Online coral shopping can be tricky; if you’re looking for a fair price, healthy livestock and straight-forward deals. To make matters worse, everywhere you look on social media and online forums, there is a flash sale with some unknown vendor either offering unbelievable prices, or what they claim is rare livestock. Many of these vendors have little more than a Facebook profile or forum avatar, and use the excitement of a quick sale and good price to entice buyers. Concern about these vendors has led many aquarists to only shop at well-established aquaculture facilities. Even then, it’s a buyer beware world for coral shoppers. Certain vendors use a host of practices to pass most of the financial risk associated with buying a live animal online, over to the aquarist. Sales tactics:
Buying a coral online, shipping it out overnight via UPS or Fed Ex, these things come with inherent risks, to both aquarists and vendors. Corals aren’t cheap, and it’s easy for a medium sized coral order to cost in upwards of 1,000 dollars or more. When we make purchases of this size, say a home computer or television, we expect some sort of assurance the product will arrive, in working condition. It’s a lot of money, and aquarists depend on some form of guarantee to make it feasible. What happens if there is a delay with UPS? What happens if animals arrive dead? What happens if animals live a few hours, or days within the aquarist’s tank, only to suddenly die? Guarantees are one area that buyers must be very aware of when shopping online. Live Aquaria and their diver’s den, offer what should be the industry standard guarantee, with little questions asked and complete refunds. In this case, if your animal is delayed in shipping, or doesn’t arrive alive, you can rest assured you’ll get your money back, or a replacement. In the case of Live Aquaria, both fish and corals are covered by their two-week guarantee, and over the years I’ve had several Live Aquaria orders get delayed, or lost livestock within several days of it arriving. In all cases Live Aquaria quickly, easily and without hassle returned my money. They may ask for a picture, or a breakdown of water quality, but overall it’s a hassle free, up-front guarantee policy-perhaps the best online and a program that more outlets should model. From there, things get rather dicey.… More:
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