How much is this ric rock worth???

[jackywongto]

wow .... I missed such an interesting topic.

My thoughts (Lazy to construct them so just penning thoughts in point form)

- I think everyone has their points. But ultimately it is impossible for the mods to govern the integrity of the seller.

- When you buy high from reefers, you will tend to sell higher as well.

- If you feel that the bid is unrealistic or the price is too high, then give that thread a miss. Newbies might fall for it once or twice but they will learn.

- Regardless of how high the bid is, someone will always come in and bid higher. There are a lot of rich reefers out there. Know your limits.

- Work around the solution. Try to know more reefers as friends and share frags instead of getting into the bidding trap.

- Perhaps mod can consider - a restriction on the bidding duration and maybe have a mandatory buy out price.

- Personally if I see an item I like, I will bid the max price I am willing to pay for it. It there is a higher bid that comes it, then I will just forget it.

- Travelling to Iwarna and the east LFS is extremely difficult for me. So the sales thread and bidding system is still a good alternative for me to get what I want abeit at a much higher price.

- Ultimately, the money is in your pocket. Exercise discretion when bidding. In real life, it is the same when you go out to purchase 2nd hand HDB, how much cash over valuation are you willing to pay? 20k, 30k, 40k?

[TayHongSiang]

wow .... I missed such an interesting topic.

My thoughts (Lazy to construct them so just penning thoughts in point form)

- I think everyone has their points. But ultimately it is impossible for the mods to govern the integrity of the seller.

- When you buy high from reefers, you will tend to sell higher as well.

- If you feel that the bid is unrealistic or the price is too high, then give that thread a miss. Newbies might fall for it once or twice but they will learn.

- Regardless of how high the bid is, someone will always come in and bid higher. There are a lot of rich reefers out there. Know your limits.

- Work around the solution. Try to know more reefers as friends and share frags instead of getting into the bidding trap.

- Perhaps mod can consider - a restriction on the bidding duration and maybe have a mandatory buy out price.

- Personally if I see an item I like, I will bid the max price I am willing to pay for it. It there is a higher bid that comes it, then I will just forget it.

- Travelling to Iwarna and the east LFS is extremely difficult for me. So the sales thread and bidding system is still a good alternative for me to get what I want abeit at a much higher price.

- Ultimately, the money is in your pocket. Exercise discretion when bidding. In real life, it is the same when you go out to purchase 2nd hand HDB, how much cash over valuation are you willing to pay? 20k, 30k, 40k?

Yup..i agree when you buy stuffs here either thru bidding or thru pay-on-spot-price..its like COV...its all about doing yr personal home work to check whether the goods or the livestock is overpriced....some reefers here dun mind paying more...at least they know if they offer a price high enough, they will get it vs travelling all the way to LFS which may not be available.

Majority of pple here will make some mistakes here and there...bound to have some not-so-nice experience.

[Solo77]

for the bidding system, no right or wrong, it is market force playing the game but hard to stop ppl from manipulating behind the scene. So one must take precaution and do enough research.

different thoughts on pricing ...it depends on which business strategies to adopt for business. Thing is cheap doesnt mean no progress. It can create opportunity for pple to source for different thing to bring in. The hit and run model is rather common. Get something niche and earn fast cash and move on as ppl will slowly copy and follow. Higher price might not drive towards responsible reefkeeping but might deter more ppl from entering into this hobby. Sad to see those $1 clown being purchased and act as food for other fishes but think this is a life cycle. Responsible reefkeeping must come from reefers and LFSes. Talk about reefers buying fishes and killing them...honestly speaking..i have asking myself, instead of being a responsible reefer might as well stop all this reefing so that the nature will not be harmed but is this possible?

i am not experienced and in this hobby long enough but for the business model, it seems like they have to bring in other specimens inorder to get other specimen...so for example, they earn nothing from yellow tang,....they are liking to earn from other livestock.....i doubt a business will want to make a breakeven or even deficit.......if so...the business will not be viable and sustainable. The question is their cost and profit margin.....while i can agree their source is different and at times cost is high, but the costing should not be very far off. Anyway, all this is driven by demand and supply and business model. Whoever did the right thing will shine....whoever did the wrong...will suffer.....therefore, some of the LFSes or farms are well known for good...while others...condemned. Lol.

