With the recent drama about certain vendors I decided to express my view on the whole "online" sales situation and transactions....... I'll state the facts as i see em..... so many of you reading may not like what i'm about to say..... but "if the cap fits".......
Before the internet fish hobbyist were like detectives when trying to find certain species.... rushing into the LFS on shipment days to see whats new..... i remember going through my phone book and calling up 10 different "petstores" hoping to find a FW snowflake eel..... Finally SCORE i found one.... I only had to drive 3hrs to pick it up..... Nowadays all you have to do is scroll through a couple forums or email a vendor to see if they have what your looking for on their suppliers list......
As some of you may remember i used to sell fish online as well...... due to my fragile ego i wanted to make a name for myself online.... and figured that was the best way to do so....... I honestly thought i was Robin hood.... giving back to the fish community with great prices and hard to get species..... My ego inflated..... letters of gratitude and pictures of my fish were posted up everwhere...... it was fun...... I knew i was not going to get rich selling "oddballs"..... the risks were higher and the markup was smaller...... but still i did it cuz it was fun..... I even used to give away free fish with every purchase........ I spent countless hours playing email tag and juggling phone calls...... I even sent many people fish before payment because i trusted you guys...... sure i got burnt acouple times....... but it was all worth it.... because " I WAS THE MAN!!!"
As the months went by the novelty of admiration amongst my peers wore off........ I started to see a trend amongst the customers...... i had many "smaller" who would get together "group orders" to save on freight..... that was fine but it took alot of work packing and seperating individual shipments....... pretty soon what i was doing for liesure became work..... it seemed like i just was not able to satisfy certain customers no matter what i tried...... but yet they keep buying..... and with every purchase i had problems with this or that...... it got to a point where i had to cut off certain people becaue the were "killing my buzz"....... Then i noticed that these same people had problems with other vendors too.....
I worked fish retail for 11yrs.... and sold cars for 6months prior to going into the wholesale side of the industry....... one thing i noticed was that some people walk around with a pinched sphincter always...... no matter how genuine your trying to be...... they believe that eveyone is out to get them....... they think that they are the most important person the whole world....... perhaps they're right...... to them they are...... but don't expect everyone to believe that as well....... back to my original point..... I noticed that the majority of "online" customers fall into this category... (YEAH YOU)....... i came up with a theory as to why........
Lets take the car biz for instance....... the most (pain in the arse) customers are the one's who come in with a stack of papers.... printing quotes and specs frome a dozen different dealerships shopping for the best deal...... finally ending up saving a few hundred dollars but spending twice as much in TIME AND MONEY...... thats why the leave getting a "good deal" on paper but still have that "not so fresh feeling"...... Well YOU guys are very similar...... spending hours of time online researching and shopping for that "monster" that your LFS won't carry...... you cannot expect a vendor to have the same amount of emotional attachment to each shipment like you do.......
In a perfect world fish don't die and airline do not make mistakes........ but Atlantis is underwater and earth has "union workers"....... Many times people don't consider the risks the vendor takes on every shipment....... Delays, mishandling, bag puntures are all "normal" in the fish biz...... I lose thousands every week due to factors out of my control....... its all part of my business..... its called shrinkage...... The supplier should absorb the majority of this.... its their business to do so....... but some people expect too much.......
"oh the fish was .5" smaller that you said" or "the fish died in a week" or "it didnt eat right away when i put it in my tank" or my personal favorite...... "it got killed by its tankmates"...... A vendor can have a perfect track record only to get it derailed by one bad transaction....... I remember a time when i was selling Arapaima Gigas for $20...... I had one guy flame me online because i wasnt able to save him any.......
another one of my favorites is when a customer begs me to order a certain fish..... and when i do...... "oh i don't have room"......
Anyways the point i'm trying to make is YOU need to cut the vendor some slack at times....... your not that important!!!!! they are doing their best they can at that time....... No one functions at 100% 24/7..... some times you need to meet them halfway because they have already taken losses to be able to provide you with the opportunity to buy fish online.......
just my .03cents.......
