How much do you get at your LFS for frags?

[liquid]

Just out of curiosity, when you take your frags into your LFS, what frags do you take in and how much do they give you for it? Also, do they work strictly on store credit, consignment, or cash?

Happy new year!

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

The LFS's in my area vary greatly in how much they will pay. I only take them to one LFS now (Boardroom Aquatics) because they give the best credit. Last weekend I chopped up my mother colony of frogspawn and got $67.50 in store credit. I basically had 3 frags. Two with 2 large heads and one with four heads. I would have been happy with $50. I took a similar amount of frogspawns into a different LFS once before and they only offered $35.

Louey

 

[gracie]

In my area there are a few stores that will buy frags.
a couple will buy, trade or credit.
The price is low but I understnd they need to make a
profit to sty in business.

 

[JennM]

The price is low but I understnd they need to make a
profit to sty in business.

The price should be fair based on the current wholesale price of similar frags, including packing and shipping charges.

It wouldn't make sense (from a business point of view) for a store to pay a hobbyist MORE than what they would pay a wholesaler, for the same thing.

From an ethical/environmental point of view, it makes sense for a shop to buy/trade for frags, but also after a certain point, the local market can become saturated with a particular animal -- Xenia is a good example. It doesn't make sense to take in more Xenia, if all the regular customers have it, and are all bringing it in!

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

I think My LFS offers 50% of what he intends to sell the frag for. Seems fair to me.

Louey

 

[gracie]

Thankfully in my area there are alot of new reefers.
I personally run 12 tanks with many different corals.
With our marine club we swap. There is almost an
endless need for frags. I would rather sell low so
newcomers can afford the experience,

 

[liquid]

The price should be fair based on the current wholesale price of similar frags, including packing and shipping charges.

Agreed.

It wouldn't make sense (from a business point of view) for a store to pay a hobbyist MORE than what they would pay a wholesaler, for the same thing.

Here's an interesting question: if the LFS is paying you the wholesale price for your coral, should they in return let you buy your purchases based on the wholesale price? If they're paying you wholesale for your coral but charging you retail on your purchase they're making $$ off you two ways: 1) they're gaining profit from paying you wholesale for your coral and selling it for retail and 2) they're buying a coral for wholesale from their wholesaler and selling it to you for retail. I'm not sure that seems quite fair to me. I guess I liken it to how I deal with car salesman. If I'm trading in my car for a newer one, I'm going to insist that we deal on one price -- either tradin price for both or retail price for both. However, this isn't the car market so...

From an ethical/environmental point of view, it makes sense for a shop to buy/trade for frags, but also after a certain point, the local market can become saturated with a particular animal -- Xenia is a good example. It doesn't make sense to take in more Xenia, if all the regular customers have it, and are all bringing it in!

Jenn

Agreed.

Jenn, since you're a LFS owner, how do you do things with customers bringing in frags? Do you give store credit and if so, how much percentage-wise based on your final sale price to the end consumer? Or do you work on consignment with their frags? By consignment I mean that a customer brings in a coral to your store, you hold it in your tanks, and when it's finally sold to a customer the fragger gets his payment. I've only seen one store do consignment but it's a neat idea.

Thoughts?

Shane

 

[MattM]

Here's an interesting question: if the LFS is paying you the wholesale price for your coral, should they in return let you buy your purchases based on the wholesale price? If they're paying you wholesale for your coral but charging you retail on your purchase they're making $$ off you two ways: 1) they're gaining profit from paying you wholesale for your coral and selling it for retail and 2) they're buying a coral for wholesale from their wholesaler and selling it to you for retail. I'm not sure that seems quite fair to me.

Not sure I follow you on this one Shane. Buying at wholesale (regardless of from whom) and selling at retail (regardless of to whom) is what the retail sales business is all about!

Look at it this way: If one of our regular distributors calls up and want to buy something, we're gonna sell it at retail - just like to any other customer. The exception case would be if they want to buy a large quantity of something on an ongoing basis, then we become the destributor, at least for that particular product. But we would still have to sell it to them for something more than our cost, otherwise why bother?

Also, in general, the people selling frags to us are purchasing dry goods, not more corals.

The one exception case I can think of is that we give away Carib-Sea reef rock to some customers that use it to mount frags they will be selling back to us. There is a certain level of trust here -- we don't want to be giving away products for corals that will be sold to other stores in the area :!:

And when we buy frags from customers it's a straight wholesale purchase. It's actually better for the customer that way than consignment would be -- if it should die in our tanks it's our loss, but it would be their loss if it was on consignment. Or, they could argue that we owe them anyway because we killed it, or any number of other possible hassles. It is more clear cut for everyone if we buy it, we own it, and we take responsibility for it.

 

[Unarce]

I agree with what MattM is saying. After all, it is a business and a LFS needs to cover overhead.

It would also depend on how profitable the store is and what you're trading in to determine how much credit you'll get. You should expect to get less than wholesale for a common frag and perhaps close to retail if it's a limited piece.

Just last week, I needed a new IceCap fan. So, I traded an unmounted 1/2" frag of A. efflorescens straight up for the fan at my LFS. I'd say that was a pretty even swap at retail.

