Buyer Beware: Otter's Oasis & Detox Depot in Kalamazoo, MI

Anybody here that lives in the toking tools forum like I do knows that there are some places to get good deals on glass and there are others that markup their merchandise. Even with that expectation, today I was totally blown away at the outrageous price gouging of one shop in particular. It would be a total disservice for me to withhold this from the GC community, some of whom live and attend school at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

The shop I've been referring to is Otter's Oasis & Detox Depot near WMU's campus. I walked in today for the first time after hearing that it was not just china prodo. I was told here on GC that they had a shelf full of ROORs. I expected them to be fake.

So I walked in and to my surprise the place is actually pretty nice. It looks like they might be the first tenants of the section of the strip mall they're in so everything is nice and clean... unlike a lot of shops I've been in. The ROORs are the first bongs you see walking through the door. They're all real and .US... but here's the rub... the cheapest tube is like $300. You can tell it's 3.2mm sitting on the shelf. The 5mms are even more expensive... in the $400-$600 range. And finally... there was a 30" ordinary beaker ROOR tube... priced at 670 some dollars!

Alright... whatever... cool.. he's buying ROORs from a distributor who is middling them from Dementia. That's gonna be more expensive and ROORs bring people to the shop so ok I can get that. But there's more.

Even the budget tubes were far far overpriced. Imagine an 8-10 inch tall blue dot... no more than 3mm thick. Now imagine that it's got a tiny tube size bore... and it's $100! That's a reality in this shop.. 100 dollars for a 35-40 dollar tube... from a company that is known to be gong on a budget.

They had some PH(x)s in the shop as well. The cheapest one was $400 for a mini. There was a $500 14" tube.. probably 7mm. They had a digital volcano... marked at $1199. I told the woman at the cash register that it retails for $700-$760 tops. She tried to argue for a second.. before admitting that I was right and then adding that Storz-Bickel charge extra for shipping. Bullshit... not $500 extra... and they have no business buying a Volcano and upping the price anyway... get a reseller deal and authorization from the company or don't sell the product. Period.

At this point I'm pissed off at how ridiculous this place is. Every tube in the shop is marked at least 2x over it's typical retail price in other shops. They had a shit ton of tubes. Biohazard, Pure, Hoor, ROOR, Kaos, PH(x), etc... all with bewildering markups. The woman at the register tried to justify this because "they offer a 50% off birthday discount". Yeah... seriously.

I got a chance to speak with the owner. I confronted him with the fact that his ROORs were seriously marked up and shouldn't have even been for sale in his shop. I followed with the ridiculous markup on the Volcano. He admitted that the tubes were middled through a distribution company out of cali. I gave him a rather long rant about how he was doing a great disservice to a community of medical patients and college students who don't have many scrupulous allies to provide them with what they need. I called the shop predatory, a scam, and nothing short of highway robbery. Then he informed me that I didn't have to shop there. I replied that I was offended that such a predatory business would open in the community where I've lived all of my life. He really had no answer for the markups... he knew I was right and knew that there was nothing he could say to justify any of it. I informed the rest of the customers in the store that they were being had then left the store. I will never return.

If ever in Kalamazoo and in need of a headshop avoid Otter's Oasis, check out the Glass Onion and save yourself some serious cash.

Edit: If you're viewing this thread please reply in some form or fashion. I would like this thread to get picked up by the Google Bots and show up on the first page every time you search "Otter's Oasis" in Google.

 

That's all I want to do... alas I have a felony. Hopefully someday soon I'll find an investor who is willing to be the name on the paperwork. I have a lot of very rich friends... looks like I need to do some cajoling.

I don't know how they've even managed to stay open these first couple months. I can't imagine they will last long. The major problem is that it is by far the biggest shop in Kalamazoo, carries the most merchandise and it's the nicest setup. People who haven't been in the game long like the local college population and patients who are new to smoking may not know any better.

I've started a Facebook group to try to spread the word locally. I don't know if you guys heard about this but that college student who is getting sued for $750,000 by a local towing company is from my school in Kalamazoo. They're suing him over a facebook group he created to communicate with others who had been fucked by T&J Towing. I'm hoping my group can have at least 5% as many people as the T&J group: 10,700. That would definitely be enough to get the word of mouth train rolling.

Edit: If you're viewing this thread please reply in some form or fashion. I would like this thread to get picked up by the Google Bots and show up on the first page every time you search "Otter's Oasis" in Google.