# Wholesale Fish prices?



## MrBrongher (Jan 27, 2012)

I really enjoy breeding fish, and I finally have a few LFS's that will take fish off my hands. So far I've just been trading for fish and stuff from the store, but at some point I might just want to ask for cash. 

I imagine that it's supposed to be secret, but does anyone have their hands on a wholesale price list for fish? I just want some ideas on pricing. I don't want to ask a ridiculously high price, but I obviously want as much as I can get. I can't even begin to guess, as I imagine retail mark up is (understandably) huge, and I've seen some crazy price ranges between stores.

Also, if instead of taking cash I do take store credit (maybe I'll save up for a huge tank and stand that way) how much more do I ask for? That is, if I'd ask $20 cash for some fish, is that $30 credit? $25? $40?


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## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

IME $1 in cash = $1 in store credit.

Whole sale pricing can be a little tricky as it often depends on bulk shipping, minimum order numbers, etc. etc.

I recomend asking your LFS what they want for the fish and go from there.

Some LFS want to make a larger profit margin so you may have to take less then what you feel they are worth.

I sell a lot to locals and local fish stores and I generally just try to shoot for instore credit or petty cash. 100% of what I make goes right back into the hobby (food, nicer equipment, fix a heater, etc.)

You could look at some whole sale lists as well or talk to some whole sale people around. I know There are a few on here. Also consider looking up Jeff Rapps or LivefishDirect.com for information regarding prices and what to expect.

Hope this helps.


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## Bettatail (Feb 12, 2009)

go for the rare fish, discus, apistos, corys.
Apistos is my best bet, demand is high in the US and Asia farm raised Apistos only limit to several species.

farm raised fish are really cheap, a bag of 200 fish(danio, neon tetra, guppy,...) only about $10-$20 on wholesale list.
The shipping is different, domestic importers usually order a whole pallet of fish to lower the shipping cost.
I used to get Neon tetra or white cloud minnow for $0.25 each(feeder fish price!). the store that I bought them from, import the fish directly from Asia. This store still have the $0.25 sale from time to time, but it will cost me more than $20 to visit after I moved.


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

Most places buy cheap because of overhead. If they import 500 fish, that's housing 500 fish, people to scoop and sell the fish, bags for the fish, food while they have them, water changes for the tank, paying someone at the checkout, accounting for 10% loss or death, sickness, etc, it's all part of the total price you pay. I haven't sold anything to mine yet in terms of shrimp but they only offer store credit and looking at the prices they offered me and looking at wholesale shrimp prices, I can understand why they offer me what they did. They don't care about grades or fire-red or cherry shrimp when they buy, it's just cherry shrimp to them.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Jun 15, 2008)

Hi MrBrongher,

Dick Au, from San Francisco, was invited to speak at GSAS last month and he did two great talks on raising fish. Although Dick is famous for the Discus he has raised over the years his first talk was on Angelfish and how to raise them commercially. His second talk was "Raising Fish for Fun and Profit". Both were excellent presentations.

It is difficult to condense four hours of talks into a paragraph but the gist of it is 1) raise fish that are easy for the LFS to sell 2) raise fish that reach sell-able size reasonably quickly 3) it takes as much time, effort, and food to feed a $1 danio as it does to feed a $10 Apisto so where should you put your effort?

BTW, for the more expensive species the LFS will typically pay 1/4 to 1/3 the selling price to purchase the fish wholesale.


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## MrBrongher (Jan 27, 2012)

Thanks for weighing in all - To clarify, I'm not exactly trying to breed for profit, I think that's at best a risky investment; I do like off setting the cost of my hobby though, and it is with some pride that I can say that my swordtails are labeled 2 for $16 at my LFS. (You can talk them down to 2 for $10, though)

Right now I have some celestial pearl danios, swordtails and assassin snails and dozens of albino bristlenose babies. This summer I'll be tubbing some kind of albino red swordtails, and trying to breed pencilfish. None of these are exactly big ticket.

