|
|
|
|
#26
12/15/2006, 02:24 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I only bought up a middleman because some people might chew 50 CBs at the hands of a dishonest or stupid" LFS employee/owner. If he left the bag in the cold there's a chance he's gonna claim it was DOA.
Ebay is getting to greedy with their fees. Lots of small stops have closed. Maybe it works for coral, and rare fish but not the average oscellaris. I do like the swap idea and with 2-6 huge metro areas near me I would have larger demand then perhaps some midwest breeders would. Least I hope so. |
|
#28
12/15/2006, 02:28 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
If I find a LFS in Texas who wants 40 Oscellaris why not send mine as opposed to someone else's? What if I found the LFS too? |
|
#29
12/15/2006, 02:34 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Just to answer some of your Points Mimic.
1. Breeders should set their own DOA policies...fish are unusual in that they don't get covered by any shipping insurances. What a coalition like the one proposed can do is suggest guidelines for "best practices" and buyer's know what the seller is offering before there's a purchase. FWIW, I shipped MANY orchids in my day...very rarely did anything get cooked or frozen and when it did I was definitely in a position to help out. I had ONE complaint out of probably 1000+ transactions from someone who simply didn't KNOW what they were talking about...you'll get those. Of course, I KNOW I'm really not in a good position to ship fish at the moment, so of course I'm trying to avoid it..I'd be one of those "local only" folk! My last thought, barring the careless or dishonest shop owner, the rest of the good people in the world are only really going to complain if there actually IS a problem...that's part of selling stuff! 2. You're pretty much right...it's probably pretty tough to generate interest in Ocellaris on eBay. Then again, pairs of CB misbarred Onyx percs recently went for $110 a pop. It's the market at it's rawest. 3. Being able to swap fish with neighboring breeders, or for small businesses to gain access to private hobby breeders, it certainly can help. I consider that while I ran a Cichlid Hatchery, we DIDN'T only sell fish we raised...we brought in fish from farms and other breeders around the country....we bred what we wanted to (and couldn't get elsewhere). I feel it was a pretty successful strategy...a small hatchery can offer 200 varieties of quality fish, while only raising the rarest or most profitable on site. 4. I'd rather pay a membership fee to support an organization. Having to channel all sales through the website to generate the income the organization needs to exist is way more hassel than it's worth, not to mention all the business that can easily circumvent the system. FWIW, Matt |
|
#30
12/15/2006, 02:45 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
To recap my many ramblings, in no particular order.
1. Organization Facilitates Connections between ALL levels...wholesalers, retailers, private individuals and breeders at all levels (whether it be C-Quest or me...whatever...) 2. Organization promotes CB fish (not to be confused with "tank reared or ocean pen raised, but CB fish as in bred in a tank, raised in a tank, sold from a tank) and the benefits to all parties from the largest distributors to the general public. Of course, we'd have to rethink this anyway as I'd certainly prefer pond-bred and raised Maculosus Angelfish over something net caught on a reef... 3. Organization provides open repository of CB Marine Ornamental breeding projects/efforts/successes/failures 4. Organization promotes the activity of breeding marine ornamentals to all parties through the open dispersal of knowledge as well as providing help in locating the basic necessities of the activity (i.e. perhaps a culture swap program, commercial sponsors of equipment / cultures etc..) 5. Organization provides standards, best practices, a basic guidelines for parties involved (i.e. see #2...the organization could set out to define what exactly "captive bred", "tank raised" and much of the jargon floating around actually means...i.e. much like the FDA has a strict definition of what "Organic" foods actually are). 6. Organization provides certification of individual breeders and businesses that adhere to a certain level of quality/standard/knowledge or something... Just some ideas...probably not going to think about this again for a while...sorry to monopolize the thread so much up to this point! Matt |
|
#31
12/15/2006, 02:46 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
1) Yeah I had meant we should setup some best practices for LFSs because their biggest concern is the dollar. If they could sell plastic flowing nemos for $30 bucks ( costing $5) they would. They're there to make a buck plain an simple. Yes they love the hobby but they have bills to pay and mortgages etc..
learning how to shipping fish would be nice too. Not ready yet but no clue how they get there alive, and where do you get the foam boxes? how thick shoudl the box be etc... or does it even matter? 2) Ebay is good for high margin items. 3) Swap local heck if I need 50 of something and you got them swim in your house, I'll send you the shipping supplies with a paid tracking label. I'd rather the clowns where TR then WC. They do you no good sitting in your basement. Better I offer you something for them having them sit there eating your food. 4) Perhaps breeders who are comfortable shipping could help out in a outta stock situation too. If David M has a surplus and someone had a crash or problem, they can continue to be a source for the LFS rather then the LFS going to the WC wholesaler. Maybe if we "stick together" LiveAquaria, Marine depot, and wholesalers will all buy form us? I'd be willing to also donate to research efforts of other breeders, rather then undertaking my own identical project. Provided you dont go on a sudden vacation =) |
|
#35
12/15/2006, 09:51 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
You guys are getting WAAAAY to complicated with this...
