-Event- TCMAS Spring Expo - 3/21/26 - Minneapolis Airport DoubleTree (6 Viewers)

[KJoFan]

Is anyone else put off by seeing folks who are known vendors or buy for vendors swooping in and buying up multiple, if not all, of a given coral offered up by hobbyists in the Pre-sale thread?

Maybe this has always happened and I've just never noticed, but seems particularly obvious this time around. I'd much rather see hobbyist to hobbyist transactions happening, which I thought was the intent of forum pre-sales.

 

[spsick]

Is anyone else put off by seeing folks who are known vendors or buy for vendors swooping in and buying up multiple, if not all, of a given coral offered up by hobbyists in the Pre-sale thread?

Maybe this has always happened and I've just never noticed, but seems particularly obvious this time around. I'd much rather see hobbyist to hobbyist transactions happening, which I thought was the intent of forum pre-sales.

Oh fascinating. I’m guessing the clubs stance will be its sellers discretion but yeah that’s pretty cringe.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Is anyone else put off by seeing folks who are known vendors or buy for vendors swooping in and buying up multiple, if not all, of a given coral offered up by hobbyists in the Pre-sale thread?

Maybe this has always happened and I've just never noticed, but seems particularly obvious this time around. I'd much rather see hobbyist to hobbyist transactions happening, which I thought was the intent of forum pre-sales.

I haven't noticed it, but it could be that I still have trouble figuring out who's who. Is there a way to maybe let modmins/BOD know about it so a process can be thought out for it?

 

[Jposch]

Is anyone else put off by seeing folks who are known vendors or buy for vendors swooping in and buying up multiple, if not all, of a given coral offered up by hobbyists in the Pre-sale thread?

Maybe this has always happened and I've just never noticed, but seems particularly obvious this time around. I'd much rather see hobbyist to hobbyist transactions happening, which I thought was the intent of forum pre-sales.

I think it's an unwritten rule/moral standing to NOT do that, but TBH, the hobby/industry has become a big (try) to get rich scheme, and scrupulous behavior has taken a back seat or even gone out the window. Alot of my coral is from hobbyist frags. The dealer/"farmer" stuff is just not as hardy. That said, I don't go around scooping up all the killer deals on large colonies here or elsewhere.
Also, aquaculture is frowned upon by wholesalers. If you don't buy enough, often enough, turns out, they won't sell to you anymore. Lmao Hobbyist are the best place for me to get new coral.

 

[KJoFan]

I think it's an unwritten rule/moral standing to NOT do that, but TBH, the hobby/industry has become a big (try) to get rich scheme, and scrupulous behavior has taken a back seat or even gone out the window. Alot of my coral is from hobbyist frags. The dealer/"farmer" stuff is just not as hardy. That said, I don't go around scooping up all the killer deals on large colonies here or elsewhere.
Also, aquaculture is frowned upon by wholesalers. If you don't buy enough, often enough, turns out, they won't sell to you anymore. Lmao Hobbyist are the best place for me to get new coral.

I don't have any problem with vendors buying coral from hobbyists to grow and resell. We all do that, right?

It's the snapping up of multiple, or in some cases all of a given coral that is icky to me.

I'm sure sellers probably don't care because they just want to sell their livestock. I guess it's really just a moral/ethical issue for me.

 

[Jposch]

I don't have any problem with vendors buying coral from hobbyists to grow and resell. We all do that, right?

It's the snapping up of multiple, or in some cases all of a given coral that is icky to me.

I'm sure sellers probably don't care because they just want to sell their livestock. I guess it's really just a moral/ethical issue for me.

I agree with you. if it was buying the last frags the day before the show, that's a bit different. Especially if they are upfront about intentions. I mean, that's still aquaculture, and better than fresh cut, half dried glue chop chop stuff, but yeah. jumping in day 1...ugh
while I "whined" about sponsorship not including classifieds access, that was almost exclusively so I can buy everyone's used equipment. lol
like half of the equipment I use came from TCMAS members selling stuff. my personal rule is to not take anything Frag It Forward unless its super broken, and it's a bit of a question if someone should be paying to get rid of it. lol

 

[Reefer Oz]

The intent of the Pre-Sales Forum is to provide an additional platform of commerce at our show to our saltwater community at large. This greater community includes our club members, nonmembers, LFSs, suppliers and independent vendors. In any system of free enterprise, someone will catch a deal and someone else misses out on that opportunity. This will obviously bring about certain ethical and moral issues about who should participate and in what way.

The "fairness" of a free marketplace will always be up for discussion and debate. I reckon there are entire college course that do just that! But as a social club, just doing the best we can with our limited resources to build and maintain an active community of hobbyists, it doesn't seem we will solve any of these issues of economic fairness. So we all have to act along our own moral and ethical guidelines. If one believes a particular buyer is a vendor who plans to prices gouge the public at our show, don't buy from them. If one is vendor at our show and wants to try and buy up hobbyist stocks to price gouge at the show, that is their prerogative.

In theory, a free market has self regulating potential. TCMAS has done a good job of providing a platform of commerce for us to participate in. If anyone has suggestions on ways to better regulate it, please reach out to your @BOD.

