Yesterday I visited a couple of shops in Hastings to top up my bait supply. Like most on here, it's my guess we all like to keep a fair supply on hand. I can't recall the last time I purchased bait, this because I have spent several months travelling overseas, but at a guess it was early last year.
I have always written on this site my preferred choice of bait is anchovy. With the head removed to allow the gut cavity juices to leach out, they rarely let me down and I have yet to hear a fish complain. Again I can't recall how much I last paid for a kilo packet packet of anchovies but I was surprised to discover they are now being sold at $9.00 a packet ... ouch!!!
Hang on, worse was to come. I was pleasantly surprised two days ago to catch a small snapper, this especially as my target was a far larger quarry. As I had several takes that afternoon I thought I would try again last evening, only this time with a rig purpose built for pan sized snapper.
With this in mind my plan was to use another favourite bait: Bonito. Now here I was really in for a shock. The bonito being offered by retailers were obviously quite old. There was virtually no sheen on the skin and in many places the skin was missing leaving just bare flesh, plus they had large areas of freezer burn. If all this wasn't bad enough the price was: $14.00 ... Ouch.
Perhaps I am old fashioned in my thinking, I will leave it to the reader to decide whether I am on the right track or not. It is when I go to a shop to buy bait I always browse around the shelves and take the opportunity to top up on previously lost terminal tackle. Occasionally I may come across an item of considerable expense and it's only been brought to my attention because I have gone to buy bait.
Having worked for many years in the retail trade, including senior management level, the use of loss leaders is common practice, these are to attract customers through the doors of the shop. This is done knowing a high percentage of customers would purchase other goods at the more usual margin. The word 'loss' is simply an expression, the item still shows a margin but smaller than usual.
It's my thought, rightly or wrongly, larger companies could use this idea; lower the price of frozen bait and attract more customers through the door. Would this work? Well yesterday, although the bonito stayed in the shop's freezer, I refuse to pay that money for what were described as 'Medium Size' in fact they were very small. However, I did buy anchovies and my total account came to $58.00. The rest was made up of terminal tackle to make good my recent losses.
Competition among local sports shop can best be described as keen. Even with the imminent demise of one large retail chain, there are still plenty of sports shops in Napier/Hastings to choose from. With regard to the chain reported to be closing. If a particular shop is showing itself to be capable of showing a good turnover, it is highly likely it will be offered for sale as a going concern. It may not 'Bite the Dust'.
So come on you guys involved in sports retail, I am confident there must be one of you who is prepared to dangle a bait carrot to attract anglers who may well buy a lot more than they came in the shop to purchase. There are certainly many cheap bait opportunities on Trademe, how about catching up?
**** Footnote **** For those of you who believe Hangler is having another controversial moan, I urge you to consider this. I know of several anglers, my Grandsons included, who purchase their pilchards etc from the local garage, they don't bother to visit a sports shop. The number of garages, supermarkets and dairies that now offer a small selection of bait is growing. Every angler who supports any of these retail outlets is not buying other items for their tackle box. I respectfully suggest you are losing a lot of trade and it's there for the taking. All you need to do is drop the margin you wish to make on bait.
Pillys are too big or too small . Used to shake my head at the odd person who would rant about the size of the available bait . The size is what was caught... its not like they have the things in pens to be harvested when they reach a certain size .
The shops are simply ordering it by the kg . When stocks run low from the trawlers you get what you can .Small large freezer burnt ones its a case of buy that or have nothing to sell .
Hi guys, up here in Auckland, every garage, dairy, fishing shop, and supermarket sells bait. Oh, and the warehouse as well. Some of it is rubbish, and the rest is just bad. I don't see that we, as buyers have options. Sure, I'd like to catch my own, but not usually possible land based, whatever the mags., say. Perhaps instead of putting the small k's back we should keep them for bait? Your right, lets not go there. I think, as surfcasters, who are used to putting up with mother nature in all her glory, we can bling up a grotty pilchard. Cost???? it's still cheaper than gas. PS would there be any retailers prepared to respond???
I look at it that bait is just another expense for a Sport that I love. If I played Golf, Raced Motor Cars, or most other sports there are costs involved so if I want to catch fish I know that I just have to buy bait. Otherwise stay at home and watch fishing shows on TV.
This is a sale on Trademe this evening. This is for 10kg of frozen pilchards in 1kg packs. They went for $40.00, only $4.00 a kg, about half of what local shops Napier/Hastings are selling them for. Of course there is postage or courier to be added, $20.00, so that equals $6.00 a pack, still a good money saver and for a quality product.
So come on you guys that work in sports shops, how about trying to match the catch, your customers deserve better. They are the guys who buy rods, reels and the tackle to fit them out.
***Copied from the advert.***
These are 1st grade pilchards, they are freeflow so you can take as many out as you want without defrosting the whole lot.
Pick up or couriered within the North Island only, no rural delivery, Fastway will deliver in 48 hours to all destinations close to all main centres.
Will come delivered frozen in a poly bin worth $14 which you get to keep.
A famous expression: It takes a sprat to catch a mackerel. In this case pilchards or anchovies will do just fine.
Well Hangler I will take the bait, I agree with you to a certain degree as Neil said you order it and it arrives. We have no control of the condition or the price. Supermarkets and gas stations get a far better deal than the tackle shops. As for the cost have you looked at your power bill lately, insurance wages etc. If your shop has a constant high turnover of bait I would lower my prices, but our weather seems to control that side of things. As for the guys in Auckland you are spoilt for choice your are way better off than you realise. Hangler you mention FCO leaving town and what is its reason for leaving, NOT ENOUGH PROFIT down by 45% and they have clever bastards running there deal, not dumb ass passionate people like me. We live and work in a different world of high costs and overheads and backyard dealers. If you cutout your local retailers and shop on Trademe dont exspect special treatment from any retailer. If you support them they normally respond in kind.
