Tough day at Amazon's River

Dys · Post by **Dys** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 3:10 pm

Not a recommondation but a story I think people might be interested in...

I had recently discovered amazon's river in foley, and liked their layout and people were nice. I had spent a little money in there in the past 10 days or so maybe $100.... I was told about rock that was coming in, Marshall rock, 100lbs, suppose to be 1-2 days fresh. Was told the price would be $7.99-$8.99 a pound. Stopped by end of last week and got to see the rock, was nice looking not quite as fresh as they liked, but all in all still fresh, said it would be ready Tue or Wed, so of course I showed up today hoping to get a piece or two... Was now told the price was $10.99 a pound. When I said that was a bit high after what he had told me last week, I was told "oh well, if you wont buy it someone else will, you just dont have Mercedes taste!"

I was told the price was raised because he had to make extra trips to the airport as it didnt arrive on the flights and or times specified. Also the cost of curing the rocks was now adding $ on to it.....5 days of curing thats gotta be worth atleast $2lb!! yeah whatever....

I can honestly say the way I was treated, I will NEVER return to that store. Its quite a shame too, I liked one of the employees, was helpfull and knowledgeable.

Post by **snoopdog** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:48 pm

Personally every price you said was horrible for live rock. You can get it shipped to you door for way less than that per pound and probably better quality.

reeferpuffer · Post by **reeferpuffer** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 5:55 pm

im sorry, but im gonna stick up for them, you have no idea how much it costs to get rock trans shipped from LA. i love mark and hes a kick ass guy, but he wouldn't mark it up if he knew he wasn't going to loose money. i will soon be working at amazons river and things will be better, they just have 2 guys running that whole store. i personally love the store and mark will help you out as much as he can. prices may vary and are subject to change due to uncontrolable instances. mark is trying to make a living and he knows what needs to be done. period!

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:02 pm

Anchofish.com had Walt Smith transhipped live rock for $159.99 for 45 lbs shipped. About $3.50 per pound for retail consumers for that and I could show you at least 5 links where you can have it delivered for less than $5 per pound. I think $5.99 per pound is more than reasonable. I would never pay more that $7 much less more than $10.

Brandon · Post by **Brandon** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:10 pm

I've seen them have the $10/lb price before on rock that was from an established aquarium... ie: solid purple and had some corals on it. Seemed like a cool deal to me. I bought a litle bit originally to help establish the coraline.. just scraped the purple off into the return flow.

I've bought transhipped before :
Kaelini. 67 pounds at $2.50 pound = $167.50
Fiji 47 pounds at $2.25 a pound = $105.75

Total bill was $273.25 for 114 pounds/ avg $2.40 a
pound . Shipping was 74.78 for 118lbs. So all told I figured it came to an average of
$3.04 / lb SHIPPED

PS: I really like Amazon's River, feel they are stand up guys and have always offered assistance, but that does seem pretty high.

Dys · Post by **Dys** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:47 pm

There is rock in amazons big rock tank in the big showroom thats been there for quite sometime, he told me a couple weeks back that its been there a long time, Haiti rock, again was unwilling to go under $7 a pound.

Mike at amazon's is great no doubt, I just honestly feel like Mark was doing everything possible to not get my business., even my wife was disgusted at how he spoke. He has always been friendly even today, up untill I told em $11 a pound for rock was much higher than I am willing to pay.

Anyways, like I said they lost all my future business and I surely wont recommend them to anyone. Sorry if I sound harsh but I guess you had to be there and see/hear how it came out. Just very disappointed.

P.S. I dont feel responsible for someone who made 4-5 trips to pickup 100lbs of rock at the airport, and shouldnt have that cost passed on to me because of their mistakes. I was told a price AFTER it was ordered and on the way to Mobile, $7.99-$8.99 after they cured it, and to then jump it to $10.99. I might have to go look in the mirror maybe SUCKER is stamped on my forhead.

Anchofish.com - has marshal for $209 delivered for 35lbs... thats a touch under $6 a pound.

