Reefs.org Forums

[Thales]

So it is my fault that the heat paks that I pay for do not work for 48 hours as they should. The last shipment was delayed a total of 7 hours. I lost over half the shipment. The heat packs were cold, so they were not 48 hour heat packs.

The shipment got loaded onto the first plan at 8:30 in the evening, I received it at 10:30 the next evening, Now the shipper did drop it off at 4 in the afternoon,

Kim

Yes, in light of the winter weather, you owe it to the critters that you caused to be removed from the ocean to see that the optimum shipping conditions we arranged.
You should have arranged for the special delivery Jeremy suggested.
You did not make these arrangements no doubt to save money with the resultant loss of life. Not good!!

[Checker]

I will again say, the airlines delivered in less than 24 hours. The wholesaler drops off in the afternoon, after all the direct flights have left. I can not force the airlines to make extra flights. NFG or Rush does not matter when things go wrong. I am unhappy that the shipper did not put in proper heat packs, or package/deliver at a good time. Since the shipment would not leave until the morning, it should not have been taken to the airport until morning. The airlines had the shipment to me in less than 12 hours from when it went on the plane.

Maybe with NFG the airlines would cover the cost of the loss, but the creatures would still be dead because of the heat packs did not work. (even though NFG requires direct flights, which we do not have)

Kim

Where the heat packs wet? Even at 60 degrees and 30+ hours in the bag I had *MUCH*DOA/DAA rates on fresh import shipments and domestic shipments. It sounds to me like the fish sucked from the get go.

[naesco]

So it is my fault that the heat paks that I pay for do not work for 48 hours as they should. The last shipment was delayed a total of 7 hours. I lost over half the shipment. The heat packs were cold, so they were not 48 hour heat packs.

The shipment got loaded onto the first plan at 8:30 in the evening, I received it at 10:30 the next evening, Now the shipper did drop it off at 4 in the afternoon,

Kim

Yes, in light of the winter weather, you owe it to the critters that you caused to be removed from the ocean to see that the optimum shipping conditions we arranged.
You should have arranged for the special delivery Jeremy suggested.
You did not make these arrangements no doubt to save money with the resultant loss of life. Not good!!

Roll if you want but IMO Jeremy is right on.
Don't go cheap on freight, kill fish and post tears

[Thales]

So it is my fault that the heat paks that I pay for do not work for 48 hours as they should. The last shipment was delayed a total of 7 hours. I lost over half the shipment. The heat packs were cold, so they were not 48 hour heat packs.

The shipment got loaded onto the first plan at 8:30 in the evening, I received it at 10:30 the next evening, Now the shipper did drop it off at 4 in the afternoon,

Kim

Yes, in light of the winter weather, you owe it to the critters that you caused to be removed from the ocean to see that the optimum shipping conditions we arranged.
You should have arranged for the special delivery Jeremy suggested.
You did not make these arrangements no doubt to save money with the resultant loss of life. Not good!!

Roll if you want but IMO Jeremy is right on.
Don't go cheap on freight, kill fish and post tears

I rolled because of the assumptions and the holier than thou attitude. The hobby/industry is full of that and it never helps.

Plus, you could go expensive on freight and still kill fish - delays happen.

[Checker]

I must agree there Thales, delays do happen. You can pay over triple for NFG and still loose all the fish. FWIW NFG while the best route is the least often route chosen. I do not recall sending a single NFG shipment while working in wholesale, not a single one.

[JeremyR]

The airlines go by the dropoff time, so technically they took about 30 hours, which I agree isn't that long and they should have survived. However, a 4 pm dropoff is pretty average.. none of the big shippers will drop off at 5:30 am to make an 8:30 flight. It is lame that they aren't helping you with the credit tho, that would probably cause me to not do biz with that company again.

I don't know about all airlines, but SWA does NFG on non-direct flights now too. It means it's guaranteed to get on the next available flight. RUSH is guaranteed in 24 hours. In the winter, there is no excuse for not picking a rush or NFG service. A couple weeks ago, we picked up fish at the airport NFG that were fine. The same day another store in the area picked up his general cargo fish that sat an extra day in chicago because they were general and the airline bumped them for whatever reason.. 14 boxes of frozen fish. As Jen says, the most expensive fish is a dead fish, and even if it moves you up only 5 hours I say NFG is worth it in the winter, and it does provide you with a fall-back if your wholesaler porks you on the credit. NFG has saved our bacon alot of times.

