Market price for home grown clowns?
- Thread starter cweder
- Start date
colby
In Memoriam
Lol...just found this thread...:lol:
After several months of working at an lfs and a bit of market research I would like to say to cweder and anyone else interested that orange Ocellaris are THE way to go...everybody and their sister waants a friggen nemo lol...
Most good smallish lfs will have no prob moving 50 plus a month and are willing to pay fair amounts for locally cb fish...
After several months of working at an lfs and a bit of market research I would like to say to cweder and anyone else interested that orange Ocellaris are THE way to go...everybody and their sister waants a friggen nemo lol...
Most good smallish lfs will have no prob moving 50 plus a month and are willing to pay fair amounts for locally cb fish...
colby
In Memoriam
I am sure the number of fish a store moves depends largely on location...as well as price...
Alot of lfs will try to sell the tr raised Ocellaris for $25 or more..if you are having a problem moving them then talk the stores down if you know what I mean...
Let them know that they will make more money selling 50 fish at a price of $13 as opposed to 20 at a price of $25...
In this situation if you are willing to sell them your fish for $5 a piece you would gross $250 a month and the store would profit $400 where-as in the same scenario were you to sell them for $8 you would gross $160 and the store would profit $340....
Plain and simple fact, the masses don't care if their fish is CB or WC if it has three stripes and its orange it is nemo...customers will always go for the cheap option...the money is made by selling in mass....If the stores charge to much people will go right acros the street to the grungy little hole in the wall that passes as a pet store and get their fish from some crap filled tank for $5....
Alot of lfs will try to sell the tr raised Ocellaris for $25 or more..if you are having a problem moving them then talk the stores down if you know what I mean...
Let them know that they will make more money selling 50 fish at a price of $13 as opposed to 20 at a price of $25...
In this situation if you are willing to sell them your fish for $5 a piece you would gross $250 a month and the store would profit $400 where-as in the same scenario were you to sell them for $8 you would gross $160 and the store would profit $340....
Plain and simple fact, the masses don't care if their fish is CB or WC if it has three stripes and its orange it is nemo...customers will always go for the cheap option...the money is made by selling in mass....If the stores charge to much people will go right acros the street to the grungy little hole in the wall that passes as a pet store and get their fish from some crap filled tank for $5....
David M
New member
Colby, please don't take offense but you are pretty far off here. Seems like just like last June we were talking about your High School graduation. Some of us have been active in the pet/ tropical fish industry for a while now, in my case 30 years. Also I am actually selling fish to lfs, not theorizing about it. The reality is that most "smallish lfs" have a pretty localized and limited customer base. What happens is you show up unannounced with your fish and they don't know you from Adam and they don't know your fish. They buy maybe 10 if you are a good salesman. Next thing you know they want 30-40-50 because they are the best fish they ever had 
Then maybe another large order, but very soon they saturate their customers demand. ( your fish don't die, right? ) After that they are hard pressed to sell 10-15 per month. So you move on like locust, entering another localized market. If you are smart you DO NOT give up on those stores you already sold to, you slowly build a regular customer base trying your best to keep everyone satisfied. No LFS is going to sell 50/ month consistently unless they are seling wc fish that die and their customers are idiots
First you wrote:
These are almost conflicting statements, the truth is that SOME lfs are willing to support captive breeding but they are rare and they depend on the FEW customers that DO care if the fish is cb or wc.
Of the stores that DO support captive breeding you have to divide again- those that do because they believe in it and wish to support it and those that do because their customers demand it. In the second case you can still have retailers that are ONLY concerned with their bottom line, once the fish is "CB" they don't give a hoot if it came from the neighbor down the street or some child labor slave camp farm in Sri Lanka. It comes down to the price. Trust me, I know this from direct experience.
Every local is different I'm sure but this how it is in So Cal. It would really surprise me if it's much differenet 300 miles North
Then maybe another large order, but very soon they saturate their customers demand. ( your fish don't die, right? ) After that they are hard pressed to sell 10-15 per month. So you move on like locust, entering another localized market. If you are smart you DO NOT give up on those stores you already sold to, you slowly build a regular customer base trying your best to keep everyone satisfied. No LFS is going to sell 50/ month consistently unless they are seling wc fish that die and their customers are idiots First you wrote:
... and THEN you wrote...
These are almost conflicting statements, the truth is that SOME lfs are willing to support captive breeding but they are rare and they depend on the FEW customers that DO care if the fish is cb or wc.
Of the stores that DO support captive breeding you have to divide again- those that do because they believe in it and wish to support it and those that do because their customers demand it. In the second case you can still have retailers that are ONLY concerned with their bottom line, once the fish is "CB" they don't give a hoot if it came from the neighbor down the street or some child labor slave camp farm in Sri Lanka. It comes down to the price. Trust me, I know this from direct experience.
Every local is different I'm sure but this how it is in So Cal. It would really surprise me if it's much differenet 300 miles North
colby
In Memoriam
Interesting points David...while keeping in perspective your experience in respect to my limited amount I still maintain my opinon. Granted my experience working at my lfs is limited to the past year I have learned quite a bit and I understand the market in my local area quite well. I sell around 15 Ocellaris a week consistently. In the case of my lfs should someones Ocellaris die we generally replace it. However this is very very rare accounting for maybe 5 fish a month max. (It all depends on handling and acclimation procedures as you know I am sure...) I don't know how the market has fluctuaded in the past 30 years however recently everyone wants a nemo tank and I have sold countless aquapod/clown combinations... Now it could greatly help that my lfs is the best and one of the only lfs within a 35 mile radius 
....
As far as the aformentioned "conflicting statments"...I am simply stating that customers just want a little orange fish and when comparing cb to wc they will with few exceptions go for cheap. In my first statment I was refering to the stores willingness to pay $5 for a locally bred cb fish as opposed to perhaps $4 wc or other $8 cb fish....
Again that is just me I may be wrong...
....As far as the aformentioned "conflicting statments"...I am simply stating that customers just want a little orange fish and when comparing cb to wc they will with few exceptions go for cheap. In my first statment I was refering to the stores willingness to pay $5 for a locally bred cb fish as opposed to perhaps $4 wc or other $8 cb fish....
Again that is just me I may be wrong...