What does the forum think of my asking $2 each for 1" albino bristlenoses? 



GeToChKn said:


> ... I haven't sold anything to mine yet in terms of shrimp but they only offer store credit and looking at the prices they offered me and looking at wholesale shrimp prices, I can understand why they offer me what they did. They don't care about grades or fire-red or cherry shrimp when they buy, it's just cherry shrimp to them.


Out of curiosity, what did they offer you?


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## JeoSo (Mar 13, 2012)

I sold eight Platys to my LFS last month, the owner wasn't going to offer me anything until I asked for something in return. I guess she figured that she was doing me a favor taking them off my hands. I ended up getting a 25% discount after taxes (15%) so I bought some plants. I think they sell Platys for $7.99 + tax, but I was happy with the discount. 

I know someone who has many one year old Kribs and she needs to sell them before she moves to a different province. The LFS won't take them, maybe because of aggression and hard to house that many? I don't know, so I was lucky to be able to get them to take mine. Next I will be taking in guppies and RCS, will see what they say! Oh, and she said she would take Java plants as well, I have very mature plants that give off reddish trident leaves, but I'm fighting some BBA and staghorn in my cuttings tank at the moment so it will have to wait.


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## gabysapha (Oct 26, 2011)

JeoSo said:


> I sold eight Platys to my LFS last month, the owner wasn't going to offer me anything until I asked for something in return. I guess she figured that she was doing me a favor taking them off my hands. I ended up getting a 25% discount after taxes (15%) so I bought some plants. I think they sell Platys for $7.99 + tax, but I was happy with the discount.
> 
> I know someone who has many one year old Kribs and she needs to sell them before she moves to a different province. The LFS won't take them, maybe because of aggression and hard to house that many? I don't know, so I was lucky to be able to get them to take mine. Next I will be taking in guppies and RCS, will see what they say! Oh, and she said she would take Java plants as well, I have very mature plants that give off reddish trident leaves, but I'm fighting some BBA and staghorn in my cuttings tank at the moment so it will have to wait.
> 
> ...


$8 for a platy?! My goodness, they are a dime a dozen  Most LFSs around here wont pay/give credit for livebearers simply because so many people breed them and they are so productive. Selling them my Endler colony failed, and no local aquarists knew the difference between Petsmart guppies and wild-strain Endlers  

Everybody loves GBRs and everybody drools over GBRs, and GBRs are suitable for small tanks, which makes my LFS really like GBRs! Bolivian rams too, but GBRs are so much flashier.

My LFS won't give credit for popular cories like peppered and albinos, but I assume they will for long-fin varieties, pandas, or skunks because those sell so well around here. 

Additionally, breeding long-fin BNPs rather than regular short-finned would probably catch people's eye?

I think $2 is very reasonable for a BNP!


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## OVT (Nov 29, 2011)

Albino BNs at ~1" sell for $3.99 at my LFS and you can get them at local Petco for $2.99 on sale.

In my case (I 'sell' a lot of plants to LFS) I go for the goodwill. I walked away with lots of fish food, plants, free fish, deeply discounted dry goods, fish ordered just for me, etc, etc because if you treat people right they will return it back x10. If they do not, they are not the people you want to deal in the first place. IMHO.


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## JeoSo (Mar 13, 2012)

Lol, rural area in Canada, not many people into aquaria and less into planted tanks. If I lived in the city or even 1/2 hour away from here I could go to a Petsmart and get some sales. Our LFS never puts anything on sale! 

Rams would be a lovely choice, they are so pretty.


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## LB79 (Nov 18, 2011)

If you could get hands on albino longfin BN plecos, GBRs, blue angels, and perhaps an apistogramma species or two, you might make a decent buck or two. Also, bettas are VERY popular...