There is always two perpective to a thing......and perfectionist and saddist are almost identitical ....it depends how common ppl perceived. Reef on.

Agreed dachkie. The bidding system is comparable to gambling at casinos. Can we stop people from bidding way above their budgets like how people end up losing everything at casinos? No. The person who is bidding should be mature enough to make a judgement call.

P.S Your Dac-mobile looks better in its new color.

If everything is cheap, there will be no progress in this hobby. If everyone wanted Arowana cheap, the Arowana hobby would probably still be stuck at silver Arowanas. Rising prices for is not necessarily a bad thing. In the long term, it will help drive the hobby forward towards responsible reefkeeping. Look at the amount of clowns that are killed just because they cost $1. If they cost something like $5, much less lives would have been sacrificed as compulsive buying is curtailed. Rare/unique pcs of coral/fish deserve to have their premium pricing, to reduce the number of irresponsible people from purchasing them.

I never have a good impression of prices being dumped. Consumers naturally feel benefited, but have they truly thought of the long term repercussions? They could end up solely relying on a single supplier to supply what they want, as others will not dare to bring in the stock. If that single supplier brings the price back to norm after the price-war, consumers will feel that they have been "carroted" and not buy the stock. What you get is..the possible total disappearance of a particular species from the local hobby scene as no money can be made already. For instance, the hawaiin yellow tang. Do you guys know that no money can be made from the sale of this fish in Singapore?

[Solo77]

profiteering has open and closed type....unleast we know who are the open ones....the danger is those using pm....lol. dont know the history of Paradiz Reef but to me, the business strategy didnt work out...if not...other shops woujld have close down also.....this is business world....

lastly, personally i think forum should benefit reefers and not LFSes...the sponsors should be using this platform to advertise their new product, etc. However, many forum started out to share but subsequently lost their original intent. Maybe SRC should have vision and mission statement......lol.

[Solo77]

your approach is not wrong but if you see other reefers who are long enough in this hobby or experience in selling stuff....it will be based on fcfs or reserved the right to sell to whoever i like. For your future bidding, maybe u can put a min. selling price or no need to bid selling price. if the bid doesnt meet your expectation, you can always withdraw. Buying and selling should always be win win situation.

another approach is not profitteering...but getting the frag free...lol. one buy big colony...frag into pcs....and sell to recover buying price....so ultimately, the colony bought is foc to the original buyer and the buyer gets to keep one new collection free. This is "style". Not wrong also, depending on how you see things. Anyway...hope this discussion dont give newbies new ideas.....with emerging new style. .....lol. Reef on.

well like i said, imagine a group of people who desprately want's your coral. you dunno who to sell to, so you just say. ok lets bid this piece. then whoever bids the highest gets it. sure there's always a degree of profiteering, andits human nature. who wouldn't wanna earn some money? afterall, this is an expensive hobby and for poor students like me, sometimes i have to sell at abit higher. otherwise how will i sustain? this isnt bad intention IMO. its just the need to support oneself. or selling it to a pack of frag hungry reefers. who wants it, bid higher. just to satisfy this indecisiveness, an auction is created. there's nothing evil about that intention too.

and bidding is a big risk. what you think is special might not convey the same towards others. take my recent bid for the palys i made. i have never seen them before and in my opinion, are really unique and 'rare". but the colours are not striking, it's in a shade of white, dark blue and grey. yet its something i find extremely beautiful, and not even zoaid has it. and its my first time seeing it too. so something this special to me, i decided to set it for auction. to ensure someone genuine will buy it and take care of it. yet the bid only ended at $23 for a frag of 6-8 polyps of this rather rare paly. to be honest, this isnt the price i wanted to let it go. but since its a bid, and i can't do anything about it, i let it go at 23.

