Group Buys - PLEASE read!

Hello
Happy New Year to all, and welcome (Boyd) to the deep end of the pool!
A little history for all...
As we start our fourteenth year, CMAS was founded on the idea to learn, spread, and share information on marine aquariums.
CMAS is not and will not endorse group buys.
What our members and quest do on RC is out of our control for now!
Over the years our supporting LFS have extended discount to all members, and have been more than generous with gifts to raffle off at meetings and our all day seminars!
Our frag work shops have always been conducted with donated corals and supplies!


I'm sure their's more, but lets sea how good a swimmer Boyd is!
 
As we start our fourteenth year, CMAS was founded on the idea to learn, spread, and share information on marine aquariums. CMAS is not and will not endorse group buys.
Click to expand...

Doug and Boyd, if CMAS does not (present tense) and will not (future tense) endorse group buys, then what is this discussion really about? It would seem to only leave two options, continue to permit but not condone the practice to be conducted within the forum or to discuss some form of limiting or prohibiting it.

So which is it? Or is there another option I'm overlooking?
 
Last edited:
Phil, As per your question, "So which is it? Or is there another option I'm overlooking?"

It is a point of discussion for CMAS going forward.

See you on the 20th! :)

Boyd
 
I love my Phos. meter bought through a group buy and NO ONE local could touch the price.We got those for a little above wholesale.I love group buys and I love my locals.It may be fair to see if they can price match.Mabe the organizer should call around.I did for the Phos meter.It took 5 minutes to find out we had the best deal going.I did not even organize that buy.So an easy way to include the local LFS is one phone call away.Duh.....
 
my self being a member of r/c for a while now and throwing the idea of becoming a member of cmas (been to imac several times now), have noticed the board getting more and more political on a daily basis. It seems that certian other issues need to be addressed such as the favoritism and the who knows who attitude lately. I have no reason to worry about a lfs that or any sponsor (and yes I have inquired myself into sponsorship) that

1. can't supply the item I need
2. are a hundred mile round trip from my home
3. are going to hire people that have no knowledge of the hobby
4. could care less about the animals they make poor attempts to keep and sell, knowing they are lieing to us about there care and placement and requirements, just to make the sale
5. that would rather see corals and fish die rather than discount an already sick specimin
6. and are just short of robbing us blind by buying in bulk themselves then charging us sky high prices to profit because of there own poor service and selection. then they cry they can't make it.

group buys puts the power in (get this now) the consumers hands where it should be. Like many other things lately is coming under fire why? because we want to be in control and not someone who paid a few bucks to advertise. what is next? oh you can't sell used items because your taking business from an
lfs or sponsor ? don't sell frags your going to take away from an lfs or a sponsor ?

If there were good lfs stores that were half as honest and knowledgable as the people here ( I'm not talking the guys here that have places either, they were all in the shoes of a hobbiest and know how hard it can be to weed through the garbage and bad info out there) they would gladly get my business even if they were a bit higher. It seems to be we all are forgetting what the hobby is about loving the marine life for its beauty, not who has the largest tank and can spend the most money sounds to me like a p------ match not a hobby to admire and enjoy !!!


NUFF-SAID
 
Way to go Boyd, I haven't seen this much controversy on the board in a while.... Just kidding, we're all about drama here:)

On a serious note... I've only been involved in one group buy and when it was all said and done I wished I had bought my livestock locally for various reasons.

I feel we an absolutely fantastic selection of LFS's in the Chicagoland area. I have my favorites as I'm sure many of you do. I really can't think of anything worse than losing another of my favorite stores like we lost Menard's Reef Dweller.
I find it hard to believe that stores like, Coral Paradise, Rod's and Oceans Floor wouldn't be able to get some more exotic species if you ask. I'm amazed at some of the corals I've been seeing lately.

On the other hand...... I don't think the LFS's can touch online prices for dry goods. If we could wrangle some group buys locally I would totally be interested in that. Right now I personally order most of my big ticket dry goods from Premium Aquatics, and almost consider them a LFS. I think and correct me if I'm wrong that most LFS's know they can't compete when it comes to dry goods mainly focus on the staples that people run out for last minute.

We'll talk more at the next meeting..... I hope to see you all there!

Boyd- way to start your presidency :)
Adam
 
another thing to consider is location. here in naperville there are not a ton of LFS. some of the more popular LFS are in the northern suburbs. why should i be obligated to set up a group order with a LFS that is 40 miles away when i can have fish delivered to my front door?

deep reef is about 5 miles from my house but i have no interest in doing a group buy with them based on the current issues they seem to be having.
 
