How do B&M get their fish?

[danieldm]

Since the good doctor chose to hammer this question relentlessly, I thought that I would answer him (just in case he's lurking here somewhere).

This is from my personal experience in both an e tailer capacity and B&M capacity. The chain of custody that I saw...

E Tailer
1) The fish are collected from the various wholesalers to fill the customer's order, and they can sometimes sit bagged most of the day. I have personally seen fish sit in an open box for five or six hours.
2) The order gets boxed up and is either picked up or dropped off at the shipping company (i.e UPS, FedEx, DHL etc.).
3) They then spend hours in transit, often going half way across country to a central distribution point before being shipping to the final receiving station.
4) The local station drives them around and depending upon the delivery level the fish are either picked up at the station, or delivered at sometime throughout the day. Now a lot of companies only ship by priority overnight, so they are delivered by 10:30 or so. Others let you pick the service level, and standard overnight is by the end of business day.

This puts the fish/coral in a bag for 15-24 hours, where it's undergoing a lot of movement...vibrations...etc.

B&M
1) My fish get bagged by the wholesaler relatively late in the day, or even the early evening.
2) If it is a local company I either pick them up, or they are delivered by the wholesaler.
2a) If I'm ordering from an LA company, they take the order to the airport.
3) Flying time to my destination airport is about 70 minutes.
4) I pick my order up and take it back to the shop for acclimation.

This puts the fish/coral in the bag only 7 or 8 hours. They have no where near the same amount of handling/jostling as the stuff being sent out via common carrier.

To a fish/coral being shipped, that is a huge time difference. The amount of lactic acid built up within the fish, not to mention the overall water quality and stability are incomparable.

I deal with a lot of retail B&M stores as a consumer, and they ALL get their livestock shipped direct via the airlines rater than any of the common carriers. Or, they have the wholesale deliver, or they pick them up.

So Race, in response, there is no comparison in regards to how the B&M gets their fish versus your customers.

 

[JennM]

A good representation, at least on the B&M side. I have no direct experience with etail, but it sounds plausible to me.

I get all my saltwater stuff from the west coast. I can usually have it picked up and acclimated within 12 hours or less from the time it was bagged. Luckily I'm close to ATL airport, less than an hour away and my fish get on a direct flight - no getting lost in the Hartsfield void Once they are picked up by me, it's straight back to the shop - no scenic tours or bumpy rides.

I order from one fish hatchery in Florida that ships FedEx. Order is sent priority but it usually arrives before 3:00 PM (not before 10:30 AM). The second last order I received from them actually went through FedEx's hub in Indiana first. Once upon a time, everything FedEx went through Memphis... which is far enough away considering, but to go through Indiana? Talk about a scenic route. Even at that the fish are less than 24 hours in transit, and I rarely have DOA or DAA - mainly due to the sender's excellent handling and packing.

I pick up freshies locally. 45 minutes from wholesaler to my store - maybe another half hour if I have to make a pickup at the airport.

Jenn

 

[dizzy]

Len,
I'm sorry to hear Race is putting pressure on advertisers not to advertise here. He did tell me if they support rdo or amda he will not buy from them. I hope you don't lose too much revenue. I don't see that as being a very smart marketing move as some hobbyists may consider it mean spirited. Just my opinion.
Mitch

 

[Anonymous]

nevemind


Louey

 

[JennM]

Len,
I'm sorry to hear Race is putting pressure on advertisers not to advertise here. He did tell me if they support rdo or amda he will not buy from them. I hope you don't lose too much revenue. I don't see that as being a very smart marketing move as some hobbyists may consider it mean spirited. Just my opinion.
Mitch

It certainly does sound like sour grapes. Judging by the post above mine, it may be a bad marketing choice too - hobbyists who frequent this board (and there are more than you might think), can see it all for themselves and make their own informed choice.

Jenn

Edit: while I was composing this, the poster above decided to edit his post. I won't repeat his words, but my post about sums it up.

 

[Anonymous]

:wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Len,
I'm sorry to hear Race is putting pressure on advertisers not to advertise here. He did tell me if they support rdo or amda he will not buy from them. I hope you don't lose too much revenue. I don't see that as being a very smart marketing move as some hobbyists may consider it mean spirited. Just my opinion.
Mitch

Why's his banner still running here?

