Simply Koi and More Koi

I don’t want this to sound like an advert, as the pump range doesn’t hit the shelves until early next season. This is to ask you for your thoughts.

First I think I had better let you know about me. My name is John Moore and I’ve worked for nearly 25 years in the aquatic industry, I started part time is a small aquatic shop in Stafford (Aquapet) while I qualified at a joiner, I then worked for an aquatic wholesaler (Staffordshire Waterlife) this lead to a job at Hollybush Gc for 8 years. I then started out as a rep for Blagdon then onto OASE for 12 years through their heydays, after a year in the garden irrigation market I’ve recently joined Ubbink as their chief Water Garden expert. OK so you haven’t heard of Ubbink but we are the biggest company in the water gardening market that you’ve never heard of (so far).

Why this post and introduction? Well over here in the UK we’ll be launching our Powermax and Cascademax pumps to the trade over this winter, but we haven’t got a marketing research budget for this one range which is aiming for the Koi keepers and filter pump market. The pump range have been sold all over Europe for 5/6 years without any problems as it’s using a very similar Asynchronous motor to the ones you know already, my plan is to support the retailers rather than the mail order outlets offering them such a deal that they can sell out at the same price as the mail order outlets.

Currently mail order companies are carving up prices so much that some retailers can find cheaper pumps on ebay or the internet than they can get from their suppliers hence why so many koi retailers have disappeared since the internet boom. One mainstream £185+ pump is been sold on line at cost prices at present with free carriage, so no retailers would ever survive by stocking it range.

Now I know we all need a good deal and I’m no exception to the rule but without the koi retailers making money on dry goods they can’t be expected to survive buy just selling fish alone especially in these tight times. No koi dealers no hobby.

I’m working on a very basic web site over the next few days and I’ll be increasing it as and when I get time it will be available on http://www.thepowermax.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; We do not sell directly to you (sorry) but as and when retailers take on the pumps they will be added to a retailer list on the site.

Now I would totally understand it if the moderators take this post down, but Jules has given me the OK to post it up , but I feel that this range of
pumps are what most of you will need in the current climate as they are cheap(ish), very, very reliable, very tough, very simple, no fancy add ons, they are easy to maintain, internal or external use, 8mm solids handling with the case on, they all have hollow ceramic bearings, and the impellors can easily be taken out for full maintenance.

My question to you is
As no one offers a full 5-year guarantee unless you fill out a form (which very few do), our pumps currently come with the only full 5 year guarantee on the market, but to get it into the retailers they have asked for it to be dropped down to 3 years (in fact several asked for just a 12 month guarantee). Would you be bothered to pay a fiver or tenner more per year for the 4th and 5th year of the guarantee like you might with a plasma screen if you knew the product originally came with a 5-year guarantee anyway.

To give you some ideas the
The 3350lph would retail for around £100 and uses 68 watts
The 6550lph would retail for around £120 and uses 75 watts
The 8180lph would retail for around £140 and uses 95 watts
The 9550lph would retail for around £160 and uses 110 watts

Then the next step up would be the
Cascademax 12000 - 158watts - 4m head - approx £200 to £245
Cascademax 15000 - 210watts - 5m head - approx £220 to £270
Cascademax 18000 - 250watts - 6m head - approx £240 tp £295

Marketing question 2
If you could buy a product for the same price or just 5% more would you prefer to buy it from koi retailers or would you still want to get them from mail order companies?

Let me start the ball rollling.

In my experience, pumps die in their 2nd or 3rd year so anyone offering a 5 year guarantee is basically offering me 1 pump where normally I'd have to buy 2 (one now and one in 2.5 years time!) . So I appreciate that retailers see a 'never ending' guarantee as a risk / overhead but I think you need to convince them it is a real differentiator and even if your stuff does screw up after 2.5 years, it means their customers keep coming back even if your costs go through the roof. (So I guess the answer to your question 1 is yes, I'd pay more for an extended guarantee as long as it was not sold as one of those worthless extended guarantees you get on some white goods at great expense - so the challenge is to position it as low cost and worthwhile as opposed to high cost and not).

