Reef Discussion
Interesting times ahead.... :eek
On the plus side, whoever takes over couldn't possibly have greater contempt for his customers. OTOH, don't see how the new guy can sustain the same business model if he opens a local shop much less sells coral.
PS don't you love it when he says 'I'll even miss the pricks'. Yep, part of me will definitely miss his winning personality.
On the plus side, whoever takes over couldn't possibly have greater contempt for his customers. OTOH, don't see how the new guy can sustain the same business model if he opens a local shop much less sells coral.
PS don't you love it when he says 'I'll even miss the pricks'. Yep, part of me will definitely miss his winning personality.
I think they have always been very scared of him over there, from what I gather they pushed him to have his own section so that anything that popped up about him they could simple shift to his section which allowed him to mod it so they could not be criticised
We had him request to be a sponsor on here at one stage, we thought it best to be poor and free.
Hi @CodyS,
I am sure they have the ground. They are a society there to represent the hobby. They declined The Reefuge's registration as a business, preventing us from accessing any resources and services to grow this website, so I am sure they can do whatever they please, regardless of if it complies with their rules/guidelines/mission statement. It is however up to them to run their society however they see fit.
Thanks.
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Yay for justice! I have always avoided guppies like the plague. Perhaps if the new owner is considerate, I might be willing to buy things from there. It's been a little frustrating trying to get hold of something and it not being available anywhere else.
I dont think grey imports are illegal (look at the discount vriety stores cheap as chips, go-lo, reject shop etc) they are just not supported by the Australian suppliers/importers and generally not recognised for warranty purposes.
I am all for supporting Australian businesses, but lets consider that most of the products sold by these Australian companies are manufactured overseas and imported. If a grey importer (Australian businesses in a lot of cases including Guppys I believe) can import the same product and sell it at half the price and still make a profit then I start to ask questions about how much profit margin the official importer is making on the product, I know that warranty and customer support services can be expensive but it surely doesnt justify some of the extreme price differences.
On the other hand I am happy to see Andries out the door (I was also one of the pricks) and will probably give the new owner another chance and see if the service is any better.
I am all for supporting Australian businesses, but lets consider that most of the products sold by these Australian companies are manufactured overseas and imported. If a grey importer (Australian businesses in a lot of cases including Guppys I believe) can import the same product and sell it at half the price and still make a profit then I start to ask questions about how much profit margin the official importer is making on the product, I know that warranty and customer support services can be expensive but it surely doesnt justify some of the extreme price differences.
On the other hand I am happy to see Andries out the door (I was also one of the pricks) and will probably give the new owner another chance and see if the service is any better.
We had a vendor like this in the 4x4 community. Anyhoo, he got quite a rep about screwing people over and he laughed about it. He had to have someone with him at all times at 4x4 events because if I'd have gotten him alone, I'd have knocked the shit out of him in short order.
For a bricks and mortar store that's a very modest margin - on dry goods -for the retailer. Livestock would need to have a substantially greater margin to include losses, credit for dead fish (if given) etc... The LFS needs to pay wages, rent, electricity etc...and it can easily cost a few thousand a week to keep trading. Therefore higher margins will carry that business through lean times if the money has been squirrelled away.
Guess my point is this. Why can a shop import certain retail products direct from Germany (+ GST) at a price below that offered by the Australian distributor? My guess is local retailers are struggling but I'm not so sure about the distributors. Unless this changes, in ten years time we will either have direct to the public distributors OR retailers, but not both. The middleman will need to go unless both he and the retailer can stay lean.
Finally, as much as I have mixed feelings about Guppys, he has definitely made the local scene far more competitive and it looks like parallel imports are here to stay. Therefore the local distributors will need to lift their game in order to stay relevant.
Jm2c, as usual. :)
I wanted to import a product to sell (as a distributor). I won't say what the product was, or who by, but at the very top of the pricing sheet was a bright red banner that said "DO NOT SELL BELOW THESE PRICES". This is price fixing. Since we pay more as Australians (for no reasons), the importers also get hit with this. The reason prices are so high is because everyone in Australia, regardless of who, will pay more than a business in another country.
This is all illegal, but it is the sad fact. Due to that, based on principal, we did not go ahead with out plans to distribute this product.
Thanks.
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