Wow Looks Like Hookahset Is Selling Cocos Cheap!

[Santino]

Precisely, not paying your OTP and "going under radar" on the tax commission.

Here in Utah, it's 35%. The wholesale cost of a nakhla 250, taxes paid, is quite a bit more than $5.

It's hard to be a legit business nowadays

[antouwan]

honestly, being so close and working with the company my parents own (completely unrelated to the hookah biz, but still a business none the less) makes me respect everyone needing to make their fair share with healthy margins. hookahset may be good for consumers in the long run, especially those on a tight budget, but is it good for the whole hookah community? i wouldn't say so. john and other vendors have very reasonable prices, and i respect their 'right' to make a healthy profit on the stuff they sell. me, a kid with a little extra cash to burn, will happily support john and his new x5 as long as i can continue to get the products and service he provides to me consistently. that's the selling point imo, the consistency. the market in this business is dominated by a few major players, and it's very difficult for the new guys to get their foot in the door. if hookahset is doing this to get noticed then all power to them, but don't be the asshole and kill the margins because not only will you not make it in the long run, but you'll hurt the good, nay great, guys like john in the process.

also, i'm not sure if ccn can really do anything about this. to my knowledge, ccn is still exclusive with h-s so all the other vendors online, like john, have to buy ccn from third parties like local wholesalers. if hookahset is selling ccn for 8.95 or whatever they're barely making anything off of them. a local wholesaler is probably buying them around $6/box and then marking them up and selling them to hookahset. what's the markup aka hookahset's price? idk, but this just seems like a gimmick to get people to notice them before they eventually go up in price.

[Barnaby]

another vendor that comes up, adding 10-20% margin to think they can steal the entire marketshare, meanwhile pissing off everyone in the hookah industry. they will not last, not at these prices, it's been tried before, they have failed or are failing, and i've said it before about vendors that have sb at $14.99 think they are just going to cut the line and be successful. All the major players have SB at full retail price. aprrox $23 these days and they all sell more SB in 1 day than these $14.99 clowns will in 2 months.
From a consumer POV it's great, take advantage while it lasts. Just don't be too disappointed when things go wrong.

I just noticed that price was for their 100g pack, not the 250g. Your prices are actually $2.50 cheaper than theirs for sb.

oops, thought that was for 250g. nice rant over nothing.

You're not completely out of place actually. There are still plenty of sites that lowball tobacco (nakhla for $5?) and coals unnecessarily or just to burn the market.

You still make a very valid point.

I buy Nakhla in stores for 5 dollars. There are two types of stores between Richmond VA (central va) and northern VA: the type that sells Nakhla for 15 dollars a box and the type that sells them for 5. I don't know how they're able to do this, but I suspect that the same thing that enables stores around here to sell them for 5 dollars allows the online retailers who are based relatively close to me to do the same...

Dude, where do you go near NoVa for $5 nakhla?

[no longer welcome]

barnaby, way to stay focused here with us on this one, lol, jk

antouwan, just to be clear that X5 is 8 years old with 116k miles, def not new, but it's all mine:) i don't want folks thinking i drive $65k cars, well I do, but it's just not reality.

[antouwan]

barnaby, way to stay focused here with us on this one, lol, jk

antouwan, just to be clear that X5 is 8 years old with 116k miles, def not new, but it's all mine:) i don't want folks thinking i drive $65k cars, well I do, but it's just not reality.

come on john, roll with it. i'm just trying to give you props on that hella sexy car. what's important isn't the amount of miles or years accumulated, it's the fact that it's yours to do what you want with. final point: everybody may brag about wood grain grippin' but when their car gets repo-ed they shut the hell up. you, on the other hand, have that car, now no one can prevent you from grippin' the wood grain while you're blasting some fayrouz in socal.

[Barnaby]

barnaby, way to stay focused here with us on this one, lol, jk

antouwan, just to be clear that X5 is 8 years old with 116k miles, def not new, but it's all mine:) i don't want folks thinking i drive $65k cars, well I do, but it's just not reality.

shit, $5 Nak is on track.. same with some cheap cocos..

[Barnaby]

wish both my cars were paid off.. hoping the infiniti lives long enough to do so.. It should.. gets paid off next year, but with the 100 miles a day commute, we shall see.. already have 174k on it and still trucking!

[Hippo_Master]

They'll probably send you 50 grams of Nakhla instead of a box of coals

[inino]

ya customer service is important. just cuz one vendor has 10 kilo boxes of cocos for a hundred bucks lets say, doesnt mean i would buy from them.

[Hookie The Hookah]

Dude, where do you go near NoVa for $5 nakhla?

Well I DID go to Al Nakheel on 123 in Vienna. I now live in Richmond where there is a similar place called Coliseum loft deli. I believe Al Nakheel sells for 5.99. Also there is a Halal market in Sully off of Metrotech drive that has the same prices but only ever carries Standard fruit flavors whereas Al Nakheel will get pretty much anything from Zag to Sherezade stuff (no consistancy between what they carry though). This is all Nakhla mind you, although Al Nakheel has a decent selection of starbuzz and af for similarly low prices...

edit: al nakheel also sells cocos from time to time for 13 dollars unlike the other place which has 3kings only.... Edited November 15, 2009 by Hookie The Hookah

[Hookie The Hookah]

Also, the thing that strikes me as odd RE: these prices I've been talking about vs. what John is saying is that all these (small) businesses are situated within literally .2-2 miles away from non-affiliated hookah bars. This is significant because all of these Hookah bars sell their tobacco for CRAZY prices. Two sell 250g Nak boxes for 20 dollars a pop. These guys are all close enough that they must know about the competition yet don't choose to sell the stuff for increased prices. That is to say, if you know that the only competition you might have with your 5 dollar Nakhla boxes is 20 dollar boxes wouldn't it not make sense to sell them for say, 10 dollars? Especially if you really are getting them through dubious means. The point I'm trying to make is that I really don't understand the benefit of selling these things for so damn cheap. It's not like they get massive shipments (more like 5-10 boxes TOPS at any given time). They're not trying to generate buzz for themselves (if they are they're failing miserably), they're not trying to make waves in the industry, they're just selling super cheap shisha. Something doesn't add up here...

