Faruk Gençöz

Roland, thank you for the answer.

I may be asking too much but I am strongly interested in the policies and social trends in the field. Do you have any idea why there is a trend going downward? And why are you hopeful that in time this trend will change in the positive direction?

lorba

Hi Faruk, no problem with the questions. However, what I am saying are just my personal opinion, it may not reflect the truth.

In Singapore, there use to be a healthy number of about 150+ shops. When the flowerhorn fish craze landed in Singapore, there was a sudden surge in the number of shops (300-400), causing the price of tanks, stands, cabinets etc to plunge rapidly. To grab the piece of cake, everybody slashes equipment price as the fish fetches good margins. The introduction of cheap china brands probably make things worse.

Eversince the flowerhorn fever subsided, many shops closed down. The freshwater hobby left the impression of tank+fish+blackjavafern-onwood in the mind of many people. The prices never went up again and most planted shops do not have expensive fishes now to help them with the upkeeping. Not many people will spend more then S$5 on a single piece of fish because you can't figure out lottery numbers from their body.

Plants are not really expensive here and they are quite readily available. With everything in low margin, and with most of the shops competing to attract customers with low price, it is without doubt that those with less financial backing will fall. On top of these, with the widespread of Internet trading, most hobbyists grow and sell among themselves. The shops can only hope to sell cambobas and hardy hygrophilas to the old aunties and uncles who doesnt expect much. With high rents, low margin for practically everything, I expect more will steer to selling higher margin products or be closing.

However, the planted hobby's been around for so long. I am sure there will be a rebounce. Its just a matter of time.

Faruk Gençöz

Thanks for the explanations. It seems that the balance point of the industry can be disturbed easily. As I said the balance point can be supported by the shop owners but most of them don't have a vision. Many of them don't want to predict the future from the trends. As for the intelligent hobbyists we have the internet power and capacity to exchange. But our number is not so much in fact. Huge number of hobbyists at the beginning level do not have vision as well and kill many living species sold by the shop owners that don't have vision. So it is a vicious cycle and the bill is paid by living species. These are my opinions on the basis of the trade here in Turkey. Most of the species are imported from Singapore and we kill those species with Chinese products.

lorba

I somehow believe that the Internet Users takes up just only this small portion of the market. But I am not sure why many businesses are complaining about internet.

The lack of display tanks and general knowledge in keeping a planted tank is also a critical issue. I am always wondering why aren't there an public aquarium here in Singapore, where we export so much plants and fishes.

Tankman

It's the same here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lots of LFS personnel do not really know much about the plants they sell. I get all the information i can from sites like these.

bluedescada

I completely agree with Mr. Gençöz. Here in Turkey,if you want to be an aquarist,first you have to face with the local petcenters and their rude owners. Every aquarist has a story in the way like that.