2nd question is tough. Typically I buy online for 3 reasons - it is much cheaper (often up to 50%) and it is easier, I order it now and it arrives tomorrow without me having to spend an hour or two going to a local dealer, plus I get choice online. If I decide an XYZ is the best UV/Pump/Media that is what I buy whereas when I go to a retail outlet it tends to be 'what UV/Pump/Media/whatever' do you have instock, if any....

So you may be doing yourself a disservice by excluding online but I agree that we will have no retail dealers left if we don't change something. EA controlled the market for sometime by only supplying dealers who agreed to protect the agreed margins, so online and retail where typically equal. I think you need a more sophisticated solution here, especially as many of the retail dealers also have mail order options....

Hope this helps, Martin

I agree with the point about a 5 year guarantee. I have paid more for a pump that I know will last rather than a cheaper one, a five year guarantee from the start certainly backs this up and I can't see why the dealers have a problem with this if you foot the repair/replacement costs?

When you do sell it the performance curves of the pump would be helpful too so you can easily see the expected turnover with various heads.

As to online I mainly shop online for the above reasons too. It's cheaper and easier. I can't see how you would stop retailers who also have online sales from selling the pump via both.

I use aquamax pumps exclusively so a 5 year guarantee is nothing new to me. Having said that I still have my first aquamax 5500 and it has been running for 6 years without a break

B.Scott

point 1/ offering a 5 year gaurantee does give the buyer some form of insurance and gaurantee that at least you expect your pumps to last 5 years without failure, but i personallly would not pay extra for an extended gurantee, as i beleive that most of the time the store is trying to rip you off!

point 2/ for £5-£10 i would go to a dealer- as often postage is added that defeats any online advantage.


generally though if you where selling today, i think i would still pay a little more and buy Oase Aquamax as they are tried and tested. and you are only undercutting them by a few pounds. Or get on ebay and buy a pump for a 1/3 of the price, admittedly no 5 year warranty, but little outlay is little risk on something new.

Hello John.

Bad news I'm afraid.I'm with Scott in using Aquamax pumps exclusively and I've got an old faithful 5500 as well that has refused to break way after the initial guarantee ran out.It's now semi ritired and waiting for a chance to save the day should the Aquamax Eco 12000 fail which I'm not expecting to happen any year soon.

You will have a very hard time competing with the Aquamax range in my opinion.Until these pumps get a reputation as good as the Oase range then you'll have to compete with them on the five year guarantee and sell at a substantially lower price than them as you're already losing on the power consumtion scale.

But good luck anyway.

Thanks for your help, I understand your loyalty to Oase as I worked for them for 12 years, but with constant..........................(that's enough John)

All I can say is our Powermax's and Cadcademax's are just as reliable across Europe as the Aquamax Start range and have been so for several year since they started making them, as they are built just the same IMHO. In fact the impeller's can be stripped down for servicing unlike the Aquamax's.
[img]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y23/Johncl ... CF0106.jpg[/img]
As for the flows I'll dig one out from the works server soon but they have more power then the Aquamax Start range but less than the Eco range. They will handle the same size solids as the Start range as well.

The "Start" range? Is that the original aquamax range with the 5,500 10,000 and 16,000? I will admit the fact that I can remove the impeller assembly from the body coil appeals to me. I always found that to be a downside to the normal aquamax range.

Moving on to another though. How do your range of pumps compare as far as the compatibility over the range with regards to connection to the pipe work goes. One of the things I love about the aquamax range is the ability to change out a 5,500, 16,000 for a 10,000 without changing any of the pipe work, The connection sizes and the body are the same size. This gives me as a ponder a great deal more versatility.

B.Scott

B.Scott wrote:The "Start" range? Is that the original aquamax range with the 5,500 10,000 and 16,000? I will admit the fact that I can remove the impeller assembly from the body coil appeals to me. I always found that to be a downside to the normal aquamax range.

