In Indonesia where lots of aquarium fish are produced, they pay next to nothing for water, have no heating bills, labour is extremely cheap (50 cents a day) and they use virtually no power. This means they can produce fish for very low prices.
Compare that to the UK, Australia, the US or most other countries, we have to pay for heating, water, power, tanks and our labour costs ($10+ per hour) are quite high. This means any fish produced here will cost a lot more than the same fish produced in tropical Asia.
The airfreight, importation costs, quarantine inspection, etc are all added onto the price of the fish that are imported into our country. These costs are spread out over all the fish that get imported during that particular shipment. If a shop brings in 100 fish, the cost is spread out over 100 fish and can push their overall price up. However, if the shop brings in 100,000 fish, the cost is spread out over 100,000 fish and is significantly reduced per fish.
