FX5 price confusion

I have seen the FX5 being sold here for mental asking price, this filter is £149 and yet I have seen quoted prices here in Dublin of €499

Anyone paying even €350 for a new one is off their heads when even with delivery you can get a brand new one for £185 if you look on that site that reminds you of a great river where a lot of our fish come from:), thats €200, a saving in some cases of €300 and you gotta pick up the dearer one yourself too.

I did buy one recently, almost brand new, €100 all included, from a reasonable chap who knew what they were worth.


Just thought I'd put it out there as I would wish anyone with little experience getting into the hobby Not get ripped off paying anythng like the asking prices here.



Mark

im with ya there mark. seems to be a serious difference in prices that are being quoted around
i didnt know that you can pick them up that cheap but your right 400 - 500euros is just taking the P..!

i have also seen some mental prices being asked for tanks second hand ( not on this site i have to say)
but guys looking for 100-200euro for 60ltr or 80ltr tanks and you dont even get a stand!!
its a joke.

Mark. wrote:

that site that reminds you of a great river where a lot of our fish come from

i'm sorry mark my world geography is not the best?

Terrific bargain at 100 euros man. well done!
Does the chap have another he wants to sell?

hi dar

think books, think amazong value!




4

I KNOW IT I KNOW IT, is it the shannon? pretty dumb name for a website

well mark i know we should all be in favour of supporting irish businesses, i try my best, but i know with price differences like that its hard to shop at "home". a friend was looking to get the same filter, he found a sponsor shop selling it for a fairly reasonable 250 ish, which is the same as "wildlife park positive .ie"
not bad, but i have also seen some shops here calling themselves "discount" places, that do discount from the list price, but the same as most other shops normal price after the discount. i'd save nothing only fuel costs. and the fx5 there was around 450. the worst thing is, its tied to the place this lad seen it at 250! wtf?!

JohnH wrote:

Let me just attempt to play the proverbial devil's advocate here.
Surely no-one could imagine that any shop in Ireland even could buy their stock at anything like the selling prices being offered by the cut-price merchants online?
All this 'Rip Off talk is really unfair to the shops in Ireland.
They are there to make a profit, that's the sad fact of life, they have to pay for premises, electricity, water and associated levies and have to charge a 'reasonable' mark-up to cover these outlays, on top of making the fore-mentioned profit.

What happens when the item bought from an overseas online seller goes wrong? - It has to be returned to from whence it came and you then are at the mercy of both the postal system and the often 'garden-shed' retailers!
I can say this with some degree of sincerity as I have two Tetratec and one Fluval (yes, they do go wrong) filters gathering dust in my shed.
We really must consider the shops, without them we would all be in a very sorry state as no shops would mean it would be very difficult to buy our Fish. Any shop will tell you they cannot survive merely on sales of Fish.

Well, that's the opposing side of the coin, I was hoping some shops would enter into this, but for the time being those are a few lines in their support.

John
ps Dar - you've got that wrong, it isn't the Shannon, it's the Orinoco (or was that one of the Wombles?).

i understand your point john and totally agree with you.
but what i cant understand is that how can there be so much of a price difference between Irish shops?
where as some shops you can buy an fx5 for 250-300e and other shops pay from 450-500e
you have to admit that is a vast difference!!!
and it seems that its the bigger chains of shops that have the bigger mark up???
im getting a headache!!!

500 is a total rip off, if you used it for a few months and decide to upgrade/downgrade or worse give up the hobby you can expect a loss of near 400 euro wen you sell it on

Yes John I agree but this case is not applicable to those views, I buy food here in our lfs, fish and other bits n bobs, but when there is a price difference of €300 60%, that is not down to it being dearer here, it is down to a retailer takin the mick, If I can get one for £149 that means a retailer can get one even cheaper wholesale.

Might I also add that this is the kind of thing that should absolutely be pointed out on a forum such as this. There is expensive and then there is day light robbery



Mark

here is the wholesale price for an fx5 from the two leading wholesalers (not saying which) but most everyone buys items from them.
price 1 €204.34 inc vat @2
price 2 €217.85 inc vat @21%

that's before any mark up by a shop with rent,staff,lights and the myriad of other expensises incured in running a business that has to be paid for.yes the internet is cheaper,yes you can pick one up second hand.What is frustrating for a retailer is that the first place people go to when they are having a problem with goods bought this way is not the person/site they bought it from but the shop!we're only too happy to do it..as there is usually a spare part or filter to be sold..but a business cant depend on that alone.It would be like a ferari dealership just selling tyres.I'm not having a moan..just putting things into perspective..while I do agree that some lfs take the mick with their mark up (I've had to work for one or two down through the years)shops that have a fair mark up get lumped into the same category at times.If the shops that have a reasonable mark up are not supported by irish customers in favour of internet/second hand buying then they die on their knees and we wind up with a situation where there are no more decent shops just massive crappy chainstores.I know times are tough..but they are tough for everyone..obviously a bargain and I do use both methods myself but I try to spread it around too.I guess thats it.spread it around.Small Irish business depend on it at the moment.m2cents.

