This is a big question that is going to take me some time to answer, maybe over several days.
Firstly, some background on the arowana trade. Until about 2008-10, Singapore dominated the gold cross back market, with Malaysia playing a supporting role. Many Singapore farms built strong names for quality. While Indonesia dominated the trade in super reds (and still does to a degree), Singapore did a good job at producing more consistently high quality fish than Malaysia.
Of the Singapore farms, Panda had a good reputation. Mr.Kan, owner of Panda, was actually a pioneer in the industry, obtaining the second CITES license to breed the fish in Singapore (Rainbow farm was first). Mr. Kan built up a solid reputation for good quality fish. Along the way he mentored many people who would go on to manage or own other arowana farms, including Imperial, Max Koi Farm, Dreamfish, and Pang Long/Sing, to name a few. For a number of years I had a very good working relationship with Mr.Kan. It would be fair to say he taught me most of what I know about Asian arowana, and the aquarium trade in general. Unfortunately for me, however, Mr.Kan did not really embrace the internet retailing of the fish in a way that would guarantee success over time. What I mean is, when selling a high value fish over the internet like Asian arowana, customer satisfaction has to be the top priority. Unlike a fish showroom, buyers over the internet trust the owner of a farm to supply only top grade fish and to ensure that replacements are provided if a problem arises. I ended up having several instances where customers were not entirely happy with a certain fish, for reasons that may or may not have been fair (depending on your point of view). What I learned, however, was that in the internet arowana business, the customer is always right and the court is public opinion. As a result of a particular incident (see:
http://www.arowanaclub.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=1460&highlight=panda+hondas3000 ) I ended up deciding to explore other import opportunities.
An Indonesian adventure
My customer satisfaction issues in Canada came at a time when new entrants to the Canadian aro retail market were popping up and competition was fierce. While some of these new entrants went "up market", as in providing what were claimed to be (and mostly were) high or very grade fish, I decided to take a gamble and import BBXB that were aggressively priced from CV Maju in Indonesia. This proved a mix success for me and led to good sales, but also more after sales complaint issues. I found that the quality of BBXB from Indonesia was irregular. Some customers literally hit the jack pot while others felt they did not get what was promised. The problem I had encountered again was quality control. It was lacking to some degree for BBXB. However, the super reds and RTG's from CV Maju were consistently amazing and I never received any complaints there.
Back to Singapore
A few years ago, I decided to approach Nic at Dreamfish about carrying his fish in Canada. He was reticent at first. Nic takes his reputation for top quality fish very very seriously and he was nervous about having me retail his fish over the internet in a public way using my group buy methods. I met Nic in 2008 (thanks to Mr. Kan who introduced us over lunch:
http://www.arowanaclub.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=3993 ) and Mr.Kan joked (or not really joked, foresaw perhaps?) when he told me to one day import fish from Nic. Thus, I had always had Nic in mind as someone I wanted to import from, but it felt awkward to do so when I had a relationship with a mutual connection. With my "Indonesian BBXB adventure" behind me, and with the passage of time between moving on from Panda, for me it felt right to join forces with Dreamfish. For Nic, I think a compelling factor was my success at using the internet to sell high end fish, my commitment to customer satisfaction, and my honesty. At least that is what I like to think, because for me those are the same reason I want to deal with Nic and his Dreamfish farm. And of course, his fish are consistently amazing!
A final point that may have contributed to Nic allowing me to be his Canadian agent was the entry in a major major way of the Malaysian farms to the global market. More on this issue tomorrow...
