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You can pay month to mont, 2 months in advanced, 3 months in advance. I can appreciate breeding might be only a 1 month venture at a time.. hence the month to month.
Hey Shawn,

So basically when a breeder needs to thin out their breeding stock. They can subscribe for 1 month and sell their stock (which may only only take 1-2 weeks but 15 bucks a month is nothing if you plan to sell example 50 of something for 1.25 or more) and the months after as you build back your stock you don't need to subscribe until your stock builds up again and your ready to sell. Am I getting this right?
 
Discussion starter · #22 ·
Hey Shawn,

So basically when a breeder needs to thin out their breeding stock. They can subscribe for 1 month and sell their stock (which may only only take 1-2 weeks but 15 bucks a month is nothing if you plan to sell example 50 of something for 1.25 or more) and the months after as you build back your stock you don't need to subscribe until your stock builds up again and your ready to sell. Am I getting this right?
Yes if it's something you plan to do on a regular basis then this is correct.
 
Yes if it's something you plan to do on a regular basis then this is correct.
Since that is the case IMHO I think this is an awesome idea and is headed in the right direction but still needs some tweaking. This would have also prevented some people from being forced into being sponsors in the past.
 
Not that I am a breeder, or sponsor but just interested in this thread. I would classify myself as a hobbyist since I only sell some plants or shrimps, fish every now and then when they over populate tanks.

Though I think there needs to be ground rules and classification to what is a sponsor and what is a breeder.

For example does a breeder have an Internet business? A website that sells equipment/livestock/plants? Is a basement breeder a sponsor? Does a sponsor have to have a store front? A registered name/trade name is a sponsor or breeder? If a breeder is on a month to month basis for 1-2 years, that is steady revenue, should it be converted to a sponsor? And if some have employees/partners are they breeders or sponsors?

In my opinion a sponsor and breeder is really a grey area and rules need to be established.

I really like BCA and would like to see something good turns out in shawn's efforts.
 
Not that I am a breeder, or sponsor but just interested in this thread. I would classify myself as a hobbyist since I only sell some plants or shrimps, fish every now and then when they over populate tanks.

Though I think there needs to be ground rules and classification to what is a sponsor and what is a breeder.

For example does a breeder have an Internet business? A website that sells equipment/livestock/plants? Is a basement breeder a sponsor? Does a sponsor have to have a store front? A registered name/trade name is a sponsor or breeder? If a breeder is on a month to month basis for 1-2 years, that is steady revenue, should it be converted to a sponsor? And if some have employees/partners are they breeders or sponsors?

In my opinion a sponsor and breeder is really a grey area and rules need to be established.

I really like BCA and would like to see something good turns out in shawn's efforts.
Yes I think that is the tricky grey area.

Also, say you are the type of hobbyist/breeder as above. Once every 2 months you might have an overstock of shrimpies and need to sell. So you pay for the month you are selling on the "Breeder Thread". What happens to your posts when you don't pay for the month thereafter? I personally think it should get deleted since if not, essentially you pay for one month of "advertising" and posting on a premium thread, but that post lasts beyond that one month period so anyone can PM directly to inquire.
 
One thing that everyone needs to realize is that this is a "new" feature we are adding and it will need some tweeking as far as rules go as we go on.

In my mind a breeder is someone who has multiple tanks setup for the sole purpose of breeding to resell. With the new breeder section there is no partnerships allowed, one subscription for one member.

A sponsor would be someone who is running a business, pays taxes on what they sell, has a storefront or internet store. With the sponsorship you are allowed to do way more and have a partner.

A hobbyist is someone who may have a few tanks and once in a blue moon something happens to breed so you decide to sell off the extra stock(no fee)

This is where our jobs get to be more involved. Obviously if you are a hobbyist and
and your over run with guppy's you can post them for sale here without paying the breeder fee. We just have to keep an eye out for those that end up doing this often, as if your selling fish often then obviously your a breeder of said fish and not just a hobbyist.

As for this whole thing being a cash grab thats a joke. Shawn in putting this in to further move the site forward and this is something that members have been asking to be put in place. Ya sure there are lots of forums out there where you don't have to pay to sell stuff but again as Shawn stated earlier, not too many forums out there give away stuff like we do. What I find funny is we are essentially providing a free forum for the everyday hobbyist and people gotta complain. If the owners of the site happen to make a couple extra dollars then so be it, they deserve it. Some really don't have a clue just how much work Shawn does behind the scenes. Now as far as I know the majority of the revenue generated goes back into the site through prizes and whatnot and the dinner the mods get once a year(which has only been the last 2 years) and heck we deserve it too, being a mod does take up our time and we do volunteer that time. We do our best to try and keep the majority happy while enforcing the rules of the board.

