Coral vendors, help us buy from you.

[AZMSGT]

Really wish there was a way to see if any of the Vendors have visited and read these pages.

 

[snowhite]

They're to busy jockeying prices for today's Live Sales!!!!!

 

[jcolliii]

Probably not if they're not tagged.

 

[AZMSGT]

Probably not if they're not tagged.

They are probably more like, “another noob reefer telling us how to run our business”. But in my defence, I got allot of likes. So it would appear others agree.

 

[Silverfish]

Been there. Done that! Now I don’t do it anymore. Many reefers selling awesome corals here!

 

[jreece11]

I generally agree with the consensus here but wanted to acknowledge that I’ve had a couple good “live” experiences at Vivid. The corals had pics with both blue and white lights. I got all the exact pieces I ordered and they arrived in perfect health, exactly as advertised.

I don’t think I really got any “sale” prices, at least not significantly, but the WYSIWYG was accurate and fun to put an order together. 2 hours invested was less than I would have spent hitting 2+ LFS’s and I got a much wider selection of quality corals.

 

[Mike N]

I don’t think I really got any “sale” prices, at least not significantly

That is the MAIN selling point of all these live sales. Hmmm.
Throw in the psychological tricks, drip-feeding the really sought after corals, the ticking clock, etc. etc.
Just seems very manipulative and completely biased towards the vendors.
Also, the amount of corals in stock on these vendor websites is abysmal now because they're all being pushed into live sales.

 

[Scoral]

Most of the vendors don't actually keep that much stock. A flash sale is usually frags that they do have in stock that spend to much time on their website. They will "discount" (after months of marking the coral up) and call it a sale. First one to buy it gets a great deal right? Hell you didn't want the coral 3 weeks ago when it was on the site, but now you can't wait to put it on your credit card. To the point that after the sale, you are thanking the vendors. Thats like thanking the walmart employee for having a clearance rack. For the actual live sales, the vendors are buying up blocks of coral from wholesalers (kind of like car lots do). They then chop up the coral into frags and throw a fancy name on it. 2-3 sold frags easily pays for the colony they chopped up and the rest is profit. During the 10 hours they are feeding you garbage coral that will end up in their next "flash sale", they insert that hyped up green torch $900. As long as we as hobbyist continue to pay the marked up prices, the major vendors will continue to take advantage of it. WWC tried to sell 3/4'' pie slice of a warpaint scoly for like $200. Its rediculous.

 

[Silverfish]

I get it! It’s fun for the newbie. Very exciting , 5 dollar coral the size if your pinky. Buy a bunch....half die. Then you realize, with knowledge and experience you r doing it all wrong. As long as there r newbies we will have these so called live “sales”. Let me tell you....there are many more better buys out there and way more bang fir your buck! Don’t get caught up in the hype! Instead of investing in a bunch of coral buy a Larger nice piece And keep it healthy. In the long run I promise you will save money!