Xster · Post by **Xster** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 7:33 pm

This is from my business perspective:

If the business extra costs due to unforeseen circumstances, I do not believe that they should pass this on to the customers. Bad business. If the owner had to make extra trips to the airport to get live rock due to scheduling or any other issues, why does the customer have to pay for this cost? What if he got the live rock on his first trip, would the SAME live rock costs less per pound, just because the costs incurred are less. That does not make sense.

I understand Mike, you will be working for them soon, but what is wrong can not be made right. I apologize for this thought, but I understand your incentive to make "Amazon's River" look better. Hopefully, it will be much better once you start. I know it will get better. But if anyone treated me like that....I would not patronize that business any longer. This is just my own personal opinion.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Tue Mar 30, 2004 9:22 pm

I have to agree with John. I also think if you are going to charge almost twice the going price for live rock you are going to drive customers away.

reeferpuffer · Post by **reeferpuffer** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 12:51 am

keep in consideration that he probbably figured out how much it really cost him in time, and how much the rock really cost, not to mention box charge, shipping rates, plus live rock has a security charge added also, and if he ordered it from wherever, he probably had to pay freight to LAX, cities per box charge,and clearance cost..all in all, he probably wound up paing close to 5 a lb considering it was shipped to the nearest airport. thats the crap i have to pay everytime i get imported liverock, not "wet base rock" they usually call "live rock". there is alot to be considered. but like i said, i dont know the fullest extent on whats going on, but im going to call him tomorrow and find out

Xster · Post by **Xster** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 8:10 am

reeferpuffer wrote:keep in consideration that he probbably figured out how much it really cost him in time, and how much the rock really cost, not to mention box charge, shipping rates, plus live rock has a security charge added also, and if he ordered it from wherever, he probably had to pay freight to LAX, cities per box charge,and clearance cost..all in all, he probably wound up paing close to 5 a lb considering it was shipped to the nearest airport. thats the crap i have to pay everytime i get imported liverock, not "wet base rock" they usually call "live rock". there is alot to be considered. but like i said, i dont know the fullest extent on whats going on, but im going to call him tomorrow and find out

I am pretty sure all LFS's incur these types of costs, but you have to wonder...How are other LFS's, while incurring the same costs, have cheaper, decent looking live rock for sale?

When I first set up my current tank, I made a deal with my LFS. I was not able to "cherry" pick my rock, but received the live rock "as is" and unpacked straight from the airport. My total cost (Fiji, Tonga branch, and Tonga shelf) per pound was around $3.00 / lb. I am pretty sure that my LFS did not lose money on that deal.

reeferpuffer · Post by **reeferpuffer** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 6:53 pm

it all depends on where you get it. some companies can get it real cheap, others on the other hand may get screwed by the company they purchase it from..like i said, it all depends on how much it "really" cost him to get it. im going to end this thread by saying he has a reason, and mark isnt the kind of guy to screw someone.

Brandon · Post by **Brandon** » Wed Mar 31, 2004 9:37 pm

Just FYI: I asked Rich@progressive his prices for live rock today. $5/lb for Fiji, $5.25 for Tonga Branch and $5.75 for a few premium pieces. He had a few really nice big pieces that I wouldn't have minded having. It looked pretty good, his live rock bin was pretty full at the moment.

Post by **snoopdog** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:16 pm

This hobby cost too much as it is. In time any rock in a reef tank will look good. You can take a piece of dry base rock put it in a tank and 5 years later it will be covered in life. On the same note you can put live rock in your tank covered in life and what will live will make it, the rest will die.

Post by **snoopdog** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 8:00 pm

Keep in mind people this entire topic is for people to recognize a good vendor from a bad vendor and your experiences. The whole point of this forum is for us to learn from each other. Keep it clean, no personal attacks, attack the vendor.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:33 am

Edited for content.

Tough day at Amazon's River

Tough day at Amazon's River

amazon's....