Why do we attack eachother on prices?

[organism]

But sometimes people must educate themselves and if someone makes a hard mistake then they learn the hard way. Sometimes the consumer must rely on common sense.

So if you get month old rump roast as $30/lb fillet mignon at your local supermarket and discover the truth, then you, the victim who just wanted a good piece of steak to put on the table, are at fault for not wasting a ton of your time to properly educate yourself to all the various cuts of meat, their appearance, coloration, care, density, softness, and fat content required for a proper fillet mignon cut?

In that case I hope you take some chemistry classes to learn more about the specific boiling point of pure gasoline too, if you fill your tank with gas that's 10% water it's your own fault, you should've used some common sense before trusting the gas station. If your car dies on you, well, I hope you learned the hard way from your mistake.

 

[aquaph8]

You think the gas companies arent ripping you off too. If I buy a watermeon chalice and I get home and an aiptasia is in the bag then it would be like what your saying. But when I buy blue hornets for 25-50 a Polyp and I get blue hornets then yes its nobodys fault but mine.

 

[ryan820]

If your local supermarket started selling month old rump roast as $30/lb fillet mignon, is that supply and demand just because people buy it? Would that be ok strictly because people are wiling to pay it?

If a used car salesman talks you into buying a primo ltd rare mercedes for $90k, then you get it home and all of a sudden the stickers fall off and it's a volvo, is that just supply and demand because you bought it?

You thought you were getting an expensive mercedes because that's what the salesman advertised it as, but instead you paid $90k on a volvo they bought for $100, polished up real shiny and threw some fancy stickers on. It's not your job to know what a volvo or a mercedes is, especially if you're new to cars and don't know much of anything about them, because the salesman's job is cars and there is an inherent trust there that the salesman is willfully violating.

This has less than zero to do with supply and demand. If you're making the argument of supply and demand then you don't understand the industry, because it's really all about smoke and mirrors and chicanery. Spend a few weeks on the wholesale/import side you'll change your tune real quick.

A fool and his money are soon parted (disclaimer-- I'm not calling anyone a fool here-- its just a phrase). Never rely on a sales persons' honesty in selling you anything. You should inform yourself before buying anything so you know precisely what you're getting. So I disagree-- it has very much to do with supply and demand. Anytime you buy anything, you're casting a vote to have more of that thing-- junk or amazing find or otherwise.

What is it they say on the after school specials? Knowledge is power! Don't let your power go out by buying blissfully unaware.

...Or is it conjunction junction whats your function?

 

[Turbovr3six]

Very well put Djkms! :thumbsup:

To the topic on hand: It's not about "if you don't like it, then don't buy it". It's about spreading the word about extremely over priced corals. The ONLY reason I can see a coral being "rare" is if it takes extensive effort to collect it. Most collectors are out there in little wooden boats with a snorkel. The "rare" corals IMO are the ones that require a more involved collection procedure. If the coral is only found in (lets say) 60M deep water, then the diver will need more money to collect it. Gas for bigger boat to get to dive location, O2, Etc.

I think the naming of corals is good, because it makes it easier to identify them. But to put Jason Fox or Tyree in front of the name is ridiculous.

 

[organism]

A fool and his money are soon parted (disclaimer-- I'm not calling anyone a fool here-- its just a phrase). Never rely on a sales persons' honesty in selling you anything. You should inform yourself before buying anything so you know precisely what you're getting. So I disagree-- it has very much to do with supply and demand. Anytime you buy anything, your casting a vote to have more of that thing-- junk or amazing find or otherwise.

What is it they say on the after school specials? Knowledge is power! Don't let your power go out by buying blissfully unaware.

...Or is it conjunction junction whats your function?

Ryan, imo that post is such a fail on so many levels... You'd need a sterile lab in your house to petri dish all incoming foods to make sure they're e. coli free, and keep your chemistry book handy so that you can reagent test your salt mix to make sure it's not 100ppm copper. You wouldn't want to leave that trust in the hands of the salesman...

There's an implied covenant of trust in the seller/buyer relationship that's integral to how a society runs

 

[650-IS350]

In that case I hope you take some chemistry classes to learn more about the specific boiling point of pure gasoline too, if you fill your tank with gas that's 10% water it's your own fault, you should've used some common sense before trusting the gas station. If your car dies on you, well, I hope you learned the hard way from your mistake. LOL, Trust me, this is a $1300 mistake/issue that I'm now dealing with, got my insurance involved/my dealership and Shell (soon), But to those saying that I should know better, I got from a big company known retailer (SHELL).. and didn't get it from a rottenrobbies or something like that. But I guess I should have known not to go to shell due to CONTAMINATED GAS right......