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## CatB (Jan 29, 2012)

LB79 said:


> If you could get hands on albino longfin BN plecos, GBRs, blue angels, and perhaps an apistogramma species or two, you might make a decent buck or two. Also, bettas are VERY popular...


bettas are super popular, but most LFSs and big box stores have an arrangement with a breeder, either american or someone from somewhere in asia where they breed them in massive amounts for the purpose of selling into the pet trade, i doubt they'd be willing to buy from a customer, or not for very much...


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## MrBrongher (Jan 27, 2012)

I had always assumed that the main four livebearers would be rejected out of hand by any LFS, but I'm lucky in that mine loves them. They bill them as locally grown, ask outrageous prices for them (and then come down from those prices if you ask them to, to only slightly ridiculous prices) and are always grateful for them. 

Apparently whenever the owner orders them from vendors they all die in his tanks. And although that might be his fault, I must say that he seems to keep everything in order and the majority of fish I've purchased from him have been superlative. 

However it comes to be, he is always interested in livebearers, and is pretty cool about taking anything else I've offered him.

The reason I brought up this topic at all is because I got my BN from him as babies, and as far as I know their parents are still spawning for him, so he doesn't need any from me, I can't even offer him some genetic diversity - so I'll be selling to another store I haven't dealt with as much and never sold too.

I reckon I'll ask for $2 a pop. In the end I'll take what I can get of course.


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## LB79 (Nov 18, 2011)

Thar ya go. I'm going to be breeding Thorichthys Maculipinnis in a tub outdoors this summer. I hope they're popular in my area...


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## EntoCraig (Jun 7, 2010)

LB79 said:


> If you could get hands on albino longfin BN plecos, GBRs, blue angels, and perhaps an apistogramma species or two, you might make a decent buck or two. Also, bettas are VERY popular...


Apistos, Angels, Endlers, Cherry Shrimp, and Assassin Snails are what I sell the most of. But The endlers, shrimp, and snails go for dirt cheap. The Apistos and Angels go for a bit more, but Im not really making any significant money off of them, nor am I trying to. I just love raising fish from fry to a sellable size and then starting over 

I also find it best to work semi exclusively with a single LFS and maybe an online source.


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## H2OLOVER (Apr 29, 2010)

MrBrongher said:


> I'd ask $20 cash for some fish, is that $30 credit? $25? $40?





EntoCraig said:


> IME $1 in cash = $1 in store credit.
> 
> Whole sale pricing can be a little tricky as it often depends on bulk shipping, minimum order numbers, etc. etc.
> 
> ...


I agree with entocraig. honestly the credit you get for your fish now is for sure more than what they are paying now.
some fishstores dont take fish for credit.


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## IWANNAGOFAST (Jan 14, 2008)

go for saltwater, my store buys baby clownfish from a local breeder at least once every month. She brings in about 100 babies and we sell em for 20 bucks each (these are nice clowns, not just ocelaris) 

for freshwater, we typically don't buy from locals except for shrimp, but that's because it's so ridiculously cheap from wholesalers. We used to be a cichlid store that specialized in african cichlids so we bought from hobbyists, but now that we moved to planted, the small nano fish are super cheap. 

You got to match the price that they can buy from a wholesaler, you may think your cardinal is worth 3-4 bucks, but if a store can order 2-300 from a wholesaler for 75 cents each, they're not going to pay you much.


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## H2OLOVER (Apr 29, 2010)

Look at pawn stars. The expert says their item is worth $100 so they want 100 what most don't see is that they can't sell something at retail prices to a retail store. Same goes with fish if you see that a fis is 10 you can expect that you aren't going to get anywhere close to 10 IME LFS usually offer 1/3 of what they can get for it


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

hey Mrb,

If you would like, i can ask the 3 shops in lower manhattan if they would be interested in some locally bred BN's.


