If anyone actually knew the profit made on the livestock from the big vendors, I assure you, you would be shocked and prolly upset by the huge margins they make.
This I doubt. I'm using a box of sps as im less sure of the pricing for lps.that will change significantly both initial cost and survivability.
A box of indo corals cost between 800 and 1k wholesale. With that you'll get 3 to 5 (depending on size) colonies. For this example we will assume 4. Each can be cut into 6 what I'd call frags, most call mini colonies now, multibranching pieces about 2 inches overall
Of the 4 there's a reasonable chance 1 won't survive being cut in the wild, then going to a holding facility, then transportation. That's a $250 loss the wholesaler eats.
Then of the 3, 2 of the corals are nothing special. Meaning of those 12 "frags" one needs 41 bucks for a 25 dollar coral. There is a chance 1 or 2 frag dies. So let's assume the wholesaler needs to get 50 bucks for a 20 dollar coral just to break even on that piece.
We will guess that 0 die and we make $25 x 12 for these. That's $300 (-$700 from original investment)
Maybe 1 colony is something a cut above the others. But because of the loss from the other 3 and im not talking anything spectatular, just a decent piece. We now need about $120 per frag to break even. Realistically we will get about $60 per piece but this is a piece worth keeping 1 frag to "grow out". 5x 60 $300 (from the -$700 we are now at -$400 profit from the box)
From time to time there is 1 amazing piece maybe 1 out of 20 boxes. This is the grail of importing wild coral. From this 1 coral the wwc, cherry corals, Jason foxes of the world need to making a living off of. From the -$400ish per last 10 to 15 boxes profit this coral needs to make some money. But not at first. You can sell maybe 2 pieces right away for an ungodly amount of money to the few people who have to have it "first", and you'll need a good rep as a retailer just to find them. The rest needs to be grown out, which has its own costs.
I'm well aware there some worst case scenarios here and when buying many boxes the average goes more in favor of the wholesaler but I wouldn't guess more than 5% to 10%.
I'm sure that eventually with growing out and regular sales of the staple coral (the sunset montis of the world) one can do alright. Assuming we set up in a business friendly, warm climate state. I'm not seeing coral importer as the fast track to making millions though. These guys are doing it because they love the hobby, or maybe they're addicted to gambling!