I would then say the retailer is being ripped off by the wholesaler.


60% is far too much of a difference, what are supposed to do? As for operational costs, that is not a concern of any customer, dont mean to be smart or rude, retailer sells a product so do others and it is competitive, I know you understand competitive Gavin:), even at €220+ a mark up of over 100%.

If I can get a product for that price so can a retailer, lets not seperate from straightforward logic here, even at a price of £150 a retailer here can sell it for €300 for a nice tidy profit.

Mark

At the end of the day all I wanted to say was, if you are a poor sod scraping up your few extra quids to pay 500 for a filter you cna get for 180, then heres good news, if folks are not aware that these filters are actually quite cheap, then I am happy to say it, not all of us keepers have lots of cash lying around and some not employed like I was for a fair spell, this is a community after all.


This wasn't an issue with overall costs and expense, as I have said,I am happy to spend money at our stores and I do weekly without fail, so this really makes mute all else other than the actual fact that the filter is £149 and if you want to, buy it, or leave it.


My 2Cents

Mark

there are some sites on the internet where I can buy goods for cheaper than I could buy from any wholesaler(so can the public)..the problem being that they are not "one stop shops" where I can get credit,all the other goods,services and backup that a shop is supposed to offer that a wholesalers is geared towards.I might see a site where I can buy a fluval fx5 cheap but are expensive on all the other stuff.it would never work as business model I'd set up an internet business but..hey I like the general public and selling beautiful fish!

Just to set the record straight here so u can appreciate the price of goods here....for me to buy the fx5 from the irish agent the cost is £146 sterling plus the vat which makes the retail on it approx €318.00 from us unless we can get discounts....now to you u think thats a rip off....when the irish government get 21% of that straight off which is €56.00 which leaves €262 so take the cost price off that €175.20 leaves €86 for the retailer.....now for instance my running costs are nearly €10,000 perweek...before we buy stock.....so where does the rip off come into it?How many 86's do i have to bring in before i get a wage.....we have nearly 500 tanks of stock and one of the largest selections goin....how do we keep this goin?Aquatic village has always been known to be reasonable with pricing we have been doing half price fish for the last 2 mths....if u are not happy with the prices u get how can u turn around and buy online and expect shops to have fish for u to put in your tank?....i think its high time that the itfs took a stance on supporting local fish shops or the hobby will go down the toilet....i know for a fact from reports that there is a tonne of stolen equipment being sold on the net.....i have been told by company directors and people i trust its got so bad that the uk police have a task force to combat it....the rule is if its unbelievably cheap then u should smell a rat...anyway i wanted to point out to u in order to show the pricing structure for goods in our trade...im sure if u told the retailer the prices it may make him help u out...i would be delighted to quote for equipment any time someone needs a competitve quote just pm me...but this rip off arguement has popped up a couple of times with no definitive answers coming from the trade...just remember out of any euro i bring in our government takes at least the following...21% vat..7.5% prsi...42% on profit...rates mine is 9,000 per year...water charges...i still have to pay for waste removal....wages on average 25k per man and thensome....the list goes on and on till basically i will be left with 10cent to run my business with?....so whos ripping off who?The worst thing i ever did was to try and grow my business its like being caught in a vice with those retards turning the handle while they give themselves 500 each to go learn how to use facebook...500,000,000 of us normal idiots learned by themselves.....i wish i could get 500 for an fx5 so i caould start digging my self out of this hole.....anyways thanks for the oppertunity to shoot my mouth off....hope alls well....
Cheers
IAn

@Gavin


Net total spent on the internet for me since starting the hobby, about €600, though some were irish lfs sites.
Net spend here in LFS over the same period I reckon 6-7K, in 12 months man so c'mon if I want to save €300 on a filter I think I would be right.
Never buy fish online or food apart from 1 time a year ago, nor filter media decor heaters ect, I like to be able to go back to a store if something doesn't work

So I am supporting the trade, aboslutely, but common sense dictates you buy the filter that is 60% cheaper for the same model, it is kind of a bit mental to consciously choose the dearer one, with that margin.


