Southdown available online

[badpacket]

Hey All,

I'm not a shill for this guy, but he has Southdown available online, and is only charging $10 per bag plus s/h.

Also, FedEx is usually cheaper than UPS, my gf had to school -me- on that...

S/H for 50# Southdown, Hartford Conn to SF Bay area:

UPS Ground ( 7-10 days) - $44
FedEx (5 days) - $32

Final cost- $10 + $32= $42 /50 = $0.84/lb

Might not work for everyone, but at least the guys not trying to rip anyone off.

http://www.justphish.com/

PS. Check his discussion board for details on ordering the sand: http://www.justphish.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=9


Hope this helps someone

[cve]

What a ripoff!!! I should think about going into business for myself when I see something like that. I wish I had the time and send the bags myself to those that needed them. My local Home Depot still has a pallet of the stuff for less than $3 a bag.

[badpacket]

A ripoff?

>I wish I had the time and send the bags myself to those that needed them. <

Come on, lets be real here. The guy makes $7 profit on a bag.
Now, having to move 50# bags of sand from HomeDepot to my car, to my house/business, and then out to UPS is a fair bit of sweat equity. I wouldn't do it for $7/bag.

And, I talked to the owner, and he's apparently driven around Conn. to find it.

The guy is a fulltime Firefighter, and runs his hobby on the side.

There are enough instances where one can call 200-300% markup a ripoff. For the pittance the guy makes off a sale of one bag, I hardly call charging what amounts to $0.14/lb a ripoff.

You -don't- have the time to spare, but profess to want to do it for free? Man, some people are so hypocritical.

[JustPhish]

Man I really hate having to defend myself because some people don't know how a for profit business works. Then there are others who feel only they have the right to earn money and the rest of should rot in hell for trying to put food on the table.

Let's break this down. The bags here cost me $4.27 per bag pre tax. Add 6% sales tax and we get $4.52. The sell the bags for $10 each which leaves a difference of $5.48 per bag.

Now let's break it down and see what we have left. The boxes they are shipped in cost $.93 each. That leaves us at $4.55 per bag. The shipping to get a bundle of 25 boxes to my door costs me $14. That means we need to add another $.56 cents to the cost. Now we're at $3.99 left net profit per bag. Now packing the bag. A 21 cubic foot bag of environmentally friendly packing peanuts costs me $9 per bag. Shipping is another $10 because of an oversized product. Each box of sand probably contains 2 cubic feet of these peanuts adding another $.90 to each bag of sand. That leaves us at $3.09

Now let's assume, before factoring in any of the other costs that you ordered three bags at $10 and the shipping was $32 per bag. That gives us a total of $126. I have just made a cool $9.27. But wait, you paid me via your credit card. Now I run it and must pay 3.0% on your order, maybe more depending on which card you used. 3% of $126 is $3.78 which means I made myself $5.49 total. Hmmm a supersized big mac meal here costs $5.50 after taxes. Maybe my wife, son and I can split it.

That's still not breaking it down to what it really costs me. The last of the sand could only be located at a Depot over an hour away. They had 50 bags. I drive two hours round trip to load my 93 geo prizm with 14 bags a time which is all I believe I can safely haul with my son in the car. This means I made 4 trips = 8 hours. An entire work day for those with a 9-5. Gas here is $1.59 per gallon for 87 octane. I can assure you I am getting less than peak mpg with a 9 year old car dragging 700lbs of sand, 30lbs of son, and 230lbs of me across the state at 70 miles an hour.

I'm really sorry that I have to be this way. I apologize profusely. I'm just tired of people calling me a ripoff without thinking what actually goes into it. CVE could you please tell me what is so bad about trying to earn an honest living? As a matter of fact, I bet I am losing on the sand. 8 hours of my day is worth way more that $10 a bag alone, nevermind a few bucks before breaking it down all the way.

If this was such a money making scheme I'm surprised you haven't jumped on the bandwagon to make your millions off the backs of the poor fish people by selling southdown sand for $10 a bag. Why don't you do it you say? What's that? Oh, you don't have the time. No problem.

Badpacket, I appreciate your effort. Thank for everything. Unfortunately you can see it's like talking to a wall though. The people who feel it's worth it will buy it. Those who don't won't be forced to buy it. BTW, if your girlfriend has a FedEc account number and gets a discount for shipping I can use that to give you a break on the shipping.

Sorry folks.

JP

[slipknottin]

hello JustPhish, welcome aboard.

you can be sure that most of us dont feel your ripping people off with the sand. Its still cheaper than buying that "agramax agronite" sand, so what is there to complain about.



BTW, the cleanup crew i ordered from you a month ago is doing great, the peppermints got huge.

[gcvt]

Speaking as someone living on the west coast, where Southdown is not available, I would have had no problem paying those prices when I was setting up my big tank...no problem at all.

[JustPhish]

Hi folks, thanks for the support. Sometimes a few can bring me down no matter how many are trying to keep me up. One of my (many ;) )faults I guess.

Never heard of this board until I saw that it was sending folks to my site. Had to investigate and see what all the hub bub was about. Looks like I should stock around some more.

TTYL

BTW, is my website URL allowed in my sig? I didn't want to put it in there in case it was against the rules.

Thanks

[slipknottin]

you are allowed to have it in your sig. Your not allowed to post threads giving off your name, but if someone asks for a place to buy something, go ahead and give them the link. Weve been doing it for awhile now :D

[cve]

Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers everyone, I figured they bought in bulk and turned it around much easier than what justphish is doing...You are a better man than I.

[lebloom]

If you want aragonite sand real cheap go to purearagonite.com. I paid $100 for 200# including shipping. Iv'e got a real nice sand bed in my 75gal tank. Forget Home Depot.

[badpacket]

Originally posted by lebloom
If you want aragonite sand real cheap go to purearagonite.com. I paid $100 for 200# including shipping. Iv'e got a real nice sand bed in my 75gal tank. Forget Home Depot.

As JustPhish mentioned to me, if you are ordering more than 1 bag at one time, FedEx lowers the rate for some reason.

JustPhish, sorry but GF says shipping FedEx ground is the cheapest. However, if you sign up for an account with FedEx, you get 10% of s/h with a personal or business account.


HTH

[JustPhish]

I have a FedEx account number but discounts are not applied to multi package ground shipments unless they total over 250lbs. That's why I asked if you girlfriend has an account maybe she gets a better discount and I would send it via hers to give you a break.