The true intent of this thread is to inform people of what's going on. As for supply and demand, LMAO it's a BIG ocean out there corals aren't rare just some haven't been collected as much YET . People cherry picking and finding these new corals @ the tranships/ wholesalers are the same ones dictating the price. Also I don't think a while coral / new coral that was accidentally found on a wild rock shipment dictates thousands of dollars for an eye or a polyp.

Lets not even start comparing corals to collectible coins, rare cars, paintings , mass assembled items/goods etc... apples and oranges before anyone starts adding it to the debate.

 

[mallorieGgator]

So if you get month old rump roast as $30/lb fillet mignon at your local supermarket and discover the truth, then you, the victim who just wanted a good piece of steak to put on the table, are at fault for not wasting a ton of your time to properly educate yourself to all the various cuts of meat, their appearance, coloration, care, density, softness, and fat content required for a proper fillet mignon cut?

In that case I hope you take some chemistry classes to learn more about the specific boiling point of pure gasoline too, if you fill your tank with gas that's 10% water it's your own fault, you should've used some common sense before trusting the gas station. If your car dies on you, well, I hope you learned the hard way from your mistake.

Interesting analogy and I agree at this level there isn't much a consumer can do. However, if there is word out in the public that a gas station is watering down fuel or a supermarket is selling bad meat and a consumer doesn't use common sense and buys gas or meat from the stores, then it is their fault since they didn't listen.
With the zoas (and any coral), it's the same way. We can educate people until our fingers bleed and our faces turn blue but it's up to the consumer to take the advice. If they don't do the research before they fork out $500 then they must have deep pockets if they don't care to research something so expensive. We can only do so much.

 

[kichimark]

Now take a second to think about the amount of livestock that travels through a distributor. There is absolutely no way a wholesaler is going to go through every bit of livestock to name this and name that. Time is money and it would not financially make sense for a decent size wholesaler to spend the time to name the thousands upon thousands of different types of corals and livestock going through their systems.

If you have never peaked around what a wholesaler looks like take a look at some of these pictures
http://www.qualitymarine.com/About
That should give you a idea of just how much volume they do.

Now the wholesaler sells the product to the LFS, the basement fraggers, the chop shops, you name it. Now some of the more reputable wholesalers like quality marine do some pretty serious checks on you before they will sell to you. For example if you have a frag tank in your basement and a business license QM is not even going to look your way.

You know I actually applied for a job at QM when I was an aquarist intern at long beach. They were looking for someone to frag colonies. Believe it or not there was a test to judge some random corals to see if they have potential.
So in other words the wholesalers are taking the time to chop up colonies.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1876690&highlight=quality+marine

 

[ryan820]

Ryan, imo that post is such a fail on so many levels... You'd need a sterile lab in your house to petri dish all incoming foods to make sure they're e. coli free, and keep your chemistry book handy so that you can reagent test your salt mix to make sure it's not 100ppm copper. You wouldn't want to leave that trust in the hands of the salesman...

There's an implied covenant of trust in the seller/buyer relationship that's integral to how a society runs

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[mallorieGgator]

So I can walk into a LFS and use the buyer/seller trust theory?

 

[aquaph8]

So I can walk into a LFS and use the buyer/seller trust theory?

Of course you can. LFS are all trained really well to be the most honest people around. Thats what this thread is all about. "Training people so they dont get ripped off".

 

[kichimark]

Of course you can. LFS are all trained really well to be the most honest people around. Thats what this thread is all about. "Training people so they dont get ripped off".

This thread morphed into something else haha. Its all good.

 

[mattGgator]

...If a used car salesman talks you into buying a primo ltd rare mercedes for $90k, then you get it home and all of a sudden the stickers fall off and it's a volvo, is that just supply and demand because you bought it?...

So your saying its ok purchase a car without first doing research, and to go ahead and just trust the USED CAR SALESMAN, the epitome of scam artist? If thats the case I have a rare limited edition Acura RSX you can steal for $50K...