Mark

Guys, I am not at odds with hte prices in general apart from Ireland in general, just the filter, I really dont see what it has to do with the trade as a whole, this item is way over the worth of what it actually is when times are not great, doesnt take a genious to work it out


Mark

oh politics are dragged in, lovely. if this was france there would be a protest and a march (god i'm sick of hearing that), the students had one and apparently secret repesentitives of a political party turned up hurling more than abuse, maybe we could get them on board they could use the votes. do you think throwing more paint over mary harney will get us some where?. (joke. in case secret services knock on my door, i might have to pay them a call out charge for trashing my gaff and pc)

on a serious note it's a sad and sorry state and i bet the lfs would love nothing more that to sell them for 200 and making a nice profit in the process, but that's not going to happen.

my experience wit buying stuff that had to get sent off for repairs, i sent a laptop off, it came back in a worse condition, sent it off again it came back the screen was smashed sent it off again but the thing never worked again and i was altogether waiting over 3 months for a broken piece of crap, saving a few quid might end up an expensive lesson as i found out

i understand why the lfs needs to charge higher than we possibly get on the internet, what gets me is the DIFFERENCE in price between shops, for the same product. one shop here selling at a very reasonable 250 for said item, is 450 in another place is what gets me. 175GBP is around 230-250euro anyway, plus shipping is THE SAME PRICE AS OUR GOOD LFS if we shop around (or contact/pm) for the most competitive

i have spent, for the fish, many k's but only around 50euro was spent online, just to get a big bottle of easy carbo and hey, i may as well get a bag of food to make up the price to get free delivery

thats it. i need a new t5 bulb and have looked on every online shop as well as lfs and pretty much ALL the lfs (some not sponsors and usually a rip off) are looking for the same money give or take a few euro. if its a sponsor i save the petrol difference in my 10% discount AND support these lads that have opened up my eyes and world to this fascinating hobby

Well , well, it appears that the Wholesaler is the one taking the Mick, they have obviously done a deal with the on-line retailers, end of.. It would appear that it's up to the Terrestrial Retailers to get together and demand a change, it would seem it is they that should be feeling ripped off.

Kev.

could a few sponsors get together buy them over seas and ship them in? or is it a bit more difficult than that?

imagine the banged up abroad,

chinese official: you, lift top
darren: wats this all about
chinese official: you do, you do, NOW
darren: ok ok (beads of sweat dripping down my face)
chinese official: ahhh 10 fuval fx5, you do wife
darren: wife?
chinese official: you do wife
darren: oh you mean life, dam

Lads i aint smuggling jack, i cant do 20 years to life in one of them prisons, my second name is curry for gods sake, they'l rip the piss out of me over there "hey! beef curry, you want flied lice wit that? he he he", that and the regular gang "activities" in the shower block will have me a broken man

Man u crack me up Dar.

Mick......

dar wrote:

could a few sponsors get together buy them over seas and ship them in? or is it a bit more difficult than that?

imagine the banged up abroad,

chinese official: you, lift top
darren: wats this all about
chinese official: you do, you do, NOW
darren: ok ok (beads of sweat dripping down my face)
chinese official: ahhh 10 fuval fx5, you do wife
darren: wife?
chinese official: you do wife
darren: oh you mean life, dam

Lads i aint smuggling jack, i cant do 20 years to life in one of them prisons, my second name is curry for gods sake, they'l rip the piss out of me over there "hey! beef curry, you want flied lice wit that? he he he", that and the regular gang "activities" in the shower block will have me a broken man

Bahahahaha!! When I was buying my eheim in sea horse I told them the internet price and they matched it for me so you can't ask better than that!

Mark

This is a great thread with input from everyone; slightly went off topic from original posters intention imo but still nevertheless very entertaining ....however ahem i was very interested to see more talk on the quality of the FX5 which im told is a rly great filter and one that i am looking at buying from from.......

ok then to set the record straight ill try and match the internet price for u and offer u full no hassle backup if that helps u then mate.....
Cheers
Ian

Although I have started this thread I do think it is unreasonable to expect to pay te same as you would from an internet site in general in our lfs for the obvious reasons, everything I buy here is cheaper on the internet but that doesn't stop me buying from local lfs stores, mostly sponsors, I had to buy 8 heaters in th epast few weeks, 25 quip a pop and thats just heaters alone.


The filter I sourced is €171.25 and free delivery, inc vat too. I dont expect to get it for that here maybe €250 €275 would be more reasonable, obviously the wholesalers are makin a fair mark up off those filters. I mean at €171 you can just buy em and resell em for a tidy markup and probably sell more because of the steep price drop makin more overall profit from the FX5 product, if these retailers can let em go for €149 you gotta wonder what they are gettin them for?




Mark

Rly nice gesture there Ian. Fair play to you.
I will be in touch