 

[liquid]

The one store that was doing frags on consignment was doing it to cover his butt in case he killed it at his store. That way he wasn't out any money. Plus he had a *lot* of customers coming in wanting to trade frags for dry goods or other livestock. That was one way to deter too many customers bringing their frags back in for him to sell.

How does one find out the wholesale cost of a frag you're selling back to the LFS? Or does the LFS actually say "we'll buy that particular frag from you for X dollars" and you take what you get?

Shane

 

[Unarce]

The meaning of "wholesale cost" is pretty general. Mostly we're told at LFS that it is half of what the retail price is, although I think it's a lot less.

When judging the value, we kind of get a ballpark figure from the prices we see online, at LFS, or exchanges.

 

[reefann]

My LFS offers 30% of what they sell for.
_________________
Mercedes 200

 

[JennM]

As was mentioned above, it's "fair" to the store for the store to buy at wholesale, and sell at retail. We don't do this for our good health, we do it to earn a living. I've done the occasional "straight trade" for livestock items of equal retail value, but in general, it's store credit for what I believe is the fair wholesale value (or a bit better.. I don't mind paying for quality), and the deal is done. If it dies in my tank that's my loss. Consignment can turn into a he said/she said... I prefer a done-on-the-spot deal. I've only had somebody take back their intended trade once, and that was a fish. Somebody brought in a yellow tang for trade, I offered them $15 for it (it was large - healthy). I won't post what I sell them for, since that might be construed as "commercial" but let's just say I sell them for just several dollars more than that, so I wasn't making any significant money taking in this fish, which had outgrown its owner's tank. They declined, because they had paid $50 for the yellow tang (!!!) and were hoping for close to that in credit. I thanked them for coming in and advised them that they had paid way too much for that fish...

As for markups... there are many variables that determine what the markup is on a given specimen. Dry goods markups are pretty standard, based on the local market. Livestock can vary, depending on local market, availability of the specimen, how sought-after it is... certain things can fetch higher prices than others, although most of the selling price is determined by what is paid for it at wholesale.

I love the occasional misidentified bargain

Jenn

 

[gracie]

The lfs I worked for gave 50% of sale price. I agree
with the lfs purchasing the frags. Then the money is
normally respent within the store. I also traded
at a 50% rate. The lfs made 50% and obtained
tank raised frags which also helps the store. The
locally grown frags transfer into other tanks better.
50% worked all around.

 

[JennM]

I hate bargaining for frag prices - I want to be fair to the hobbyist - I really am grateful when they bring desirable stuff in for trading, but at the same time, my resources are limited too. I usually look at what's brought in, and make an offer based on what I think I can sell them for. I always cringe when I offer the dollar value - never sure what the hobbyist expects. Some expect nothing, they are getting rid of "evil weeds" out of their tanks Others seem to look a bit disappointed, as if they expected more. The option not to trade is always there, if they feel that another store or another hobbyist will pay them better, that's their perrogative too - no hard feelings here.

Jenn

 

[liquid]

This whole thing is new territory for me as up until a month ago there was no LFS in my area that would take coral frags of any kind from hobbyists. I just found one that's only about 30 minutes from me (thanks to JT btw for turning me onto them).

Basically what happened is that I took in a fairly large rock of green star polyps and they wanted me to name my price for them (was about the size of two baseballs placed next to each other). I have no idea of what kind of markup they get on coral and I don't want to insult them with an offer so I end up feeling like I low-balling my quote to them. While I want to be fair when telling them my asking price, I don't want to insult them either with asking too much -- and I don't want to be taken either by asking too little. It's hard to know what price to sell frags back to the store at since the majority of their coral is a lot larger than frag size. I know what they're asking for retail for a coral that's 2x-3x larger than the frag I'm bringing them so I feel like I'm walking blind when I am dealing with them on price since they make me make the $$ offer for what I want out of them.

Any advice is appreciated.

Shane

 

[dizzy]

Shane, just think how much you would ask for a particular piece of coral or frag, if you were selling it to another hobbyist, and then ask the store for about half that much. Don't get upset if the store doesn't take the deal.

How many of you think it is ok to hang out at a store and meet the other customers, and then offer to sell them frags for the same amount you offered them to the store for?

 

[Anonymous]

I would thing that that would not be cool Dizzy. Kinda put the hurt on the LFS, wouldn't ya say?

Louey

 

[Jolieve]

My lfs pays 15$ per frag, regardless of size. He generally resells them for about 20$, also regardless of size.

J.

 

[Anonymous]

As was mentioned above, it's "fair" to the store for the store to buy at wholesale, and sell at retail. We don't do this for our good health, we do it to earn a living. I've done the occasional "straight trade" for livestock items of equal retail value, but in general, it's store credit for what I believe is the fair wholesale value (or a bit better.. I don't mind paying for quality), and the deal is done. If it dies in my tank that's my loss.

I agree with you if the LFS is paying cash. If it is store credit only, they really are getting the hobbiest two ways because the credit must be spent a full retail. I don't think this is a terrible practice at all, but I like to be honest about it.

Around here the trade at LFS varies greatly. At one I get good prices for stuff, but I have been trading there for a long time and they know me and I set my frags for what they like. At another, one I would rather trade too, I get much less, so I rarely bring them frags. BTW, I never ask what I want for a piece - I let the LFS tell me what they want to pay. I figure they are doing me a service, let them set the price.



Jenn[/quote]