there's always win or lose in this bidding thing. and sometimes, we lose out. unless we use underhand methods like getting your friends to help you false bid and claim back your coral/equipment. then i really have nothing to say. its despicable and deserving of the title "profiteering with bad intentions"

[yikai]

thanks solo for you very hepful inputs. its great to see that you do not take things to heart and try to work around each member's own opinion. i'm still quite young, i do not have much exposure to the business world, so i'm more or less unaware on how most things work. but that is no excuse. its my responsibility to learn and to be well equipped for the world. same goes to newbie reefers. we all start out noob. if we shelter them too much, they will never learn. we can pump knowledge into them day in day out. ultimately, its the experience that counts. for example. i can tell you now that a blue tang is reef safe. every website in the world will tell you its reef safe. knowledge tells me that a blue tang is a herbivore, a reef inhabitant that swims around lookign for benthic creatures and algae to graze all day long. however, expereince tells me that a blue tang can, and may, become unsafe with corals. i can tell u day in day out that a blue tang is not reef safe. you won't know unless you experience it for yourself.

what im trying to say is that. we have no control over the marketing world and the politics. neither can we protect and help every single newbie. personally, as a person, i try my best to help them by giving advice, teaching them when it comes to fish and coral. for i was once like them not too long ago, and i relate to how they feel. but when it comes to other people's sales thread, i have no right to tell them not to buy via pm or via posting. it is not fair to either party and i am not allowed to do it. moderators have no say in personal sale's thread.

once again, we cannot control the pasar malam section, and we cannot curfew the bidding time, bidding hours and minimum/maximum bid. its all up to the thread starter. if he wants to carrot or throw price, we have no say. but we hope that reefers should at least have some common sense to know what's right and what's wrong. for newbies we cant totally help them. but please, do yourself a favour and learn from LFS. even if no chance, make some friends, ask around. this community is here to help you and together, we can prevent such things.

i'm very happy that this topic was brought up. at least certain doubts and problems have been clarified. although some are not, well, too bad. nothing we can do for now and life still goes on. we try our best to protect the new members, but we can't shelter them forever. like i said, experience is something you earn and gain, not spoon-fed.

[yikai]

and please, might i add. not everything that is expensive and glorious is PROFITEERING. there are some corals that come only once in a lifetime, and some reefers are lucky enough to get hold of it. by selling it at its worthy price is NOT profiteering. take my blue favia and cedric's royal blue millie for example. how often do you see such corals? do you see them everyday? or every month? how about every year? i'm not an sps person so i can't say much for the millie. but for my favia which is so blue, to be honest, i don't see it often. maybe i don't look hard enough.

lets say you spend $10 on a pickaxe. and you manage to mine a diamond. a really big and rare diamond. are you goong to sell it at $10? or are you gonna make a fortune out of it? if you know that it is worth X amount, will you sell it at $10 because you don't want to profit from others? this profiteering thing applies throughout the world. of course what really matters is the intention.

[jackywongto]

and please, might i add. not everything that is expensive and glorious is PROFITEERING. there are some corals that come only once in a lifetime, and some reefers are lucky enough to get hold of it. by selling it at its worthy price is NOT profiteering. take my blue favia and cedric's royal blue millie for example. how often do you see such corals? do you see them everyday? or every month? how about every year? i'm not an sps person so i can't say much for the millie. but for my favia which is so blue, to be honest, i don't see it often. maybe i don't look hard enough.

lets say you spend $10 on a pickaxe. and you manage to mine a diamond. a really big and rare diamond. are you goong to sell it at $10? or are you gonna make a fortune out of it? if you know that it is worth X amount, will you sell it at $10 because you don't want to profit from others? this profiteering thing applies throughout the world. of course what really matters is the intention.

I think we hit something that is very subjective already. What that is profiteering to one may not be to another.

I know of reefers who are willing to pay 4 - 5x more the market rate for something he deem healthy.

So do I hold my principle and sell it the same rate I bought it or sell it at a price that I know rich reefers are willing to pay?

This is a no brainer, of course mark it up. So is this considered profiteering?

I would think yes but others might disagree.

