For decades now it has been considered that the worst thing a wholesaler can do is sell directly to a retailers best customer.
Protecting the retailers interests by turning his customers away has been long practiced by some of us....
We have kicked out and denied the public for 30 years now.
"Go support your retailer" I would say.
'He charges too much!" They would answer.
But still, out of loyalty and tradition, we would hold the line and send them away.
But now, there has evolved a culture whereby retailers buy from direct sources and cut out the wholesaler.
So what?
Well, thats just being clever. Afterall, its smart business, right?
That is of course the defense, especially when a reccesionary economy gives everyone a free pass to engage in a "no-holds barred ...free for all ....law of the jungle ...anything goes to make a buck new world."
Any possible advantage to make money now is considered an automatic justification regardless of how things used to be.
Hmmm....but does it work both ways? I mean...what happens if importers come to think that way? What if importers strike back and cut out the retailer?
Question;
If retailers can now freely buy so much of their livestock direct from wholesalers sources thru transhippers .... it is obvious that they will score the "easy stuff" cheaper and all the time now....forever more. This easy stuff is where wholesalers used to make the money that subsidized the less profitable "cool and rare stuff" . Its seems that that top 10% of cool and rare stuff is all retailers buy anymore. So many customers now just think..."Well, I just cherrypicked you to death but you can just make it up on someone else. I'm special."
Well folks, thats not what anyone sets up shop to do. Selling that top 10% means nothing as everyone will buy it anyway....including the more loyal regulars that keep one in business.
Its the other 90% that must be sold to keep divers, exporters alive as they cannot survive on cherries alone.
With far better connections and relationships with field suppliers then any retailer, why wouldn't importers then do the same....market direct and unchain themselves?
Why wouldn't they open a 2nd set of books for a retail department and also sell direct to hobbyists ?
Why not "spruce up" the wharehouse for the public, hold ridiculous specials and become a hybrid enterprise that so many retailers have already become? Real, direct importers have the cheapest cost of fish without all the transhippers charges and cost amplifiers, cheaper per fish overhead and cheaper rent.
If the buying habits of the retail community have really changed forever and if Bali, Philippines, Jakarta,Hawaii, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Solomon Islands,Tonga and Australia fishes etc now all go direct to retailers on tranship....then wholesalers may also need to evolve as well. They could become more like the Costco model and wharehouse to the public in a dramatic way....both local and shipout.
A mid-size wholesaler evolving into a wholesaler/retailer hybrid would instantly be the biggest fish shop around with impossible deals that only a true importers economy of scale could allow.
There are few dealers left with any "moral high ground" to criticize this new "mega-direct [ non tranship] importer retailer hybrid" as it was their very practices that compel it. There would no longer be a retribution for it as we have evolved a trade where the pot does not call the kettle black . Trying to acclimate 5 boxes of Bali tranship in buckets on the floor removes a retailers case for indignation.
Consumers would love it.
And if 2-3 of these importer-retailers in a region did this, they would make life even harder for the conventional retailers that didn't support them.[ except for the cherries ] Then, they themselves might have low-ball price wars returning prices on some fish to levels not seen since the 70's.
Then may evolve a mega-hybrid retailer importer who owns ones own collecting stations in a country or two...importing barebones direct and lowballing direct to the public even lower.
We have not seen the end of our evolutionary destiny yet by any means.
Steve
Would love to get a new thread started....something productive. My focus right now is really about how we can get our industry more sustainable in the eyes of the people who feel it's not.....AND so we all know we are doing the right thing. I have all the confidence in the world in our resources, and just want science to prove it.