WOW! This is a great thread. As some of you have said, the group buys put the power into the consumers hands. I don't see this as taking business away from the LFS. I see this as getting a better price on somthing that you need or want. If the LFS pricing was the same or close to the same as online I don't think this thread would exist. Just an example; I went to the LFS and was looking for a magfloat, I figured I would pay $5 to 10 more than online but I needed it now. I saw the 40.99 price and walked out. Now I know they are there to make money but come on. I ordered it on line for 20 plus $6 for shipping. If the CMAS supporters want the group buy business from us then by all means lets support them. The CMAS supporters need to let us know that they can do this and make it as easy as ordering online. I know that they can't ship it directly to our door, but if it supports the local guy I can drive a bit. May be we should pick an item for a group buy and then get a list and present it to our supporters and the best price gets our business. Another idea could be online price matching for CMAS members. Print off the web page price plus shipping and see if the CmAS supporter will match that.
 
I"m not sure if this will be helpful or not, but I'll post my thoughts.

I think everyone needs to spend a day in the shoes of an LFS owner. I have seen it and will try to explain the problems.

Your local LFS has much higher overhead than the online vendor. Why? higher rents in the chicagoland area than the backwoods of indiana and generally more presentable facilities.

The online store hire the same lackeys the LFS's do, you just don't have to see/talk to them. When you walk into an LFS and spend 30 min. talking to the owner, an online owner just helped 6 people on the phone. The LFS has to have some folks that hang around for not a lot of $. How many of us can drop our jobs and work at an LFS 40 hours a week for $8 an hour offering very knowledgeable assistance?

Online vendors deal in massive volume and can sell item "x" for $1 over wholesale and make $, the LFS sells a 20th of item "z" but needs to make a similar profit and thus must mark it up that much higher, maybe $4 or $5.


I could go on about the differences, but this really isn't an economics class. I'd ask any of you to give me many examples of LFS owners living the high life just off the profit from the LFS....it just isn't there. It is VERY difficult to make a go at an LFS and make is successfull.

So, you say, why do you care?

And that's the real question...do you care? If you do... you will support your LFS or maybe your not so Local LFS.
If you don't care about the LFS and just want to see the machine takeover than don't support them and continue to seek the absolute cheapest price out there.

That's not a judgemental statement.
If you care great, if you don't... great.

Just understand there are VERY few LFS owners out to get rich of off your purchases. So, group buys just can rub the LFS wrong when they already give a discount to a group of people to encourage their patronage.

So, we as a group, CMAS, need to decide what WE care about. That is what this discussion is for- do we care about the LFS that support CMAS or not.

Just another view.
 
maxima k2
I bet I know what store that was :) that is the reason the group buys are so important, I would think they would weed out the bad lfs and the good lfs would still thrive. Like it or not we all are sponsors in a way to cmas and rc even if we don't directly advertise with them it is ultimatley the money we spend lfs, and online, group buy or not, that float around the reefing community, without our spending (no matter where or how) neither would exist
 
There is a trap in that reasoning.

1. They charge higher prices because they aren't able to generate enough volume to produce sufficient revenue to support their overhead and earn a profit.
2. They can't do enough volume to charge lower prices because their prices are too high.

You might say one is the effect of the other; or one justifies the other. I wonder what would happen if a store were to charge marginally more than an online store, would they be able to attract enough business to make up the difference in volume sales? Or would the store be a LFS version of a Walmart?

There are obviously two sides to this issue.

I think most hobbiests want the LFS to be able to be successful, stay in business, provide a good selection, good service, etc. But I don't want to feel like they are taking advantage of me and my wallet every time I make a purchase. Personally, I find it hard to accept that a LFS can't be successful unless they are charging many multiples of the typical online price.

We all know this is a sometimes absurdly expensive hobby. I don't think that necessary means that the primary qualification for being able to participate is your willingness to pay whatever LFS's sticker price is. They shop even more carefully than we do in order to maximize the profit they can derive from every single sale. Why should CMAS members not have the same opportunity?
 
My 4 cents on some of this:

1. I appreciate Boyd bringing these topics up fo discussion. Nothing wrong with discussing issues. Family time commitments unfortunately prevent me from making many meetings (can we make the meeting at 10 AM so the whole day isn't so broken up?) but Boyd's desire to improve/expand CMAS is to be applauded.
2. I haven't been in on a group buy. But I could see doing it on dry goods. I prefer to see livestock live (I only run a FOWLR so dont know if corals would be different) and discuss with a particular CMAS sponsor lfs that I like (I have bought all my fish from him except 2 which came from a different CMAS sponsor). Do I pay more? Probably (shipping livestock is awfully expensive though). Would I pay less with a group buy? Yes. But I do get a lot of help from the lfs and like to see the fish I am buying.
3. I have bought dry goods online - price and convenience come into play. But I see most lfs do very little dry goods business so I don't see that as a real issue.
4. Love the idea of a salt group buy - through an lfs or not. What would a pallet of IO salt buckets cost per bucket? I suspect though that one of the sponsors could come up with a good deal if he knew that the salt was going to be sold before he bought it.