Before the internet fish hobbyist were like detectives when trying to find certain species.... rushing into the LFS on shipment days to see whats new..... i remember going through my phone book and calling up 10 different "petstores" hoping to find a FW snowflake eel..... Finally SCORE i found one.... I only had to drive 3hrs to pick it up..... Nowadays all you have to do is scroll through a couple forums or email a vendor to see if they have what your looking for on their suppliers list......
As some of you may remember i used to sell fish online as well...... due to my fragile ego i wanted to make a name for myself online.... and figured that was the best way to do so....... I honestly thought i was Robin hood.... giving back to the fish community with great prices and hard to get species..... My ego inflated..... letters of gratitude and pictures of my fish were posted up everwhere...... it was fun...... I knew i was not going to get rich selling "oddballs"..... the risks were higher and the markup was smaller...... but still i did it cuz it was fun..... I even used to give away free fish with every purchase........ I spent countless hours playing email tag and juggling phone calls...... I even sent many people fish before payment because i trusted you guys...... sure i got burnt acouple times....... but it was all worth it.... because " I WAS THE MAN!!!"
As the months went by the novelty of admiration amongst my peers wore off........ I started to see a trend amongst the customers...... i had many "smaller" who would get together "group orders" to save on freight..... that was fine but it took alot of work packing and seperating individual shipments....... pretty soon what i was doing for liesure became work..... it seemed like i just was not able to satisfy certain customers no matter what i tried...... but yet they keep buying..... and with every purchase i had problems with this or that...... it got to a point where i had to cut off certain people becaue the were "killing my buzz"....... Then i noticed that these same people had problems with other vendors too.....
I worked fish retail for 11yrs.... and sold cars for 6months prior to going into the wholesale side of the industry....... one thing i noticed was that some people walk around with a pinched sphincter always...... no matter how genuine your trying to be...... they believe that eveyone is out to get them....... they think that they are the most important person the whole world....... perhaps they're right...... to them they are...... but don't expect everyone to believe that as well....... back to my original point..... I noticed that the majority of "online" customers fall into this category... (YEAH YOU)....... i came up with a theory as to why........
Lets take the car biz for instance....... the most (pain in the arse) customers are the one's who come in with a stack of papers.... printing quotes and specs frome a dozen different dealerships shopping for the best deal...... finally ending up saving a few hundred dollars but spending twice as much in TIME AND MONEY...... thats why the leave getting a "good deal" on paper but still have that "not so fresh feeling"...... Well YOU guys are very similar...... spending hours of time online researching and shopping for that "monster" that your LFS won't carry...... you cannot expect a vendor to have the same amount of emotional attachment to each shipment like you do.......
In a perfect world fish don't die and airline do not make mistakes........ but Atlantis is underwater and earth has "union workers"....... Many times people don't consider the risks the vendor takes on every shipment....... Delays, mishandling, bag puntures are all "normal" in the fish biz...... I lose thousands every week due to factors out of my control....... its all part of my business..... its called shrinkage...... The supplier should absorb the majority of this.... its their business to do so....... but some people expect too much.......
"oh the fish was .5" smaller that you said" or "the fish died in a week" or "it didnt eat right away when i put it in my tank" or my personal favorite...... "it got killed by its tankmates"...... A vendor can have a perfect track record only to get it derailed by one bad transaction....... I remember a time when i was selling Arapaima Gigas for $20...... I had one guy flame me online because i wasnt able to save him any.......
another one of my favorites is when a customer begs me to order a certain fish..... and when i do...... "oh i don't have room"......Anyways the point i'm trying to make is YOU need to cut the vendor some slack at times....... your not that important!!!!! they are doing their best they can at that time....... No one functions at 100% 24/7..... some times you need to meet them halfway because they have already taken losses to be able to provide you with the opportunity to buy fish online.......
just my .03cents.......
It's kind of a slap in the face. 
