Why is your shipping so expensive?

[Pike614]

I have ordered from LA several times, and have always been pleased with the quality and customer service. I am concerned though thet the shipping charges are a little high. I have started to look for other online retailers such as Saltwaterfissh dot com, who have 19.99 shipping and FREE overnight shipping with $250 or more. I live in WI, and my last order was over $300, and the charge for tax and shipping was over $60! Is there a reason that LA is so much more, and does not have a FREE shipping offer to reward larger purchases?
Thanks!

 

[dfs/la2]

Pike614,

Thank you for your post about your LiveAquaria orders. We appreciate your business and are happy to explain what makes our company special. We work to have the healthiest live stock available. Our State of the art Aquaculture Coral & Marine Life Facility works diligently to have the best quarantine procedures, filtration and expert care possible.

We are equally proud of our support staff. They are dedicated, knowledgeable, caring individuals that provide outstanding care for all of our live specimens. Our success is attributed to them.

At this time, free shipping is available on our BYO Packages over the amount of $60.00.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Pat S.
LiveAquaria
Drs. Foster and Smith

 

[Pike614]

I guess you didn't answer my question. Don't get me wrong, I like working with LA. BUT when it comes to shipping, I don't see why it is not on par with other companies. I agree your animal quality is great, and that is what I pay for when I buy an animal from you. But, shipping is shipping...and Saltwaterfissh dot com has you beat. If nothing more than a suggestion, I can say that I have now ordered from them 4 times because of their free shipping, and that saved me $140.00. So I am just trying to figure out why LA is not competitive in this aspect of the business.

 

[dustinP]

there shipping is dirt cheap especially when you order huge amounts of dry goods or salt buckets and ground shipping no matter then weight is still one price. and alot of places charge 55 dollars for shipping, and dont pack half as well as the liveaquaria folks do

 

[Pike614]

Just comparing live aquaria not fosters. They are not dirt cheap compared to other leading online retailers. Just trying to get some feedback and maybe suggest they revisit their free shipping policy they used to offer for larger live goods orders not cleaners. Other companies do,so why not live aquaria?

 

[jrobison]

well i would like to see lower shipping too, BUT I would bet the other place you mention doesn't have near the quality of livestock or customer service, when I looked at them a year or so ago they didn't even have a phone number. You can call LA 7 days a week and speak to very friendly knowledgable people. So it is worth the shipping to me. JMO

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Dude, do you know how much it costs to ship 3 gallons of water overnight? Make no mistake, Live Aquaria is LOSING mioney by shipping at the cost they do. The other places you mentioned recoup that money but boosting the price of their lesser quality livestock.

 

[Pike614]

I am ONLY TALKING about SHIPPING here. If yoo look close, LA's prices are HIGHER than many online retailers. I agree this is for a reason, they have awesome service, guarantee, and quality livestock. SO I expect to pay more for the livestock! But their shipping is shipping, and other retailers offer incentives for those with larger orders.
Other companies are doing it, just asking LA why they can't.

 

[MedicalZoa]

all these big online fish sellers have huge discounts with fedex to ship, whether they admit it or not. 35$ is high IMO. LA provides excellent fish which is why we pay more for there fish than on any other site, so why would there shipping be higher. SWF.com does have cheap shipping which is drawing me towards buying from them. also blue zoo charges 39.99 for overnight which has prevented me from buying from them for that reason. swf prob. doesnt have a good of quality livestock as LA but there shipping is lower so chose which one you want. i have bought from both sites and was very pleased with both LA and SWF.

 

[dustinP]

because LA has better packing then anyone else in the industry, they fill it with tons of water and air for the animals, they fill it with packing peanuts so there is no shifting of bags and give you like 40 heat packs so temp doesnt differ, that gets very expensive with the amount of packages they ship a day

 

[Pike614]

nope, SWF has the same if not even better packing, label each bag and plenty of heat and water, boxes are white and labeled for fed ex, I've ordered at least 10 times from LA, and 5 now from SWF and see no difference in shipping quality, that's why I posted. I also know that these companies contract with FedEx for significantly lower rates, which is what I suspect is going on. Other companies have better contracts for shipping, and they can offer lower shipping.

 

[dfs/la2]

Pike614,

Thank you for your compliment regarding the quality merchandise as well as the positive customer service you have received from our company. We understand your concern of the shipping and handling rates. This is something our company closely reviews as we continue to strive to be competitive in this area. We understand that our customers may at times find lower prices in shipping through other companies, however we continue to stand behind our quality and health of our livestock as well as our promise of excellent customer service.

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Mike S.
LiveAquaria
Drs. Foster and Smith

 

[GoingPostal]

Look at the reviews SWF.com gets compared to LA maybe. LA's prices are right on par with other reputable online dealers, a cut for large orders would be nice for some but wouldn't help me at all. I've dealt with both, even have a large credit at SWF and won't risk it given the stories I've heard lately and my own experiences, cheap shipping doesn't help when they are sending sickly fish. Plus the customer service isn't even comparable between the two.

 

[MedicalZoa]

i agree that LA has the best customer service out there, and if your fish does there right on it, you dont have to wait a week etc.

 

[kdblove_99]

I Just paid $39.99 for my LA order. That was for 9 fish and all were filled with lots of water. I found the price to be very fair. I do wish they offered Free shipping on orders over a certain amount but i will take the best customer service in the business over free shipping. LA goes way above and beyond

 

[AuroraDrvr]

$35 pales in comparison to the healthy specimens.

 

[snorvich]

Many other vendors load the shipping cost on the cost of the animals. Since the animals ALL have shipping cost associated with them, the real cost of shipping is covered once a customer hits the magic threshold. BUT, once a customer exceeds the magic threshold, they are OVER PAYING for shipping. As Milton Friedman once said "There is no free lunch". I would rather have shipping cost explicit rather than implicit.

In any case, I go with AuroraDrvr, $35 pales in comparison to healthy specimens. Shipping a less than healthy specimen at a cheap price is the ultimate "penny wise, pound foolish".

 

[flameangel88]

On a recent purchase from two vendors that came in on the same day: The package with a 4" fish (with free shipping) which weights 16lbs and a package with a 4 3/4" fish from LA DD (shipping was $39.99) was 42lbs. Both fish made it fine but if you were the fish which bag would you rather be in, the 2g bag or the 5g bag?

Sometimes it's hard to look at it from the surface but after crunching the numbers it's much easier to justify especially after spending hundreds on a fish. The longer I'm in this hobby the more I've been willing to pay for shipping in order to get a healthy fish.

I don't like to pay for shipping just like most here and many times I'd buy something I may not need/want but rather to bring the total over to get free shipping. I didn't do myself any favors because the aquarium space cost much more with constant upgrading.

I would like to see LA go with shipping discounts with large orders in the near future.

 

[agreeive?fish]

in most cases (on larger fish or multiple smaller fish) even with shipping its cheaper for me to buy from liveaquaria than local plus i have a 14 day garuntee from LA and out the door gaurentee from the lfs... i do buy form the lfs as well as LA and i have no complaints about shipping costs

 

[tatkinson]

Pike, I agree with you. I haven't ordered livestock from LA because of the shipping $$. What got me was I had everything in my cart and went to check out and then saw I had three or four different shipping charges for one order. One for DD one for Rock one for Corals and one for Inverts so I said no thank you. I realize they all ship from different places or something but still. I still check DD nearly every day to see if there's something I just can't live without and check this forum often to see if there are any shipping offers (which is how I found this thread) so I totally hear what you're saying and agree with you. I do think LAs site is by far the nicest and easiest to navigate though, great pictures too.