To answer your question, no, its not supply and demand. Thats completely false representation of a product that an INFORMED consumer would be able to recognize immediately.

My point here is, educate yourself, you can't always trust the proverbial used car salesman (in this case coral salesman). Isn't that the reason this forum exists?

 

[650-IS350]

Which is why this thread was created and others like it with the intent
To educate but it always turns to something else due to VARIOUS reasons
To let people get the data and make informed decisions themselves

 

[billsreef]

I don't understand why this is such an issue.
1. Naming things is normal in every hobby. You have designer dogs, cats, and I was breeding leopard geckos for awhile and there certain color morphs that are now being named. It's what people do, they are proud of an animal they "produced" so they want to name it.

Ah, but in this case they didn't produce anything. They just gave a gimmicky name to a wild animal animal.

6. Look at Chalices, a lot of people have no problem paying $300 an eye for a chalice and most people don't complain about the prices there.

Yup, and the same people will complain about an LFS marking up a cleaner shrimp 100% after paying a several thousand % mark up on that chalice. Seems pretty silly to me.

I agree that we must educate new people. But sometimes people must educate themselves and if someone makes a hard mistake then they learn the hard way. All we can do is show that yes, some things are over priced. But we can only do so much. Sometimes the consumer must rely on common sense. Also, thanks for the apology.

Indeed. The attempt to educate is what several of us old timers are trying to do

Can you show me a wild colony of Blue Agaves? What about a huge wild $30 colony of Space Monsters or Sopranos? You can't, because they simply don't exist.

Just where do you think those originally came from? They aren't the product of breeding efforts or genetic engineering, they came from the wild

I don't know if they actually use the names, but have a read of this guys blog. He does get pictures sent to him of in demand corals, and he does train his divers. I doubt every operation is as well run as his, but I'm just saying it does happen.

This blog entry talks a little about it, as well as some opinions on other things, it's a good read:

http://eddie-coral-adventures.blogspot.com/2009/02/thoughts-on-wild-coral-export.html

Eddie is a rare exception. It comes from his perspective of having been in the hobby and the retail end of the trade in the US before he got into exporting. If you read some of what he wrote, you'll notice he talks about multi thousand percent chop shop mark ups from wild caught stock.

In that case I hope you take some chemistry classes to learn more about the specific boiling point of pure gasoline too, if you fill your tank with gas that's 10% water it's your own fault, you should've used some common sense before trusting the gas station. If your car dies on you, well, I hope you learned the hard way from your mistake.

10% water, eh? I'll bet that gas started out with 10% ethanol, which pulled out water from the atmosphere. It's sort of liking buying aquacultured coral, only to find out it is nothing more than a healed frag of a chopped wild coral.

 

[organism]

Yup, and the same people will complain about an LFS marking up a cleaner shrimp 100% after paying a several thousand % mark up on that chalice. Seems pretty silly to me.

Too true, and then there's always the arguments of how expensive salt's gotten these days. I've seen threads where people that have a $900 speck of chalice in their avatar complain about how they had to drive 20 miles across town because that LFS's salt is $5 cheaper than the one by their house.

 

[mallorieGgator]

Too true, and then there's always the arguments of how expensive salt's gotten these days. I've seen threads where people that have a $900 speck of chalice in their avatar complain about how they had to drive 20 miles across town because that LFS's salt is $5 cheaper than the one by their house.

Lol! I'd love to see that thread.

 

[SIR PATRICK]

I see no attacks....at least not very often.

I see debate, and much needed debate it is. How else is anyone going to know that their $50 polyp actually, somewhere down the line cost about 10 cents.....if not cheaper.

The prices and comercialism of the hobby has been very slow, and has somehow taken over the hobby and pulled the wool over us reefers eyes, making us think things the way they really arent. Its a shame....

Thats why you see so much discussion on the subject.

Those that feel passionate on the subject will not stop, and should not stop. Unless you own a store or buisness, this is a hobby- and that little piece of information has been lost somewhere down the line.....

 

[sixliner22]

You guys think that coral prices are outrageous now?? Wait till CITES fully bans importation of all corals from around the world.

 

[organism]

You guys think that coral prices are outrageous now?? Wait till CITES fully bans importation of all corals from around the world.

I think you might be thinking of the US banning coral imports, which is likely. CITES on the other hand is an international trade agreement, and as a result isn't swayed by fake environmentalist pseudo-science propaganda.