial permit was granted, the second round of permit applications began which would have taken an additional 6-9 months. However, by the time I got my initial permit the seller got tired of waiting and sold the birds to someone in Europe who was able to get all their permits together in 2 weeks from start to finish.

In addition to not getting the birds, I was required to pay for the hold charge (fee for holding the birds and caring for them while I got my permits together). That amounted to 200 Euros a month for 15 months. That's 3,000 euros just for the "hold fee" on top of the cost of the birds in addition to the permit application costs, etc. Had I gotten the birds, I would also have had to hire an import broker and pay for USF&W quarantine. All of which would have increased the price of the birsd even more.

My experience is not unqiue and accounts for why so few people "bother" with trying to bring rare species into the U.S., at lesat as far as parrots go.

I've had and heard of similar experiences with people attempting to import various orchid species into the U.S. In fact, a friend of mine working on her Ph.D. at a major university in the U.S. was denied permission to import 100 year old dried pressed specimens of an orchid species to study. She ended up having to go to Europe to review the specimens in person because the U.S. government denied the import permits for them.

When passing judgment on those bringing fish into the U.S. for resale, it's important to take into consideration what is involved.

One other question, are latezonatus in the U.K. 60.00 USD or 60.00 GBP? There's a big difference, since 60 GBP would bring them up to 120.00 USD.

Ralph

[WDLV]

Traveller 7,

Thanks for ellaborating.
So, then except for my original mis-wording "elitism" (freudian slip) when I should have said "capitalism" it sounds like you pretty much agree that the problem is related to our side of the trade... It is our fault as consumers for paying the high prices that the wholesalers/retailers capitalize on. I am speaking within a very small community of people but these are the same people who are the main consumers of the fish we're talking about. The latz, McCs and other fish that are "rare" to the hobby.
This is in my mind no different than what Opec stated yesterday after the price of oil dropped back down to $105/barrel. They were going to cut the supply to stabilize the price. You saw the same thing happen last year with the latz. They reached saturation to the point where certain retailers were sitting on the fish for which they had been inflating the prices on all summer while the market was good ($225 in late spring early on and $350 toward the latter part of the fall). This year, they're frequently being promised, but not really delivering. I have a feeling that this is a result of one wholesaler promising the same 15 or so fish to numerous different retailers. Last month I must have talked to four retailers around the country (OH, FL, CA, IN) who all said that they were expecting a shipment of 10-15 latz all within a two week time span.
Alas, I digress. I guess what I'm so passionate about is that I can't do anything about it.