Now back to the new breeder program, as you can see from some of the posts here it seems to me that the majority thinks this is a good idea for the site and the members that are on the fence or against it need to understand that this is a new feature and it will need tweeking as we go along and we will do our best to make sure all concerns and ideas are heard. For those that are dead set against it and call it a cash grab and whatnot and say they are unhappy here then they do know where the door is and don't let it hit ya on the way out. When moving forward your always gonna leave someone behind
 
Discussion starter · #27 ·
I personally think it should get deleted since if not, essentially you pay for one month of "advertising" and posting on a premium thread, but that post lasts beyond that one month period so anyone can PM directly to inquire.
I had similar thoughts, i was thinking of doing a auto delete threads after a certain time frame, but will still have to think about how to do it exactly.

Though I think there needs to be ground rules and classification to what is a sponsor and what is a breeder.
I have asked our best writers on staff to write up some definitions to clarify it better then what i previously wrote
 
Just wanted to take an opportunity to thank Shawn for all his efforts and time spent both developing and improving BCAquaria. I am a little disappointed to see members challenging this new idea, let alone breaking down what earnings may or may not be generated from such an idea. I see no problem charging to advertise fish for sale. Breeders do so both for interest and usually for some sort of monetary return, even if it is just to feed their hobby. Individual intentions are irrelevant, selling something that someone produces is a business.
 
tho it makes sense
15 sponsors x 380/year - 475 per month, give 100 of that back to the sponsors via gift certificates that will buy merchandise with a profit margin attached to it, and your left with 375/month beer money.. not bad, doesnt even include the advertisements or donators.

might as well charge for people to sell used equipment too since that also competes with sponsors
I think you're forgetting the 5+ years I've run BCA for free out of MY own pocket before Shawn came into the picture. While everyone seemed to be cashing in on my website selling their goods and profiting off my penny. I don't mind people trading or sharing good deals. But when people are importing or purposely breeding to to resale it becomes somewhat unfair to us admins as owners. We all are in the hobby. We all want to recoupe our funds too. I would like to recoupe funds for my time I spent to build this site. Say we do pocket more money, am I not entitled to do so for my efforts over MANY years.

$475 a month minus giveaways, hosting, software licences, upgrades, staff incentives, bca gathering maybeeee we're left with a couple hundred SPLIT two ways. If this were strictly a business to us, $100ish/month is a waste of time for the amount of time required to maintain this website. I think I've taken maybe $300ish the last 4-5 months. This website definitely sure is NOT a cash grab for me. I can definitely think of better ways to make money than running this site.

Don't think that running a site is easy and trouble free. You may or may not have been around when hackers repeatedly spammed our board with porn ads. Not to mention servers crashes and database crashes. Etc etc.

Thats my 2 cents
 
so if someone breeds but also has a website and offers shipping to anywhere in Canada are they a breeder or are they a sponsor, because thats where my complaint came from in the complaints section. There are a few who seem to slide under the radar and have all the above and still dont pay anything. way more then my 2 cents, sorry if it seems like Im bitching about the services being offered, shawn.
 
Seems like a great service to me. Before breeders complained about sponsorship costs being too heavy for the cyclic nature of their operations. With the way this service is charged that eliminates that excuse.

I in no way see it as a cash grab. Websites may seem cheap to some, but when a site's popularity grows, so does the demand on the server so you'll need much improved servers to host your sites and that cost is a premium.

On top of that sponsors do exist on this site so it seems fair the smaller scale breeders should have some sort of fee. The way i see it if you sell 30 fish in a month, that is $0.50 a fish. If that cuts into your profit margins then you need to invest in better breed stock, or learn how to not undercut the crap out of your competition.

What it really seems like to me is the same people complaining. It comes down to people not wanting a hand in their pocket (greed). They avoid the tax man so they naturally want to avoid any form of fees. As nicklfire said, nothing is stopping you from using craigslist or kiji. As for people getting away with it already on the forums. They hardly do. The livestock section is mostly used for people selling fish because they are leaving the hobby, downsizing tanks, or switching species. Very few sell fish they breed, and the majority of those who do sell fish that are $3 in a local fish shop, hardly the breeds that breeders should focus on.

As for suggestions i would say breeder subscriptions should not be allowed to link/advertise their website in their signature or in the posts if they have a breeding site set up. That should define the gray area between sponsorship and breeder.
 
maybe im just oblivious to some of the larger breeders out there i can only think of one, if theyre making alot of money then sure they should pay for advertising... i just dont want to be lumped in with them as a hobbiest with only 1 tank that will likely have lots of fry being produced, and not in spurts, small numbers every month, its the nature of the fish. and with the amnt of food these pigs eat and the amount of buffers im using i wont make anything, i might recover some of what i spend maintaining the colony.

similiar to petah's cyps, 5 fry once a month, its constant but not exactly 100 fry x 10 bucks each
 
Well mferko you can advertise on buysell or sell to petshops. As sean said continue on freshwater classified and they will tell you if you Have met your limit. You may never have to.
 
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