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## apistomaster (Apr 6, 2012)

If you want to make any money selling fish to retail shops never begin by trading. Make cash upfront your policy.
Many shops will not go along but that doesn't matter. Why should you raise fish, trade them in at wholesale prices for full retail prices for their merchandise? You lose everytime.
As a very broad general rule, if a fish retails for less than $5.00 then the wholesale price will be only about 25% of retail. Shops will use price lists to show you what they pay for a particular fish but they make no allowance for the reduced mortality and shipping costs plus overhead which reflects the true price they pay for their fish.
For fish retailing for more than $10 about the best you can hope for is 1/3 what they retail their fish. For the most expense fish say $20 and up about the best you can hope for is about 2-1/2 times less than they sell the fish.
The higher the price the lower the markup as a general rule.
I have been involved with all aspects of the fish business from being a shop owner, a breeder selling wholesale. I am in it for the money.
I only accept cash. I run a small on line fish business selling mainly fancy plecos I breed like L333, L134 and rarely some L260's.
Direct sales are the best way to go and only for expensive fish in high demand.
Some plecos and all Apistogramma are particularly well suited fish for you to raise if you are willing and able to do direct sales nationally.
Dealing with LFS is difficult. You can usually only sell to one shop in a given market, If your store customer discovers that you are selling to one of his direct competitors they will often stop buying from you. I negotiated exclusive deals with the major shop in any given city so they have my assurance that none of their competitors will have my fish. This policy has worked well for me for many years. I also raise Discus.
I am currently in a transitional period with my Discus. I have stopped raising any domestic Discus. There are too many cheap imported domestic Discus so they are no longer that feasible for me to raise. I have gone back to only raising wild type Discus and am only now, after several years, beginning to produce some wild type F2 Nhamunda Blue Discus and in about 2 years I expect to also have F2 Tefe Greens.
Shops can not get these kinds of TR wild type Discus from their normal suppliers. I began breeding wild Discus in 1969 and having gone through a phase with domestics I have returned to the wild types as so few others raise them. You must have very rare fish and be an almost exclusive source of them if you are to have any leverage with retail shops.
Small scale fish breeders must find a specialized niche market in order to make any money selling fish. If you lack the dedication, patience and a businesslike attitude then just be a hobbyists and be glad you can trade in the fish you can raise in quantities for store credit.
Raising tropical fish, regardless of how rare they may be, is a difficult way to earn money. And like any business it takes having the patience and a significant investment before you even begin to recoup the invested time and money let alone realize any profit.


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## MrBrongher (Jan 27, 2012)

acitydweller said:


> hey Mrb,
> 
> If you would like, i can ask the 3 shops in lower manhattan if they would be interested in some locally bred BN's.


Hey back. :smile:
I thought about asking at Pacific the other day, I honestly can't recall why I didn't. If you're there or any of the other stores and you think of it that'd be great actually.




apistomaster said:


> If you want to make any money selling fish to retail shops never begin by trading.


I don't though. Want to make money that is. I mean, sure it'd be nice, and I think I've made almost $100 cash this year off of aquatics, but that's hardly a dent in my expenses. As far as trading for credit being a bad return, well I agree - that's why I expect more from the store if I take credit instead of cash. That's how it works with video games.

There are people who can make actual money following a hobby or passion, and god bless 'em, but I'm not one of them. I think if I ever was thinking of margins or something like that when I saw my fish I'd get right out of it and just buy a bigger TV. I enjoy many aspects of this hobby as a means to forget such concerns for a while.

I'd like to see a wholesale list 1) so I can make reasonable offers for what I breed and 2) out of curiosity. That's as far as it goes. 

Thank you for weighing in, and it's interesting to hear about that side of things, but I'm sorry that what I take away from your post is a renewed feeling that I want to keep this a hobby, not an investment.


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## jjp2 (May 24, 2008)

My LFS gives more in credit then they do cash. They give 1/3 to 1/2 the list for items as credit and 1/4-1/3 for cash. Sometimes more if they now the person and the items are in demand (discus, good angels, plecos, etc). 

This is because they mark the products you are buying with credit up so they actually make out better. If you are only wanting to keep fish feed and such, credit works really well.


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