 

[danieldm]

You sure, I just looked and I didn't see it anywhere.

 

[Anonymous]

Think I'd post that with out having looked just prior. Look again live Aquaria Coral Conference and fragswap.

 

[danieldm]

Ahhh, I cycled through all of the banners at the top of this page several times and it never came up. I cycled through the banner at the home page and it did come up.

 

[Anonymous]

Just go to the sponsors page in the future :lol:

Think your RC post will get deleted?

 

[danieldm]

That's where I went first.

Ya, I'm guessing when a MOD sees it it will be gone. I also posted in the Live Aquaria forum that I'm beteing gets deleted.

Odds that I'll be banned ar 5.6 - 1, and odds that I just get a threat of bannation are at 2.3 - 1.

 

[Anonymous]

The RC LA thread is what I speak of

Prolly just a threat.

 

[danieldm]

We'll see. I think I asked a legit question in a nonconfrontational way.

 

[JennM]

Well it lived all night. 7:16 AM EST and it's still there. No reply yet, but it's still there

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

Links to these threads please

Louey

 

[danieldm]

Well, he responded. But I gotta wonder at his double speak, I read his post four times, it still doesn't come through very clear what he's trying to say. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=807578

Doesn't answer my question at all.

 

[Anonymous]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... did=806857

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... did=807578

Lord, I hope I got the right ones :wink:

 

[pk1]

Hello all. I am just a hobbyist, and I've been reading threads on this industry forum for about 6 months now, as I am interested in the treatment of the animals I keep, and of the habitats they come from. danieldm, just a few questions. If your wholesaler bags your fish late in the day, he must be doing something else early in the day? If the order is delivered by a local company, are you always the first stop? What about the other B&M's on that delivery truck? If you order from a LA company, does he take your order straight to the carrier, or take all the orders for all the B&Ms to the carrier at the same time? Flying time to you is 70 minutes, what about other places in the country? Unloading and loading by the airlines?
Please don't take my post as confrontational, as I don't have a side in this, but your post seems to imply your orders always get the fastest response time in all area's of delivery...and that all B&M's get the same type of service. I just can't see how that can be possible.

Patrick Kelly

 

[JennM]

Welcome to RDO, Patrick.

I'm not Daniel but I can answer part of the question, at least as it pertains to my own experience.

I usually request a flight that leaves mid-day and arrives in the early evening in my city.

I just looked at the flight info for that particular flight for yesterday. It left SNA at 1:38 PM, arrived in ATL at 8:39 PM. Keep in mind that there's a 3 hour time difference between the west coast and the east coast so the actual flight time was about 4 hours. Shipment had to be dropped off ahead of time (an hour or so?) and there's a 3 hour recovery time in ATL (most other places it's 2 hours but ATL is slower for some reason.) When I have a shipment on that flight I am able to get it about 11:30 PM and start acclimating it shortly after midnight.

In my particular case, the shipment is not packed at the end of the day, but the beginning of the day in California, which is about midday my time. The time from when the order is packed, until I acclimate it, is roughly 12 hours.

This is going to vary from location to location, particularly if the LFS receiving the shipment doesn't have a direct flight, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Also, the airlines usually require that live fish cargo be packed to withstand up to 72 hours of shipping. I don't know if I'd want to push that envelope... but that's what they ask for. Fortunately, (knock on wood) the only shipments ever "lost" were live rock, and turned up within 48 hours, with no problems to the shipment. I know this isn't always so for others, particularly with connecting flights - the more connections the more risk.

So to answer your question - not all shipments are packed late in the day - so earlier in the day the wholesalers are packing orders, probably receiving and acclimating new livestock, making and receiving sales calls and orders, and other business that wholesalers need to take care of.

I'm sure my order is not the only one that goes onto the truck to the airport, but presumably several others for other shops goes on the same truck, and most likely directly to the airport.

I do know that the local wholesaler here in ATL has delivery trucks but I've never partaken of that service, although I've seen their route sheets in their office. Each driver has a region so not everyone is the "first stop".

Personally I prefer to pick the stuff up at the airport and take it directly back to my shop. From all the local LFS types I see there, I'd say that's how most do it around here.

Jenn