As an importer the costs on shipping have tripled and quadrupled. Example. 12 boxes of LED's shipping DHL, to me from China in a week was $980 pre-COVID, post-COVID $3300 for those same 12 boxes. It is not COVID, it is the fact the flights have dropped, DHL would hop on any flight from china to USA that had open cargo room, less flights = not as many options for them to just toss a box on. So we ship everything via ship now, those costs have gone up about 50%, so not 3 to 4x's like air freight. I have hardware so it would be hard for me to just raise the prices, so I ate them and changed our model and now go by ship, so when I get that bill that is 50% more its far better than 3/4x's more with DHL. I get a boat every 2 weeks to keep up with demand, it is roughly 30 days from date of leaving China to Port of LA, then 2 days to get to my door step.
Corals/Fish - Same issue, not as many flights for corals to come over, so those costs have gone up over 2/3x's, if you think for 1 minute any of the LFS are going to eat those costs please think again. That is why the costs of yellow tangs are now the new price of the old purple tang, and purple tangs are 1/2 the cost of gem tangs. The only country that was shipping without delays was Australia that is why you saw so many Aussie corals and fish still on the market without prices going up that much. That has changed now, they are still shipping more frequently than Indo and other areas, but nonetheless the prices have gone up some.
