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Check out this new site--Buy Wholesale

Interesting.

Basically two problems:
1) Dead items.
They are directly from wholesaler. Expect percentage to be much higher.
You get store credit, but no refund on shipping, which is key.
2) Do you buy enough items to cover yearly membership.
The price savings on one or two fish are not going to cover it.
 
rygh said:
Interesting.

Basically two problems:
1) Dead items.
They are directly from wholesaler. Expect percentage to be much higher.
You get store credit, but no refund on shipping, which is key.
2) Do you buy enough items to cover yearly membership.
The price savings on one or two fish are not going to cover it.
Click to expand...

Well, I understand what you are saying, but they do a pretty good job of addressing this. You can get a 14-day live rate. Let me say this, retail stores around here have no guarantee. I called Paragon and talked to the manager of Customer Support and she told me that any animal guarantee by a retailer is rare. I am originally from LA, and I guess spoiled, because most retail stores I went to had some kind of guarantee and quarantine process. The prices Paragon are selling at are about 40% or better of retail. So you know, a real wholesale price is about 25-30% of retail...basically a 3-4x markup. Wholesalers give no guarantee for a retailer and they have to pay for the box and shipping to get the product delivered...the retailer or service person is absorbing all of the loses regardless of what they buy. That is why a retailer has to charge so much for livestock. I know this because I have personally been in and purchased from the major wholesalers in LA including Sea Dwelling Creatures and Quality Marine. When I have bought from them...I take on all the risk even though I am paying much less. In my last purchase, I bought 11-12 fish...lost 3...but I still came out ahead had I bought from LiveAquaria...the very same source. For me to buy wholesale, I have to be in LA on a specific day and drive or carry the animals home myself...that is expensive too.

Do you buy enough for a membership...that depends on where you are in stocking your tank. It is just like Costco. Do you buy the 12 lb prime rib or a pack of 12 apples or do you go to the local market and buy 2 pieces but pay more per piece. The retail prices of corals for a nub is astounding to me...especially knowing what the full coral costs wholesale. A retailer buys the colony for $40 and then frag and sell each piece for $40...and hope they survive long enough to make a profit to pay for their systems, rent, utilities, staff as well a their own paycheck. What can be forgotten is that there is a very high mortality for corals and fish because of the handling/shipping conditions as they make their way to the wholesaler and then to the retailer. That Gem Tang is $100-150 wholesale...and they are hard to get and keep alive. If you are place like World Wide Corals where they farm a lot of their own stock...it can take weeks or even months to get a few pieces to sell...but hopefully adapted to an aquarium. That new WWC store wasn't free LOL.
 
Flagg37 said:
What would be cool is if the club could have a membership that supporting members could use. ....
Click to expand...
There are some legal concerns, some sponsor concerns, and so on.
Plus you likely must have a single payment source, address, etc.
So while it sounds fun, probably not.
 
Interesting. Seems like it would be best suited for businesses and people with very large/multiple systems.

I wanted to browse what they offer and prices but you can’t without a membership, which is annoying.
 
JVU said:
I wanted to browse what they offer and prices but you can’t without a membership, which is annoying.
Click to expand...
Yeah pretty much this, how much will I save really? what do I have the option to get? Jess said she got a membership, so maybe she can give a review, provide some screenshots of actual pricing, etc?
 
From the same guy that brought you Dave Jones Locker, which changed to aqua locker like a month later. He also owns fishybusiness, that might have come first.

The stock is apparently the same on all his sites, just a different way to sell it to you. And for the equipment/tanks MAP still applies for most manufacturers, so you likely won’t save anything but you get to pay for shipping!
 
Took a quick peek on aqua locker. Looks very similar.
Very slow site, with some serious technical problems.

Agree, probably just a fun new way of marketing and selling.
 
Ya, same stock as the other (fishybusiness, saltwaterfish) sites, and much of the non-wysiwyg stock is listed as out of stock. When the wysiwyg update gets posted we'll know how different the prices are.
 
JVU said:
Speaking of supporting members... looks like yours expired :)
Click to expand...
Yep on Jan 1st. I haven’t had the money. Maybe I can get an honorary membership. ;)

I was able to search and see prices but I didn’t see anything in stock. I figured without the membership everything shows up that way. The black tang I was looking for still showed up as $600. I’ve seen them retail for that much. Others were well below retail but I don’t know if I believe they are truly wholesale though. It does say you can start and stop your membership at any time. So start it up when you need a big order then turn it off after the guarantee ends.
 
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Flagg37 said:
Yep on Jan 1st. I haven’t had the money. Maybe I can get an honorary membership. ;)

I was able to search and see prices but I didn’t see anything in stock. I figured without the membership everything shows up that way. The black tang I was looking for still showed up as $600. I’ve seen them retail for that much. Others were well below retail but I don’t know if I believe they are truly wholesale though.
Click to expand...
That’s strange, I can’t see anything. For every cetegory I see a page telling me to subscribe and showing me nothing. Complete turn-off.
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Edit- like you say, if I do a specific search I can see some info, but still not satisfying.
 
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