Finally, it is a free country and group buying will happen. I think CMAS' role can be to offer the group buy to the lfs sponsors and see if they can compete or come close. My guess is that if they came close people would opt for the lfs.
 
most lfs problems are a result of there own. When was the last time you went to a lfs to buy a metal halide bulb? (most won't carry them there to expensive or dont sell enough they say) I have seen 1 that has only 2 bulbs and each is $125.00 I can get them online for under $60.00. I just got a 3.5 oz kalk mix at a lfs saturday $12.00 I could have gotten 4lbs for $17.99 online. Few lfs want to spend the money or the time and maintain harder to keep sps they would rather target the easy sales of shrooms and xenia to newbies, then as the newbies grow into the hobbie they outgrow the lfs. They cant sell what they don't or in some cases won't get and I for one don't like to pay many times what a product is worth. When was the last time anyone here paid full sticker price on a car? We see it almost a challange to beat them up and celebrate our (victory) when we get a good deal on the car, what makes the reef hobby any different.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8890686#post8890686 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pondfrog
I"m not sure if this will be helpful or not, but I'll post my thoughts.......

So, we as a group, CMAS, need to decide what WE care about. That is what this discussion is for- do we care about the LFS that support CMAS or not. Just another view.
Click to expand...

Steve, thanks for your insight. We appreciate hearing it!

Boyd :)
 
This may have been nrought up before but this is dangerous...
I am almost positive that some LFS would get preference over other with these group buys...dangerous and sticky. WIll it turn into a bidding war by the LFSs? Group buys through LFS is going to turn dirty
 
just my opinion:

i joined the club to meet fellow hobbiest and learn from thier experience. in my experience, this hobby is all about experience
BY SHARING WE ALL BENEFIT

reading all this crap, i wonder now if this was a good idea
i say to anyone it is none of your concern where or how i spend my limited free cash
(btw: i am the fish guy at a petstore, freshwater)
if LFS offer discounts or provide raffles prizes or whatever, they do so only to promote thier business
i owe them nothing, nor should any member of the club

when i read what this club was about i read this:

Established in January 1993, the Chicagoland Marine Aquarium Society (CMAS) is a nonprofit organization of marine hobbyists brought together by the desire to promote a better understanding of the life we keep in our marine aquariums. Our focus is to increase the longevity of marine life in a controlled environment and to encourage that life to propagate freely. Only through education and the sharing of ideas can we expect a future for our hobby. Anyone interested in advancing these goals is invited to join.

i would like some feedback on what part of that says this club should support local business

P.S. even though i could buy through a distributor, i've gotten 90% of my livestock from CMAS members, and my LFS
 
This is why I support Coral Reef so strongly. Sometimes, Jim (one of the owners) will match online prices for me (I don't always ask). Now I have been shopping there for 20 years but I've heard similar stories.
 
Oh boy, this is dangerous territory. I hate posting with my name attached to it as a vendor sometimes. Please see this post as not from a LFS vendor but another view. I will not post on the direct topic on hand however I just wanted to pose a different angle on a few items that have been mentioned. I hope this helps answer some of the questions posed in this thread. I will stick to live goods as dry goods is a totally different animal which it too has a very related story behind it.

1) Cost of product is not the same for our local fish stores to online stores. So I know a lot of people in the hobby has come across a price sheet from a wholesaler or transshipped. Please do not think this is the cost of the item. It is nowhere near it. This is essentially what the wholesaler/transshipped wants you to think (as the buyer). I know this is briefly off-topic so I will make it very short in respect to what this topic probably needs. Besides the cost of the fish or product there are the following costs associated with the cost of the products.
If you are ordering from wholesaler for example you have the following charges:
- Box fee (for each box there is a box fee this ranges from $8 - $15 generally) and depending on how they pack can mean 4 bags to a box to 30 etc.
- Cold packs or heat packs. Usually around $1.50 a piece. Usually there is 3-4 per box.
- Shipping charge via air cargo. Usually around .60 a lb. Water is not light
- Time required to order. Depending on who and how you order this can be a significant time spent multiple times a week
- Time spent waiting on shipment and pick up. For airlines it goes people, flowers, then live animals. It is becoming a rare occurrence when our shipments do not get bounced (comes in on time). Space is valuable for the airlines especially with lesser flights these days.
- Gas spent going to airport. Depending on where store located can be a significant amount. Especially if you receive multiple shipments a week.
- Time spent unpacking, dipping, and acclimating (this can be very significant especially with the point below).
- QT time food, medicine, water, etc.
- Un-sellable coral or fish. This is quite high. If some of you can see this condition of fish and corals come in sometimes I think you would be shocked. It is not pretty some of the time. And besides the health of it is not like you are going to order 5 montiporas and have 5 killer sellable montiporas come in. Its not like other industries where you order a 13” TV an know exactly what you are getting.
- The list goes on but this is longer then I even wanted it to be already. But keep in mind the amount of money required to staff or keep a fish store running with lights water- all the overhead of a store, etc. Fish Stores have a lot that go into the “presentable” aspect of the store. Online companies can get away with tanks not looking so good. The true cost of the product is all the costs associated with getting that product ready to sell. Unfortunately in this industry it is huge and a lot is hidden. These items/charges may seem petty but they are not. In fact they add up to be a good percentage of your overall costs.

