stock trouble

[jmaneyapanda]

Just a post to try to advise everyone. Dr.s Foster and Smith has great products, and there Live Aquaria has always provided me with top notch quality animals, but I recently had a pretty sad experience with them. I had order a fish out of there "Rare" section of their website. I went through all the checkout process and received an email the day of shipment that I would only receive a partial order. When I called to inquire why, the operator told me the fish I had order (a Labouti Wrasse) was not shipped, BUT COULD NOT TELL ME WHY. I can completely understand that livestock may not ship for a multitude of reasons, and this more than likely solely benefits the consumer, like myself, but I also would like to know why. I feel it is pretty poor for a retailer to offer an item for sale, not be able to supply it, and then NOT BE ABLE TO INDICATE WHY! Especially when the item remains on sale on the company's website, after you are told it is not available.
From what I understand, there is a chain of communication between the home office in Wisconsin and the fish retailer in California, but this is a bug for them to figure out, and not have the consumer misled by it. If the animal ordered is sick, out of stock, due tomorrow, or whatever the reason for not shipping, I would like to be told that, not simply "It wasn't shipped for some reason, but it is impossible for me to tell you why. Just wait, we may ship it to you soon".
Perhaps I am just being overly sensitive about this, but this is my opinion, and I certainly expect a little more from a company with great products, and animals, and such superior customer service when it comes to the other aspects of the business.
The moral of the story I will try to pass along is, do not expect to receieve what you have ordered from them. They cannot and will not tell you what can/has been shipped, even on the day of shipment. You just have to wait to recieve the package, and hope to get what you have ordered (and what they say is in stock).

 

[dfs/la2]

Jmaneyapanda,

Thank you for your post. We apologize that we were not able to provide the reason why the fish you ordered was not able to ship. This is not up to our usual standards of customer service, and we are currently exploring ways to increase the amount of information transferred among all of our affiliated facilities. We would be happy to contact our California supplier to determine why this fish was not able to ship. Please contact us with your order information by calling 1-800-334-3699 or emailing customerservice@liveaquaria.com. Again, we apologize for this inconvenience.

Nate M.
LiveAquaria.com

 

[aquaticvet1]

Dear jmaneyapanda,
I just wanted to personally apologize to you and provide a bit of an explanation .
An increasing number of fish and the majority of our corals are directly under our care in our Wisconsin facility . These are purchased from multiple wholesalers and distributors and represent the largest "direct to hobby" network of quality and rare livestock in the United States. With these items we always know our inventory and therefore we can ship within exact parameters.

Additionally, a portion of our livestock resides in California and Florida. Technology allows us to update our visible inventory to our customer care agents on a regular but not "realtime" basis. This is not perfect as inventory may be slightly oversold or misallocated ---thereby contributing to orders such as yours . Livestock health may also change causing inventory to need an adjustment .

From California our "complete" fill rate is approaching 90% . In other words, 90% of our orders are shipped complete and on time with no back orders. Two years ago it was 66%. We are improving but not yet good enough. "Realtime" technology is the final answer but today not achievable in our database. It remains a goal.

I share your frustration and please accept my apology.
Rest assured that we will always do our best to keep your trust.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention,
Race Foster

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Dear Dr. Foster:

Thank you for the personal attention. Please understand I am not choosing to "smear" for organization, as I mentioned earlier, I am completely satisfied with the quality of animal I have recieved from LiveAquaria in the past.
It was merely my intention, and hopefully the intended outcome, to bring to mention this concern. Imagine how disappointed you would be if you went to a restaraunt, order a great meal, and when the waiter returned, he had only the sides, and said, "Oh, the chef said there is some reason you can't have that food, but I don't know why, and maybe I'll bring it out to you, but maybe I won't". I know this is rather a ridiculuous analogy, but this is almost how I feel.
I truly belive that the caliber of organization you have will soon be able to accomodate such issues so that no customer is in the shoes I have found myself in here.
Keep up the good work, and thanks again for the attention.

 

[SPStoner]

jmaneyapanda-

I, too, have had this same situation arise with Liveaquaria. I, too was frustrated, but to my pleasant surprise, the fish I ordered was shipped to me a few days later at no additional shipping charge! Not that this addresses directly your main issue, but I don't know of many other vendors, if any, that have this policy. Not only that, but while this fish was on "backorder", my card was not charged until it actually shipped. I had just barely made the $225 minimum for free shipping, so although the one fish did not ship, which brought the order below the minimum, I still received free shipping on the order, plus on the fish once it did ship!



Just my two cents, didn't mean to hijack your thread.



Tony

 

[jmaneyapanda]

No problem, I actually prefer to have other voice their opinion- that is the purpose of this forum, right?

At any rate, Dr. Foster and Smith have more than suitably dealt with this situation. Many other companies might just wash their hands of it, and not worry about aggravating one customer, but the staff at Live Aquaria has gone to great lengths to personally make sure I understood the conditions that caused my concern, and effectively remedied them.

I will wholeheartedly recommend this company for anyone who does want top quality livestock. I would simply like to see this hiccup in their service protocol patched up. But they are already underway in trying to solve this issue.

Kudos to Live Aquaria.