Moving on to another though. How do your range of pumps compare as far as the compatibility over the range with regards to connection to the pipe work goes. One of the things I love about the aquamax range is the ability to change out a 5,500, 16,000 for a 10,000 without changing any of the pipe work, The connection sizes and the body are the same size. This gives me as a ponder a great deal more versatility.

B.Scott

Thanks for all your help and advice. The whole range used the same 1.5" intakes and outlets and you can strip them down without exposing the electical coils, which once they are opened damp gets in and rust starts to become a problem on some pumps. [url]http://www.thepowermax.co.uk/Strip%20down.html[/url]

The "basic" web site is up and running now, I've just checked back and I've still to edit one link my my work laptop battery died just before I could finish it

Please let me know what you think of it, but don't forget we are on a budget.

[url]http://www.thepowermax.co.uk[/url]

John The Powermax wrote:
Please let me know what you think of it, but don't forget we are on a budget.

[url]http://www.thepowermax.co.uk[/url]

Some things are not worth skimping on... a decent website is one such thing if you want to be taken seriously. I appreciate you might not have the budget of Oase and the like but it should be possible to at least make it look like you do when it comes to designing and building a website which is your shop window to the world. It shouldn't cost very much to get a more professional site up and running. A lot of the information you have on the site is confusing and the points you are trying to make lost because of the layout. To a certain extent your initial post on this board gives more information than the website.

Cheers for that.

I've updated the site to make it clearer and tried to simplify it a bit.

Does it do it for you?


I've got to propose it to the bosses next week, hence why I've been asking for your help before I show it to them and to try get the go ahead to spend some money on it

Hi John, good t see you on here.

I am looking to supply and install a pump that would compete with the OASE range. As you are aware OASE will not deal direct with me as I have no shop. I have a well established business and
have used the OASE range extensivley through out my years of pond construction. What would interest me would be to see one of your pumps working and compare the pump against an OASE pump
and compare the difference's. when are you aiming for release as I have 2 jobs coming up in September when I return to the UK that your pumps would work well on.

Contact me via PM and if we could chat let meknow as I am 9hrs ahead so it can be difficult to ring back.

Good luck with the venture it is always nice to see a new pump on the market that will challenge what is renown as a leader in the OASE range. Will you be making a pump to compete with the
30,000 promax? If not would you think about a conversion on 2 x 18,000 with a 2 inch outlet? I would find one of these usefull for when I do pond cleans and emptying ponds.

Kind regards

Jules

Hi Jules

Thanks for the reply, There should be no problem dealing with you directly but don't forget there are mimimum orders to make a delivery (as normal)

The black powermax's won't be available until the new year (until some of the blue ones have gone) - but we do have a few light blue cased (perfect for external use and in pond use if you can hide the colour) Powermax 5000's, 7500's, 10000's which we could offer to you at a silly price, or anyone else who wants them. The Cascademax are all available right now.

"What would interest me would be to see one of your pumps working and compare the pump against an OASE pump and compare the difference's". - There is no real differences over the reliable original range from OASE apart from having a bit more lift.

"Contact me via PM" - Will do

"Will you be making a pump to compete with the 30,000 promax"? - Sorry no, I know if I asked my boss he would say "how many could we sell? and to be honest we wouldn't sell many of them at all as there's not a big demand for that size pump where people could use 2 pumps to do the same job.

If not would you think about a conversion on 2 x Cascademax 18,000 with a 2 inch outlet? - OK so it's not as professional looking but 2 x 18,000's could be used with a standard 2" tee and hose fittings for a lot less money than the Promax

Cheers John.

Look forward to seeing your man sooner rather than later.

Jules

p.s. I am back in the UK sunday AM can your man come to me first thing Monday morning? Let me knowas I am flat out all week Nationwide for about 10 days after Monday.

Jules

So how do you plumb 2 pumps to avoid using 1 bigger one - fat pipe to T, 2 pumps in parallel to T then back to fat pipe? Read somewhere you get more flow if you plumb in series but cannot see it myself.

Martin