- go back to to the top and start reading from my 1st sentence again .............

LOL no outcome wan on this topic.

[jackywongto]

BTW as per wikipedia

profiteering = making unethical profits.

price gouging is a type of profiteering

Price gouging is a term for a seller pricing much higher than is considered reasonable or fair.

[yikai]

you're right jacky. it is a very subjective topic that is grey. but this discussion was started in the first place because of this. we can go on talking for ever and ever and ever and there will be no end. what we are doing is stating different opinions and letting the public decide where they stand and what they wanna do. if you think someone is profitereering, fine. don't patronise the thread. but at the same time, don't codemn and say things like they are profiteering. if its so subjective and everyone has their own opinions, best not to start a debate or else it could go out of hand. if it doesnt suit you, keep it to oneself and dont patronise. that is what i believe.

personally for me, i am kinda lucky to have the chance to own a few rare stuff and these rarities are usually not easy to sustain. take for example rare fishes like the rhomboid wrasse. my personal experienced that bit me in the behind. spend $200+ retail price from LFS, but died the next day due to decompression problem and internal parasites. bought another one from a reefer and its alive with me till now. personally if i were to resell this fish, it could easily hit 300 and there will be no shortage of people willing to pay for it. but for that extra 100, which goes into months of stabalising, feeding, training it to alpha male, to me, its worth it. fishes like this have no chance of staying at the LFS for even a few hours, let alone 1 day. you risk buying rare stuff and you risk losing it. i lost my first rhomboid within 24 hours and it hurt like hell.

some things deserve to have a higher price because they deserve the price and all the effort put into it. i'm not saying everything is like this, just some. that's where IMO, its not profiteering. according to you, profiteering is unethical profit. in this case, nothing unethical to me.

[jackywongto]

Yup I totally agree with what you are saying. Let's put it this way, I agree to disagree.

Everyone has their values and perceive the value of things differently.

If I tell my wife the cost of my corals, she will chase me out of the house

Likewise the value I perceive fishes / corals is also different from you.

Hence the mismatch in pricing ideology and different interpretation of the term profiteering.

I feel that this is a good topic to platform fellow reefers thought and though I doubt anything will change, but at least, it gives an insight to the thoughts of many reefers who penned their opinions. You have handled this very well Yi Kai and like I said, you are very level headed for your age and I think Larry made a good choice in appointing you as one of the mods.

cheers and happy reefing!

you're right jacky. it is a very subjective topic that is grey. but this discussion was started in the first place because of this. we can go on talking for ever and ever and ever and there will be no end. what we are doing is stating different opinions and letting the public decide where they stand and what they wanna do. if you think someone is profitereering, fine. don't patronise the thread. but at the same time, don't codemn and say things like they are profiteering. if its so subjective and everyone has their own opinions, best not to start a debate or else it could go out of hand. if it doesnt suit you, keep it to oneself and dont patronise. that is what i believe.

personally for me, i am kinda lucky to have the chance to own a few rare stuff and these rarities are usually not easy to sustain. take for example rare fishes like the rhomboid wrasse. my personal experienced that bit me in the behind. spend $200+ retail price from LFS, but died the next day due to decompression problem and internal parasites. bought another one from a reefer and its alive with me till now. personally if i were to resell this fish, it could easily hit 300 and there will be no shortage of people willing to pay for it. but for that extra 100, which goes into months of stabalising, feeding, training it to alpha male, to me, its worth it. fishes like this have no chance of staying at the LFS for even a few hours, let alone 1 day. you risk buying rare stuff and you risk losing it. i lost my first rhomboid within 24 hours and it hurt like hell.

some things deserve to have a higher price because they deserve the price and all the effort put into it. i'm not saying everything is like this, just some. that's where IMO, its not profiteering. according to you, profiteering is unethical profit. in this case, nothing unethical to me.

[yikai]

thanks jacky.... like i have said before, this is a very grey topic and there's not much right or wrong. just how people percieve it. at the end of the day,

- we can only help new reefers to a certain extent. we can help them by asking them, to help themselves

- we cannot do anything to pasar malam threads. and what goes on in there, the admins have no say. reefers discretion should be practiced.