Phill, I agree with most everything you have written. However, my suggestion at reducing the price of bait to act as a draw card for customers to come through the door to purchase other products is based on solid ground.
With all the articles and products sold in a sports shop, I cannot see reducing the profit margin on one product being a bad thing, especially if it encourages more customers to frequent a store, and they in turn buy a few articles of terminal tackle at normal retail margins.
Now in all fairness I have no idea of the competition you face, yes I use your online order system but I do not know the area where you operate from, or the competition you face. Here in Hawke's Bay there are no end of sports retail outlets, all charging much the same price for bait ... too much.
I feel it fair to tell you I ran the sports department of Stirling sports for three months so I am very aware of the mark up on fishing gear. I have no intention of repeating them on here, but I do know there is room for movement.
I used the local FCO store on the weekend, their bait prices were so high I walked out and returned to another shop. The woman in the store asked me if I was a club card holder, I replied no, I am a cash customer, she told me as such she was unable to reduce the price of the goods I was willing to purchase. This lady just couldn't see she was losing my money (cash) from her day's takings ... FCO's loss, another shop's gain. Had she reduced the price of the bait by a couple of dollars she would have put $58.00 in her cash register. Sorry, I think such a system of retail is damn silly but the other shop I visited was very happy.
When in retail, too long ago for me to willingly recall, I was trained under the maxim, through this door walk the most important people in the world, our customers, sadly now long forgotten. I was also taught when we had a promotion, every customer was made aware that product was on special. A notice on the counter suggesting that anyone who purchases $10.00 worth of terminal tackle can buy pilchards at few dollars off could work wonders for sales.
Salesman and women were trained in those days, I served an indentured apprenticeship. I can assure you this sort of salesmanship works, it's called personal service. You may offer this service in your business, sadly shops here in the bay do not.
que the violins. Well put Phill. Hangler catch your own like gary said if you percieve the costs to be too expensive. For your information, the margins in bait are FACT minimal. How much information are you going to get out of rag sangakara at your local quikiemart or servo????. Oh but you seem to know everything about whats biting where anyway…. Your last comment in the previous post i take total exception to. You know where i am….I dont hide.
I seem to think the cost of bait is reasonable when you look at the price of "fresh" fish from the supermarket that isn't quite fresh I see it as a small price to pay for a great day or night out doing what you love.
Snappa, I have no idea where you are or who you are, such is the joy of anonymity.
At last a thread that has stirred this message board into life, I enjoy reading all the comments, including your musings.
If as you say the margins on bait are very low, I can only assume the outlet selling 1st grade pilchards at $4.00 a kilo will not be around for much longer. I will get in cahoots with my relations (almost wrote Whanau) and buy a box to share between us.
From a personal perspective I note that everyone who has posted is so busy trying to shoot the messenger (you all missed) that none have made comment on the actual message: the idea of using bait as a promotion to sell more tackle.
I would like to catch or gather my own bait but as yet I have not discovered a way or the whereabouts of anchovies ... any ideas? I would like to catch a few bonito but the boat hire fees would be a bit exorbitant to make for a successful and economic end result.
Snappa, any idea where to buy reject crayfish tails, I understand these are quite hot for bait.
Now here is just one last thought and it's perfectly in tune with the reasoning behind this thread. When I visit my supermarket, very often they have green prawns that are a little past or on their use by date. They sell these at well under half their normal price and they make for good bait as they are natural tucker. If we relate this snippet to what is above, by buying those prawns I am not visiting my tackle shop, I am not browsing the shelves and my money is not going into their cash register.
Now if you can just hold off reloading the gun for personal assassination then you just may get the drift of what I am suggesting: improving turnover and making loyal customers happy. Regardless of the margins, I can't see knocking a three or four dollars off a packet of bait is going to drive any company bankrupt, you could even consider buying from the company on Trademe, at $4.00 a kilo there is huge room for movement.
I've looked at stuff in the fish section at the supermarket and wondered what would work for bait. I haven't see crayfish tails, but I have seen prawns, and mussels past their date. Does anyone have any ideas? Hangler, have you tried the prawns? I guess they're pretty straightforward to rig.
A point of order here . The actual asking price the trade me seller wants is $70 . Quoting what a $1 auction eventually goes for is misleading.
As a ex fishing gear retailer . Nah dumb idea from a business stance . You may get a little bit of extra business but not enough to make up for the lost profit from the bait is my gut call.
Again . What do you do when said "premium pillys" turn out to be rubbish ? I ask this as I have seen it all before. Seen guys who have bulk ordered bait and burley to bypass the shops and what they ordered was not what they got . It wasn't worth doing he consumers guarantee thing to try get any thing done either .
Best thing is go to the shops see what they have and ask for a deal . I would always cut deals for those who were buying a bit of gear in one go.
Re: Youve got a bite
Posted by Phill on 25/2/2015, 9:40 pm, in reply to "Re: Youve got a bite" Tackle Tactics
You are quite correct Neil. Putting it simply fisherman purchase a rod and reel once every couple of years they need bait every time they go fishing. As Neil said if you are a regular and you make reasonable purchases you will receive discounts others may not.
on 22/2/2015, 4:12 pm