Right now I have four stores interested in all I can provide, and can live with them, its going to mean dedicating much of a day twice a month to visit them all, and will cover ~280 miles so my biggest expense is gas for delivery. So they will get my medium and larger pcs, I'll make them some specials of the smaller ones, and am thinking of giving a cave on every $150 dollar order. The bottomline is that its going to be good for them to do business with me.
I know from past experiences, and present, that stores remember who gives them freebies, on my present freshwater stuff I bring a couple bags of hornwort, nitella and other floating plants for nc, and every dozen fish is actually a 15 count, and also bring them larger fish then their distributors stock, sometimes bring some jumbo breeders nc.
This costs me little and makes me welcome when I walk in the door, plus gets me discounts if I need something. I get better then wholesale prices, but they get far better products.
It'll be the same thing with the marines, probably sample bags of caulerpa and sea lettuce and maybe chaeto. Thinning it every couple weeks needs to be done anyhow.
Looking over my costs on the rocks, last purchase was 3 bags of cement, four of sand, 2 of oyster shell and 2 bags of water softener crystals, this came to just under $40 with tax. (40-50lb bags)
To date I have made just under 300 rocks, and have about a 1/3rd of the material left. Mostly medium sized. I am curing the rocks now in tupperware 30 gallon tubs, am going to pick up two more next week as I want to get a lot of rocks made before cold weather comes, my garage isnt heated right now. About 20% of the rocks are caves or other large pcs, including some 'platter ' types to stand up against a back wall, these look great with green stars or anthelia growing up them.
btw, I have seen anthelia in 2 of the stores I go to labeled as xenia. Also another which I wont be going to, they got p.o.'d when I told them, and when I brought the freshwater samples said they were great but never ordered any, in contrast to other stores which immediately ordered. I'll leave them to themselves.
Raaden, no problem, this is a good discussion and its interesting to hear what others with similar plans are doing. Long ago when the world was young a business instructor said " the best deal is one in which everyone makes a profit". Thats one of the few things I really remembered from school.
If I bring stores something that they can make a good profit on its good for me if I can bring it at my own profit margin. LFS Worker knows a guy who doesnt mind paying a price if he can make his. He has one of the two most successful shops in the Rochester NY area. Also one of the oldest now. Seems funny, I still think of him as the kid who just got his own shop. But he thinks outside the box, how many guys you know who have their own miniature tugboat for touring the NYS canals?
Find people like them to deal with, not those who get ****ed at being corrected on a mislabeling(assuming it was unintentional, if it was intentional make a wide berth around them) .
Building a customer network takes time and effort, no-one is going to burn your phone line out while you sit home with all of those fabulous pieces.
Xenia is one of those marginal species for me, takes excellent light, beyond my VHOs, water changes and supplements and currents, if I put it on top just under the water surface not far from a power head it works, if I dont skip the supplements, but I can grow three times as much anthelia in the same area and time. Without the supplements.
This whole thing is almost based on what each of us can grow well under our conditions and water. It just doesnt pay to try to grow stuff that doesnt like our conditions. And in a high kilowatt priced area I amnot going to be using halides and the like.
One other major point, I DONOT want to make a big profit, I just want to pay for my hobby and have the money to fund the other pursuits within the hobby. Along the way it would be nice though to generate enough income to help on the remodeling expenses converting my garage to a fishrm. Then I am going to indulge myself on some breeding attempts.
, in a large or small operation. Agreed on the larger pieces definitely garnering more interest but inevitably, and I am sure LFSWorker can vouch for this, themajority of customers move back to the smaller pieces when they are ready to pick something up. There is definitely a market for more ornate arrangements and there is not much on the market like that.