 All I am talking about is a phone book of sorts, just a list of breeders with contact information. It would just be a place where stores or individuals can find us 
__________________
These are my rotifers. Without my rotifers I am nothing. Without me my rotifers are nothing. |
|
#36
12/15/2006, 10:36 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
David, what you described would be a great asset to the breeders, wholesalers, retailers, and end users. When I get to the point of breeding, I would certainly want to join.
What Matt and Mimic are discussing sounds ALOT like a co-op. Many farming communities do something very similar to what you are describing. Imagine this... The way I have seen them work in farming communities is that the co-op buys from the farmers, and then sells on the market when the price is high. This allows the farmers to keep money coming in when they need it, but it kind of buffers them so that they're not being forces to sell when the market is low. It also helps to stabilize prices, and as we all know, 20 farmers together will get a better price for their crops than 20 farmers trying to sell individually. Because the co-op is owned by the farmers, they usually do some kind of profit sharing at the end of the year after they have covered overhead and expenses. One idea, if you looked at it with respect to our community.. The RC Breeder Co-op would essentially be a wholesale distributor. The agreement would be that members sell to the co-op and the co-op sells to the customers. The advantage is that the breeders get a better price, and in theory the customers get a better product and a more guaranteed supply. Another advantage to the breeders is that they have access to much better markets, and more importantly stronger information as to what the current supply and demand are. This would allow the breeder to make better use of available tank space. Keep in mind that the co-op is owned by the breeders, so the profit from it comes back to them at the end of the year. Consider this: Grouped together our selling power is much stronger than it is apart. For instance, the co-op might be able to offer every single species that is currently being breed in captivity, wheras none of us could possibly do that on our own. You might even say that our buying power is much much stronger together than it is apart. It would be kind of like a permanent group buy situation. How much of a discount do you think we would get if we all bought our supplies together in quantity. Salt alone would probably cost half as much, maybe even less. As an example. Take Matt. He doesn't have the space to raise Nemo en masse. David has said multiple times though that you really should have nemo if you even want the LFS to talk to you. With a co-op scenario, Matt no longer has to worry, he can focus on the rare and hard to raise species, but he still takes advantage of someone else who is raising nemo. Both breeders benefit. It's a very very interesting idea, but IMO the only way to do it would be to have someone with a tremendous amount of wholesale experience running the co-op. |
|
#38
12/15/2006, 10:41 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
No co-op, imagine the facility that holds & distributes the fish??? Then you put ALL the fish at risk by placing them together. God forbid one of us has an unnoticed disease outbreak, you just wiped out evey fish produced by all of us combined. Keep it simple, let each business do it's own thing. Just create a centralized directory so buyers can find the sources they are loking for. It's far more efficient than each of us trying to advertise independently.
__________________
These are my rotifers. Without my rotifers I am nothing. Without me my rotifers are nothing. |
|
#39
12/15/2006, 10:48 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
You're right, the kind of facility you need would be essentially the same as most of the wholesalers. You would definitely want to take some serious precautions in the way you set it up, but if done right, you can minimize the risks. Especially so because a co-op owned by the breeders would presumably be a helluva lot more careful than your typical wholesaler.
FTR - I agree with you. Keep it simple. What I mentioned is probably 1000 times more difficult than an online directory. I brought it up, because it was what Mimic and Matt were describing. You have to admit, it is an interesting idea though... |
|
#40
12/15/2006, 11:02 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
If you need help count me in, but keep in mind , people is going to be in RC anyways, same reason BR is "dead" same reason I have not been at rareclownfish for about a month now, not enough action.
