Originally Posted by 1journeyman
Well, to be fair let's discuss your concerns.
1. Getting a fish or invert from SWF may very well cut down on stress for the fish. SWF buys and ships to you. Your local fish store buys fish from dealers, who buy from dealers, etc. Furthermore, you can be sure to properly QT and treat the fish for stress. Your local store will not.
2. You buy only from reputable online dealers with great guarantees. As we all know, a fish sold in a pet store could easily die from it's treatment days after we bring it home. Most stores do not provide any kind of guarantee.
3. See #2
4. See #1. The fish goes through less hands and gets into a stable environment faster when we buy from SWF.
Compared to other online fish stores, SWF does have a pretty lenient 15 day guarantee and an honorable return policy for livestock that arrives dead. You are correct in saying that most local stores would not offer a 15 day guarantee, however most stores at the least would give credit fo a fish that dies relatively soon after it's purchase (24-48hrs.). My objection with that is that as a careful aquarist/consumer you should check on your fish at the store a couple times, make sure its eating well, and parasite free, etc. By purchasing online, you are forfeiting that ability over to someone you don't even know who works for SWFor another site. So what your money ends up purchasing is ultimately based on whichever specimen the site chooses to send you. The only choice you have is what type of fish, but which one, you must accept as being choosen blindly. Once again, I make the analogy to buying a puppy or kitten online, perhaps a labrador, so cool you know what a lab puppy generally looks like, but have no say as to which one specifically. How many people would buy a puppy online....hopefully none to few unless you agree that if you do,you have no credible right to complain as to what was chosen for you. Perhaps you know more about the middleman situation of SWF compared to that of local stores. However, it seems odd to asume that SWF has no middleman, that they by the fish straight from the guy who caught it and I doubt that local stores end up stocking their tanks with fish that have passed through more hands than weed... from dealer to dealer and so on
Plus, SWF ships with Fedex right, I have received several packages from them that have obvious damage to the box and even had to send some purchases back to the site I bought them from because my merchandise was messed up, so having that experience and knowing that the fedex dude doesn't even care about your fish in the box...you not only buy the fish on faith of the online store, but now even on the method of transport, the guy loading it onto the plane, then being sorted out by fedex, loaded into a truck, and then finally delivered to your house. The only way I might buy online was if I lived way too far away from a store in which case I would want to be emailed a picture of my actual fish and even then I'd still pray that it would be a healthy specimen and apologize for its travel plans. SWF is in FL apparently. I am in Cali so that helps to justify my shipping concern. I would not take this big of a risk, perhaps you would.