[swsaltwater]

I have lost fish via NFG just the same as Freight and Southwest still does not honor any loss. They always say it was handled withing guidelines. Had 12 boxes on a tranship left on the Tucson tarmac for 1 hour in Tucson 110 degree heat. I was at the freight house asking them to bring them but they said we had planes land and they won't bring until all 3 are complete. About 80% loss on that but claims agent said it was handled properly....... We lost 2000 hermit crabs recently for layovers in the bitter cold of the Midwest were I assume they left em out for the connecting flight. (one was southwest and one was fed-ex. Seems fed ex will allow claim but southwest as usuall did not. It was freight but still made every light (not too much full flight or full freight these days).

[JeremyR]

I dunno, you learn that there are certain airports you can't use (like midway in winter) but I"ve seen many times that stuff I had NFG made it where other people got bumped on general. NFG means next flight guaranteed, at the very least you can get your shipping money back if it's late. I"ve always been able to push swa when there is a problem to get what I want, but it's extremely rare that it happens.

[kgross]

Holier than though attitude..... hmm....

Let me see if I understand the general feeling here. It is my fault the I had lots of DOA in the order and the wholesaler is fine. Is that correct.

So wholesalers should not use good heat packs or good Styrofoam to ship with, and they do not need to follow there own guidelines as to doa policies etc.

Question. Since most airlines do not like to do cover doa's, and shipping is such small part of the cost, just getting shipping refunded will not make much of a difference when things like this happen. What should I do? Just raise prices so that it is impossible to compete against the other stores, or are there any wholesalers that actually will cover DOA's when stuff happens?

Kim

[Caterham]

Naesco,

Thanks so much for your contributions to this thread.

Unfortunately, with absolutely zero past or current involvement in the trade of marine ornamentals there are some folks here is this community that might take your comments somewhat lightly.

I respect your efforts and hope that you continue to stay involved. All good teams have people cheering for them on the sidelines, out of play.

Warmest regards,

[Raskal311]

dub post

[Raskal311]

Man am I glad I pick up my stuff directly from 104 and other locals. There is nothing better then cherry picking right when the girls are unpacking new stuff.

I don’t think I can deal with picking up stuff from the airport on a weekly basis. I find it very stressful and a huge waist of time having to stand around at an airport waiting for a shipment.

[kgross]

What really sucks is for some of the towns that are quite a distance from the airport. We are only about 45 minutes away which is not to bad. We call and annoy the cargo guys a lot to try and make sure it will be there so we don't have to wait for hours.

Kim

[JeremyR]

Most wholesalers I deal with will cover DOA's when there is no real delay, but 2 years ago when every shipment thru midway was frozen they didn't (airline error) and I learned not to ship thru midway when it's cold. Part of the responsibility lies with the wholesalers to pack properly, part of it with the airlines to move the freight, and part of it with us to be responsible enough to pay for expedited shipping and check the weather in connecting cities before ordering.

[Thales]

Holier than though attitude..... hmm....

Sorry if there is any confusion - that wasn't directed towards you.

[naesco]

Naesco,

Thanks so much for your contributions to this thread.

Unfortunately, with absolutely zero past or current involvement in the trade of marine ornamentals there are some folks here is this community that might take your comments somewhat lightly.

I respect your efforts and hope that you continue to stay involved. All good teams have people cheering for them on the sidelines, out of play.

Warmest regards,

When will you get the courage to post your bio in this forum as most of us have done. What are you hiding from?

There is nothing wrong with coming from some backwater southern town. Be proud that you are a Southerner, man
On the other hand maybe I would not post your bio if I were you either.

[Thales]

Naesco,

Thanks so much for your contributions to this thread.

Unfortunately, with absolutely zero past or current involvement in the trade of marine ornamentals there are some folks here is this community that might take your comments somewhat lightly.

I respect your efforts and hope that you continue to stay involved. All good teams have people cheering for them on the sidelines, out of play.

Warmest regards,

When will you get the courage to post your bio in this forum as most of us have done. What are you hiding from?

Wayne, give it a rest. If people don't want to post in the bio thread, that is their prerogative. Not posting to a thread because you want someone to doesn't mean they are hiding from anything.

There is nothing wrong with coming from some backwater southern town. Be proud that you are a Southerner, man
On the other hand maybe I would not post your bio if I were you either.

This has nothing to do with this forum, so please take future posts like this somewhere else.

If you have any questions, send me a pm.