Pre-Sales aside, we will have a bang up show in a couple weeks. So come on out and show your support of TCMAS and to the vendors you appreciate! Hope to see many of you there!

 

[zoolan70]

I don't have any problem with vendors buying coral from hobbyists to grow and resell. We all do that, right?

It's the snapping up of multiple, or in some cases all of a given coral that is icky to me.

I'm sure sellers probably don't care because they just want to sell their livestock. I guess it's really just a moral/ethical issue for me.

I think the best way to respond if you are put off by their pre-expo purchases is to not buy from them as a customer. It isn't something that the club can monitor or enforce, even if we wanted to.

 

[KJoFan]

I think the best way to respond if you are put off by their pre-expo purchases is to not buy from them as a customer. It isn't something that the club can monitor or enforce, even if we wanted to.

Well, I didn't buy from them, so that's covered. I also didn't ask for anything to be done about it. I simply asked if I was the only one put off by it, and wanted to bring it to light for awareness. It's a matter of ethics and proper form. Some people don't have it.

 

[OldNemo]

I’ve read the thread and share the same thoughts as @KJoFan. It doesn’t take a rocket science degree to see multiples of same corals snatched up by a couple individuals. Plus contrary to your non-response @zoolan70 I do think you can monitor and enforce but just not choose to do so. It’s sort of a double standard to post that individuals are not allowed to sell on the pre-swap forums and exchange at other locations or times other than the swap. It is a free market as has been stated in this thread but it is also obviously in the clubs best interest to ignore one and enforce the other.

I don’t know if @KJoFan was interested in one of the corals that was snatched up but there could be others that wanted to purchase them. It’s just really bad form and one easily monitored and addressed.

 

[spsick]

Did anyone ask the poor bloke instead of speculating and starting this conversation? I would agree with you if the answer to this question was known or if it was a bigger problem than a couple frogs amongst the hundreds that will be sold at the expo.

Reasons I personally would buy multiples of really nice frags at a good price at an out of state expo:

1- maybe I want to glue them together to get a colony going faster

2- maybe I want a back up in case one melts or falls on an LPS colony

3- maybe I want one for 2 systems for same reason as anove

4- maybe I hate ordering corals online and having them shipped to me

5- maybe I want to support hobbyists

As with any sales that happened through TCMAS, it’s totally sellers discretion. If I have a bunch of people asking for frags that a particular person has requested multiple of, I could tell that person they’re only getting one so I can spread the love, for example.

 

[spsick]

Mods (I’m not one anymore I guess) can we clean up this thread and move convo to business meeting topics? It’s not a great look on the event page…

Reminder members, constructive feedback on how the club is ran is best voiced in person at (very poorly attended) Business meetings. This is your club and if you feel strongly about it speak up. The BOD are volunteers putting forth a TON of effort to get these events off the ground.

 

[Varig]

Since I'm the one that has been posting a lot of the "sales must happen" at the expo posts, I guess it's on me to respond to why I would disagree about the "double standard" of choosing to enforce one and not the other. And hopefully (in my opinion at least) to provide a reason for why the rule is that the exchanges have to happen at the expo.

To answer the second point first, it's always been my understanding that the club has enforced that rule because we want people to come to the expo to support the vendors, not the club. The pre-sale forum is opened up to the public (not just TCMAS members/supports like the normal classifieds) to attempt to drive engagement and to bring more people to the expo in general, so that it can be a successful show for the vendors. Now, I can understand that this year, with the addition of the entry fee, that it could "seem" like this is in the interest of the club. And if this was the first year on record that we were enforcing the "sales must happen at the expo," then you would be very justified in your argument. But that rule has been enforced for years (I was even once the recipient of a hand slap "the sale MUST happen at the expo" when I tried to meet up with a member to exchange a large water tank, thinking it would save the trouble of bringing the tank to the expo). So to this point, I at least will continue to monitor and make sure that rule is clear and enforced, for the sake of our vendors and for the sake of making sure this is a great show.

Now, to the first point. I agree that at a high level it is relatively easy to monitor the posts and see if any one person is buying multiples of the same frag. However, I also agree with @spsick's post above regarding reasons that a person might choose to purchase multiples of a frag. The BOD does NOT know every single member posting/buying frags personally. I don't know if some of the people who are buying the frags are vendors, friends of vendors, or just random reefers looking for a great deal. I DO know that we have some very passionate reefers who are part of the club. I do know that some of those folks run multiple (3, 4, 5, 10? tanks). So my default is to give people the benefit of the doubt, that they're legitimately looking to purchase multiple frags to either kick-start larger colonies (as Ben mentioned) or to put in different tanks as backups (also as Ben mentioned), etc. So as a BOD/Moderator, is it reasonable for me to "accuse" someone of buying multiple frags that they're doing something wrong? Is it reasonable for me to PM every single person that posts to buy several frags, to grill them on why they could possible need more than one of a frag? I guess I would think not.

That being said, if you have suggestions on how we can better moderate the forum, I am definitely all ears. I absolutely do NOT want to shut this conversation down, I think it's good and healthy to talk about ways to make the Expo better, including the pre-sale forum. But I also agree with @spsick, that having this conversation as part of the event posting itself doesn't make sense. So I will look to start a new thread and will move the conversations over to that thread. Then we can absolutely continue to discuss.