is it me or others noticed the high price of 3 inch chlorine tablest almost 40 % higher than last year ??
high prices
- Thread starter rezasaba
- Start date
- Jun 12, 2011
- 3,761
- Pool Size
- 19500
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pureline Crystal Pure 60,000
Hardly anyone here uses them, so we care very little what they cost. Now, if bleach doubles in price, you'll hear some crying.
Maybe pool stores are raising the price because they are trying to recoup losses due to EVERYONE using bleach to chlorinate their pool. I know, wishful thinking....
well after doing some research i found out Clorox company has taken over much of the 3" chlorine tablets with their own lable and tubs i guess they dont make it for resellers thefore the price hike (monopoly)
See this old post that describes the structure of the pool/spa chemical industry. Clorox has always made bleach but entered into the swimming pool and spa market by sharing its brand with KIK Custom Products in 2014 as described in this article and this press release. KIK Custom Products bought the BioLab pool/spa chemicals business from Chemtura in 2014 and Clorox partnered with them to get their brand to be used for other chlorine products including Trichlor tablets as Clorox seeks to broaden their chlorine products and brand more into the pool and spa market explicitly while KIK leverages the chlorine brand name to other pool and spa products (e.g. DE filter media, clarifiers, etc.).
KIK has many chlorine product brands, but it is not the only player in the market. The other large player is Lonza Group via their Arch Chemicals acquisition in 2011. Secondary players include Chem Lab Products with their Kem-Tek brand while Alden Leeds and N Jonas private label products.
So the bottom line is that there is enough competition especially between KIK/Biolab and Lonza/Arch that the Clorox branding is not any sort of takeover and such branding was launched in 2014 anyway.
In my 2007 thread on the Cost Comparison of Chlorine Sources I used Leslie's website for much of the pricing and for Trichlor I found $77 for 35 pounds while this link shows today's price as $100. That's a 30% price increase over 8 years. However, you can see in this archived Leslie's page from 2014 that their price in January was $100 but discounted down to $80 and in August, 2014 it was discounted to $85. If you look at this Leslie's page from August 2013 you will see the same kind of discounting. So mostly Leslie's is not currently offering their 20% discount right now. intheswim.com in 2014 had chlorine tabs at the same price as today.
So I don't see an across the board price jump from last year to this year from everyone. It seems selective, mostly Leslie's not offering their normal discount. Keep in mind that some of these very inexpensive Trichlor tabs are of lower quality and are not compressed as well so can crack more easily or dissolve at different rates.
KIK has many chlorine product brands, but it is not the only player in the market. The other large player is Lonza Group via their Arch Chemicals acquisition in 2011. Secondary players include Chem Lab Products with their Kem-Tek brand while Alden Leeds and N Jonas private label products.
So the bottom line is that there is enough competition especially between KIK/Biolab and Lonza/Arch that the Clorox branding is not any sort of takeover and such branding was launched in 2014 anyway.
In my 2007 thread on the Cost Comparison of Chlorine Sources I used Leslie's website for much of the pricing and for Trichlor I found $77 for 35 pounds while this link shows today's price as $100. That's a 30% price increase over 8 years. However, you can see in this archived Leslie's page from 2014 that their price in January was $100 but discounted down to $80 and in August, 2014 it was discounted to $85. If you look at this Leslie's page from August 2013 you will see the same kind of discounting. So mostly Leslie's is not currently offering their 20% discount right now. intheswim.com in 2014 had chlorine tabs at the same price as today.
So I don't see an across the board price jump from last year to this year from everyone. It seems selective, mostly Leslie's not offering their normal discount. Keep in mind that some of these very inexpensive Trichlor tabs are of lower quality and are not compressed as well so can crack more easily or dissolve at different rates.
Leslie's still has their tabs on sale frequently. With the right mailers and stacking of promotions, you can get their 35 lbs pail for $64.95 pretty much all the time. At the beginning of the season, I was able to get it for $45.96. It required me to use a mailer that had the chlorine special priced at $69.95, then I had a 20% off my entire purchase of over $100, and then there was $10 in kickbacks through their rewards program. If you are a super shopper, you can find these chemicals for cheap.
That's a great deal. What do you do with them? Sell em on ebay? With that many you'd be set for life.
I have a sand filter and a pool that just naturally drifts down on CYA. I can't really explain it because I really don't think I get much water replacement by the backwashing, but I lose right around 10 ppm on the CYA per month. It's not leaks either because I've done the bucket test like three times and watch my water bill like a hawk. So I use my tabs. It's part of the reason I had trouble with people being told to drain to get their CYA down because mine drifts down on it's own, I thought everyone's did.
Apparently from what I hear from my distributors us that prices were effected by tariffs with China, who either manufacturer chlorine or have something to do with the process.
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