- experience is important, and through making mistakes we learn.

- some things may be percieved as worthy or the increased in price, while others may disagree. personally for me, i wont mind paying more for a very stable fish than risk getting it from a lfs, only having a 20% thereabouts of success.

thank you for the compliment... i guess being a relatively new reefer, only join in late 08', i have made many mistakes and can relate to some of the problems faced here. especially those made by the newer reefers.

[ReDDeviLs]

topic starter have ask for price on the rics.

seems like it has gone over to debate on bidding system in SRC.

its good to talk about this since alot of reefers do have something to say to it. However, please do remember to control your own emotion and mood when going into such debate.

please do not get too personal. Ofcourse, if TS dont mind the off topic here!

cheers

[jackywongto]

topic starter have ask for price on the rics.

seems like it has gone over to debate on bidding system in SRC.

its good to talk about this since alot of reefers do have something to say to it. However, please do remember to control your own emotion and mood when going into such debate.

please do not get too personal. Ofcourse, if TS dont mind the off topic here!

cheers

Hey hi red,

TS = Peter tee = OT king. I am sure he dun mind lol

[peacemaker]

Lemon must be really stressed out due to his papers. Relax... chill! We could meet up after you're done with exams. Drinks on me, yea?

[yikai]

Lemon must be really stressed out due to his papers. Relax... chill! We could meet up after you're done with exams. Drinks on me, yea?

hey no lah don't say that. besides i havent really been studying that much....yet. lolz. so no worries la no stress. its good to let off bottled up thoughts and feelings about stuff once in awhile. i believe this profiteering thing has got many reefers wondering, so its good to clear the air. there are good profiteers and bad profiteers, but as humans we cannot pinpoint the good and the bad. so i guess at times we have to live with it and exercise caution.

will definately meet up after exams! before my 3 week trip to india

[jackywongto]

Lemon must be really stressed out due to his papers. Relax... chill! We could meet up after you're done with exams. Drinks on me, yea?

Do I get a drink too Eugene ?

stressed too from giving too much Ang pow

[jackywongto]

hey no lah don't say that. besides i havent really been studying that much....yet. lolz. so no worries la no stress. its good to let off bottled up thoughts and feelings about stuff once in awhile. i believe this profiteering thing has got many reefers wondering, so its good to clear the air. there are good profiteers and bad profiteers, but as humans we cannot pinpoint the good and the bad. so i guess at times we have to live with it and exercise caution.

will definately meet up after exams! before my 3 week trip to india

Ya heading to India for school project???

[peacemaker]

Do I get a drink too Eugene ?

stressed too from giving too much Ang pow

Sure thing! Can I get an ang pow from you?

[peacemaker]

hey no lah don't say that. besides i havent really been studying that much....yet. lolz. so no worries la no stress. its good to let off bottled up thoughts and feelings about stuff once in awhile. i believe this profiteering thing has got many reefers wondering, so its good to clear the air. there are good profiteers and bad profiteers, but as humans we cannot pinpoint the good and the bad. so i guess at times we have to live with it and exercise caution.

will definately meet up after exams! before my 3 week trip to india

Wow... what's up with the India trip? School exchange programme or something?

[jackywongto]

Sure thing! Can I get an ang pow from you?

Can. U must come to my place and bai nian

[peacemaker]

Can. U must come to my place and bai nian

Hahaha... and serve you with Yu Sheng made from nemos?

[yikai]

yeah some school thing. humanitarian work sorta thing. 3 weeks is plenty of time for dear murphy to visit my tank and potentially crash it... but i volunteered and must help lah. the reward for the trip quite good too... cca points and other schoolish stuff

[peacemaker]

That's interesting... take plenty of photos and post it here!

Anyone taking care of your baby when you're away?

[yikai]

That's interesting... take plenty of photos and post it here!

Anyone taking care of your baby when you're away?

my family will be around, and will try to ask some reefers to pop by and check occasionally. hope everything goes well. 3 weeks is a long time.