2. The second point is much off the first. These online stores have a very different cost of product. It is much lower. Take a look where most of these online stores are. Very few full service online vendors exist outside of west or east coast. (“Chop shops” have a whole different business model and costs and price margins are different they don’t exactly fit in the equation.)

So looking at their location lets take a look at my brief starter list above. Wow, this cuts down a lot. They don’t have to pay for a lot of the shipping/ordering/or packing time and fees. Besides that they can physically or have an employee go directly to the wholesaler and pick out the coral themselves. This helps drastically cut down on DOAS, sick or un-saleable coral. Additionally alot of these vendors do not house the fish or if they do for a very limited time. Bottom line without a lot of details - the cost of product is much less. LFS cannot compete with the price because a lot of times it would be below our “cost of product”.

3. With the exclusion of so-called “chop shops” things are priced to move in most LFS. Because of the issues stated above and the fact that it is a perishable good in most stores they are priced to move. There is not the huge gap of markup that many may think. So I "shrug" when I also hear haggling. It happens I know - but why in this industry do people get the impression they can haggle for items. We don’t haggle for gas or milk. This sometimes hurts the store because items are already “priced to move” and sometimes we will take a hit to satisfy a loyal customer.

The truth is Fish Stores all around the country are dropping like flies. I am not saying anything about group orders just stating the facts. Chicago is very very rich in the amount of LFS and at the current trend the fact is I don’t know if we have a market to sustain all of them unfortunately. Fish stores might very well become a rarity and in some parts of US they already are.

Just my 2 cents â€"œ LFS are not making out like bandits. Trust me. Sorry so long but I tried to make it short as possible. The topic actually requires more but here is the chopped version. I am no expert but have learned this in my time in the industry. I hope it makes sense - if not I am sorry it is late (or early).
 
Dennis - Thanks for stepping up and sharing a LFS perspective on this topic, it's much appreciated.
 
Well, let me offer my perspective, which as a non-CMAS member (so far) should be discounted as such. I purchase equipment online because my LFS do not carry the brands I prefer: Bubble King, Deltec, H&S, Sfilgoi Lighting, Aquatronica. If you are familiar with these brands you will know that they are all fair traded and definitely not what one would buy looking for inexpensive product. But, for me, they are appropriate because I have found that if I buy cheap, I buy often. But fair traded brands are not going to be offered for less on a group buy and so far I have never participated in one.

Livestock is a different issue. As Sharkey's Reef pointed out, the price of LFS livestock has a lot of hidden costs to the LFS so it really cannot be sold for much less if the LFS intends to stay in business. Most of the LFS are barely making it or may even NOT be making it. One cannot easily tell as an LFS if they are profitable or not because of the timing of revenue and costs. I buy most of my livestock online but NOT because of price, because I can look at a LOT of options from my computer and pick the best, for me, at least. Sure I have to pay $35 or more for FEDEX delivery but I simply don't buy that many items because even with two tanks, there are just not that many slots to fill.

What is not obvious is that LFS buy lists are not fulfilled with equality. High volume purchasers get preference in selecting their livestock. As such, vendors such as Live Aquaria and Marine Center get highly preferential picks but in some cases, Live Aquaria pays MORE than LFS in order to cherry pick items from their suppliers. By the way, this is not speculation, I have emails with managers discussing this issue. So, with a limited number of positions in my tanks, would I rather cherry pick and pay more? Of spend less and get less?

Research shows that about 50% of aquarium purchases occur online. That makes it really tough for the LFS and I predict that many will fall out. Rents are non trivial, stocking is not inexpensive, and employees are not cheap or if they are cheap don't know much.

It is a byproduct of the internet that bricks and mortar stores will diminish in importance in most areas of commerce. Sad, but true.

I don't think that any LFS can match the prices of online vendors for group buys but if an LFS does not have to buy for inventory, they can do better than they are doing selling retail.

This is just one hobbyists perspective.
 
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