[JDHarding]

another vendor that comes up, adding 10-20% margin to think they can steal the entire marketshare, meanwhile pissing off everyone in the hookah industry. they will not last, not at these prices, it's been tried before, they have failed or are failing, and i've said it before about vendors that have sb at $14.99 think they are just going to cut the line and be successful. All the major players have SB at full retail price. aprrox $23 these days and they all sell more SB in 1 day than these $14.99 clowns will in 2 months.
From a consumer POV it's great, take advantage while it lasts. Just don't be too disappointed when things go wrong.

Yep.. what they should do is sell it at $2-4 cheaper, not so cheap that people will question it. And when the orders roll in so fast that they can't keep up with them, and are suddenly losing money, that's when the empire falls.

Edit: Another problem is.. how much they stock of each flavor. They may get one flavor really cheap, and stock the hell outta it, but it could be a flavor nobody likes. Meanwhile they stock low, or not at all on other flavors. So when the orders roll in, they run out of stock a lot, yet they have like 1,000 boxes of garbage shisha sitting there forever. Sell maybe 1 or 2 boxes of it a week. Edited November 15, 2009 by JDHarding

[Arcane]

i buy from John, because he's the only vendor i've dealt with that hasn't messed up on me yet....and he has a sexy phone voice....wait, wut? no homo...

well, HC too...but, that's besides the point...

[ih303]

They may get one flavor really cheap, and stock the hell outta it, but it could be a flavor nobody likes. Meanwhile they stock low, or not at all on other flavors.

Mmm... Black Licorice!

[Stuie]

Well their profit margin increase, by doing volume or have the just slid way down the supply & demand curve that they will kill their business?

It's like an economic thriller movie.

[no longer welcome]

i just checked the hs site again and it looks like the pic of ccn is the 108 box but the description is 84. i know at least a few reading this thread bought some, what did you get vs what you ordered?

[Stuie]

i just checked the hs site again and it looks like the pic of ccn is the 108 box but the description is 84. i know at least a few reading this thread bought some, what did you get vs what you ordered?

I got the 108 pieces.

[clickhea]

havnt received my order yet

[clickhea]

hookahset.com custumer service
to me

show details 4:15 PM (56 minutes ago)

hi
you have ordered two days ago we are prosseing it now .
you will recive the 108 pc as you have ordered you will receive the email containing the tracking number
thanks agine for the order
- Show quoted text -

[Barnaby]

Dude, where do you go near NoVa for $5 nakhla?

Well I DID go to Al Nakheel on 123 in Vienna. I now live in Richmond where there is a similar place called Coliseum loft deli. I believe Al Nakheel sells for 5.99. Also there is a Halal market in Sully off of Metrotech drive that has the same prices but only ever carries Standard fruit flavors whereas Al Nakheel will get pretty much anything from Zag to Sherezade stuff (no consistancy between what they carry though). This is all Nakhla mind you, although Al Nakheel has a decent selection of starbuzz and af for similarly low prices...

edit: al nakheel also sells cocos from time to time for 13 dollars unlike the other place which has 3kings only....

Yea, I've been there to get cocos b4. I saw they had Nak, but didn't have any flavors I wanted, so I didn't bother to check out the prices.. will have to head over there again and see what they got.. Might have to check out that Halal market, closer to me than Al Nahkeel is.. Be nice to score some Sweet Melon locally for cheap.. might do that during my lunch break today..

[Stuie]

you know i was doing a little thinking in my head, sitting through another boring meeting. I don't think their prices are covering their overhead.

I mean you have website costs, credit card fees, employees, shipping material, storage cost and that's if they don't also have a store front. Nakhla doesn't have a large profit margin on normal sites. These Coco prices can't be that low and still have a good margin.

So I see two options (keep in mind this is bored out of my mind meeting logic)

1) they got 10-12 months before their tiny profit margins will essentially bankrupt themselves (9.5 months before they realize it's coming)

2) they are pirates and have been raiding hookah supply ships and selling us their ill-gotten booty!

[joytron]

2) they are pirates and have been raiding hookah supply ships and selling us their ill-gotten booty!

ooooooh! so thats how you fund your hobby!


any advice on joining the club?!

[twoapplesplease]

i just checked the hs site again and it looks like the pic of ccn is the 108 box but the description is 84. i know at least a few reading this thread bought some, what did you get vs what you ordered?

Your right John the description did go from the 108 piece to the 84 piece.It was a mixup when it was added to the website.Everyone that ordered the 108 piece at that price will be getting the 108 piece at that price.We'll have both the 84 and 108 piece up soon.The 108 will be a few bucks more.

Stuie-There are a few store locations.Hookahset is a small part of a larger importer/export company.
There are a few Kosher food grocier locations and even a couple hookah lounges in the NY area.
Here is a youtube vid of the main grocier location.

http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QMWZFXPas