17 replies to this topic

[CoolColJ]

drats I was thinking of getting some nests from them...

 

https://www.instagra...y=antsaustralia

Edited by CoolColJ, March 13 2018 - 9:03 PM.

[T.C.]

That's unfortunate. They where making good stuff.

[FeedTheAnts]

Whaaaaaaat!!!! I was so looking forward to buying some of their acrylic nests, they were awesome.

[CoolColJ]

Whaaaaaaat!!!! I was so looking forward to buying some of their acrylic nests, they were awesome.

 
So was I
 
I've looked around at alternatives, and some of the Chinese ones look good
 
been thinking of getting this, long term hydration, outworld, and nest path blocks, the smallest blocked path size can even be used as a founding chamber
 
https://www.aliexpre...70ed864ef&tpp=1

Edited by CoolColJ, April 11 2018 - 2:31 PM.

[antnest8]

why is it shutting down? is it permanent?

[antnest8]

i just looked ant is says its getting a restructure. wonder what that means

[drtrmiller]

There's 24 million people living in Australia.  By comparison, there are nearly 21 million people living in the state of Florida, and 36 million in all of Canada.  Consequently, you have basically a couple hundred or so antkeeping customers in all of Australia—in a good year.  All your potential business consists of international exports.

 

In my view, the business decision to export individual orders, as opposed to partnering with local distributors, severely dampened demand for Aus Ants products due to high shipping costs and long transit times.  From personal experience, my own sales would have been cut by more than half had I not stocked products locally in Europe, Canada, and Australia last year.  The vast majority of international customers purchasing my products locally would not have done so if they had needed to pay for international shipping.

 

Right after Aus Ants opened, I offered to partner with them in the same way I've done with dspdrew to help him sell his Dirt Boxes.  Drew gets pretty much all the profits from those boxes sold on Amazon.  Aus Ants declined my offer, indicating they were content with their current business model, which involved exporting all international orders directly from Australia.

 

I liked the work I was seeing from Jordan, and wish him and his crew the best going forward.

Edited by drtrmiller, April 8 2018 - 6:13 PM.

[CoolColJ]

why is it shutting down? is it permanent?

 

They aren't making enough money to maintain staff and so on I guess

 

I ordered some stuff from them a few weeks ago, and it took days for them to process the simple order, when they promised same day processing and next day delivery. Well it took longer than that.

I had to message their Facebook page to get the order rolling.

Ordered on February 26th, received on 1st March - and I payed for express post.

So I was a bit annoyed

 

Guess that hinted at what was to come.

 

I cancelled a size 1 Ytong nest from that order, in hindsight, I wish I had kept it now

Edited by CoolColJ, March 14 2018 - 1:48 PM.

[Penguin]

It's kind of sad, I was hoping to buy some of their stuff. The YTONG formicariums looked good to me.  I hope that they may come back soon.

[CoolColJ]

It's kind of sad, I was hoping to buy some of their stuff. The YTONG formicariums looked good to me.  I hope that they may come back soon.

 

They hinted they might sell some stuff on Ebay

[Serafine]

Antshops outside of Europe are in a pretty awful place right now. There's enough people to create a high initial demand (and of course most people want to have their order delivered INSTANTLY because people got used to getting everything they want on the next day thanks to amazon prime) but not enough people to create a sustained demand over the months and years to keep that production capacity floating. The only solution to this dilemma is to keep production capacities at a low level that is sustainable even if that means you can't fulfill demands immediately - and I'm pretty sure that this is exactly what AntsCanada is doing and that it is no coincidence nor sign of logistic incompetence that their formicaria orders often have a 2-3 months waiting list.
The international antkeeping community is a very very young community and even in Europe where antkeeping has been a thing for decades antkeeping stuff is just now starting to appear (more or less) regularly on insect and reptile conventions. In North America that will probably take another 10 to 20 years to happen. Antkeeping is still super niche.

Edited by Serafine, March 15 2018 - 12:19 AM.

[CoolColJ]

Well China has the population size, so they are their own economy, so that's where you will see a lot of stuff come from, and they have cheap labour and production costs

[CoolColJ]

https://www.facebook...YomTehE&fref=nf

 

 

Great news! 😁 Our ‘Aus Ants’ ant keeping store is officially re-opening! Here’s a look at what’s to come - one of our new specially designed outworlds!

We are now no longer selling our products through our existing online store, but rather through various participating retailers. Our first of which is ‘Ant Keeping Depot’, an Australian owned and operated ant keeping supply outlet! You can check them out here - antkeepingdepot.com

For more info, we can now be found at our temporary web address - antsaustralia.net (as we’re currently having difficulty with our existing ‘ausants’ address).

Thank you all for your encouraging support during this tough period. It’s good to be back!

 

[PwnerPie]

Support your local distributors, do not import from China. Hard for local distributors to compete with Chinese pricing. 

[Barristan]

All the nests and Outworlds look great but they are so tiny you will have to build or buy larger ones quite soon.

[Canadian anter]

Support your local distributors, do not import from China. Hard for local distributors to compete with Chinese pricing. 

Personally I think that it's rather hard to do this when there's a 70$ price difference

[CoolColJ]

Support your local distributors, do not import from China. Hard for local distributors to compete with Chinese pricing. 

 

 

It's not so much about price in the mid range items, but design and features.

 

Also in large nest sizes, the Aus Ants ones are way too expensive compared to perception.

The way the prices scale in relation to nest size is a tad off.

 

$130AUD for size 6 acrylic nest, $150AUD for the Ytong, considering they are fairly bare bones, and come with no outworld is crazy

Length 236mm, Width 183mm for the acrylic one is not that large to be costing that much

The next size down is $90 and $100AUD respectively, quite a steep jump

Edited by CoolColJ, April 11 2018 - 1:53 PM.

[PwnerPie]

 

Support your local distributors, do not import from China. Hard for local distributors to compete with Chinese pricing. 

Personally I think that it's rather hard to do this when there's a 70$ price difference

 

Its tough for sure. Big issue is they can't lower the price without more sales. But that does seem crazy expensive for a basic ant nest, hopefully another company can come through that can make the same nests for cheaper (in AUS).

Keep in mind, no local producer will ever be able to produce at Chinese prices. Local producers have to pay a much higher minimum wage and are required to follow much better labor laws than what is required in China. Generally have a higher requirement for quality as well.

Edited by PwnerPie, April 12 2018 - 7:57 AM.