I am not accountant but if you sell something even if you did not make any money or your expenses are greater than the profit/revenue you have to report no matter what, those guys don't '' around. The other day I went to a LFS to deliver 4 neon dottys for 15 each, i miss my wholesaler route and had to buy salt at the store, the salt was 15 also, I got 4 bags, i paid for the salt and invoiced them for the fish when a trade would have been easier and more convinient for them. Ed |
|
#43
12/15/2006, 11:41 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Now that I see there is a bit of interest in the idea I will 'out' myself. I have posted a couple of times looking for pairs of fish. I would prefer CB. DavidM was nice enough to post saying he sells them and I followed that lead. This lead me to the idea of having a national list of breeders out there and what they have to offer. Bottom line is it would be much easier for me (in the DC area) to get fish locally or at least semi-locally than to have to order from DavidM(CA). I am still going to order from you David
Anyway, to give you a little of my background. I am a software engineer working for Lockheed Martin in the private sector. I have done Web Development for the last several years on internal LANS. The application(Site) will be coded in ASP.net because that is what I am most familar with. I will host it and rent the domain name. Other than that I am not putting any money into it at first. I will tell you that my artisitc ability is somewhat limited, so if anyone has any input I would be happy to hear suggestions/demos(ie banners,etc). The site will be free for all to use, very similar to RC a few years ago. If operating costs go up I will explore sponsorship(I doubt this) or simply ask for donations. For the forseeable future the only costs involved is the domain name, which I am happy to buy. I am able to host the application at my home and bandwidth is not an issue unless this turns in to another RC (very doubtful). That leads us to the road forward. I will be posting a list of fields (data we need to maintain) in near future(for peer review) and then will get started on the application. I am not interested in being the middleman/wholesaler/etc. I want absolutely no liability in the situation, nor will I have any. I imagine the site being the conduit to match buyers and sellers. So if you have any ideas, please post them. I also imagine having the site list avenues for Phyto/Zoo plankton sources. Not so much the commercial guys, but the hobbyists that can provide needed rotifers after a crash. Also, if anyone has a ideas on a domain name (www.xyz.com) let me know. I have a few in mind, but suggestions are always welcome. More to come in the future. |
|
#44
12/15/2006, 11:57 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
LOL take fin farms RC name =)
I like what Cuervo said more thou. As for David M's concern you would being sending your fish to the LFS not to someone else. Its all smoke and mirrors. When you buy aquaculture coral from LiveAquaria and fish. The fish come from CA and the coral from Wisconsin. Same idea you pay once for shipping. Same idea works with supplies. Far easier to buy in bulk and have it dropshipped to one person in 1 state then having you buy it from the LFS. When you bought your salt from the LFS Matt its possible he made profit off that too. Small scale breeders I can see going to the LFS or online for stuff. However you larger ones should be doing all your supplies wholesale. |
|
#45
12/15/2006, 12:01 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Scott, I would definitely look at Frags.org and how it's set up...it's VERY similar to the type of service you're suggesting, only for fish instead of coral frags.
I DO feel that we need an updated one-stop-shop of sorts when it comes to breeding RESOURCES. The fact that the Breeder's Registry isn't being maintained with new reports more than bums me out, especially since I took the time to fill out the Microsoft Word document and send it back! There are SO MANY MORE species being bred than what it shows... Matt |
|
#46
12/15/2006, 12:02 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
BTW Scott, why not seek sponsorships from folks like Reed, AquaticEco, Florida Aqua Farms and such? These folks would definitely benefit from the exposure...seeing hobbyist activity levels go up when it comes to Marine Breeding is definitely a PLUS for them.
Matt |
|
#47
12/15/2006, 12:21 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Now then, I've seen quite a few group buys on RC, for all kinds of different items. That's something that's not too hard to organise, and can be fairly beneficial. It still takes legwork though. For the more expensive consumables it might be very worthwhile to try and do a group buy for the breeder's community.. I wonder what the price is on a pallet of buckets of Salt for example. |
|
#48
12/15/2006, 12:37 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Resellers get it typical for 60% of what they sell it for. However with a website you might be get to considerable less from the manufactuer. They would want you to say you use say for example IO exclusively. Free advertizing for them, deep discounted product for you.
I dont know if you'd get sponsorship per say. Maybe they'd pay for advertizing though. For aquaticeco, we are they're customer base be it a small or large part. |
|
#49
12/15/2006, 02:01 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Matt,
Initially I am proposing something similar to Frags.org. It can be expanded to a reference site if the need arises. As far as sponsorship, well that depends. Again I am not looking to make money out of this or lose, it is more for exposure. I think you can understand that with your background. Money changes my end of things and requires much more red tape. It would be nice if the breeders registry would come back to life. we could possibly build to that level eventually, but I don't know what type of scientific review goes on there. More input to come. Please give input on the basic idea that has been proposed. Thanks Scott |
|
#50
12/15/2006, 02:12 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Scott, I'm all for a "Marine Ornamental Breeder's Exchange". Would this be limited to FISH ONLY, or INVERTS too (i.e. shrimps, crabs, slugs and snails)? What about Macro-Algae (another item that isn't covered at Frags.org)? Of course, an exchange for cultures would be HIGHLY beneficial (I've been occasionally getting cultures out to various folks who need it already).
One thing that comes to mind that would be helpful is a "first-come first-served waiting list". I.e. a place where folks can enter themselves in to be on a waiting list for a particular item a breeder is offering IF it's not available at the current moment (i.e. I tried to get a waiting list going for SS Rotifers, but it became rather chaotic, having it done thorugh a website would be helpful). Matt |
|
|
Linear Mode
