Am I Being Rediculous Or Are They?

[AshleySpatula]

so i found a website that sells a few species of fish that i would like to get my hands on but havent really seen anywhere else. especially lps.

i looked at their info page and found out they are less than a 30 drive away from me. i got really excited, so i e-mailed inquiring about possibly
just picking up my order, instead of paying for shipping....

the response i recieved:
"We do not have a retail location. We are a mail order company only. We do have a courier service that will meet you at the Fedex/Kinkos at the Foothills mall for a flat rate of $14."

so i thought, why would i drive 10 minutes, and pay 14$ for someone to drop off something that i could drive 20 minutes to pick up? it seemed a little rediculous to me so i wrote back...
"Hi Matt,
I understand that you are an order company only, but you are very
close, and with fish i would much rather come pick them up. i am not
asking to come in and poke around and shop, i can shop the website,
send you the order through the website and maybe add a note that i
would come pick it up? would that be ok? it would be very much
appriciated.
thank you,
Ashley"

and this is what Matt sent me:
"The only option is the courier service explained below."

thats it! i have read on a few different forums/sites that mail order shops let you pick things up if you live in the same town, or in the area. usually they are more than happy to let you pick your order up. i would assume. right? if you ask me they have horrible customer service.
he just lost 50-100$ worth in service WITHOUT the stupid 14$ courier fee. i know that might not seem like much to a shop owner that gets orders every day but who knows, if they were a little more accomidating to a local, i most likely would have placed multiple orders, and reffered them to friends.
now i am considering telling anyone who asks that they have horrible customer service and are rude.

what would you think? i would reall like to know.

 

[andywg]

It may well be that the fish price is low and the amount for the carriage makes a little profit.

At the end of the day, if he wants to do business that way, it is his choice.

 

[AshleySpatula]

this is very true, i have just never came across a mail order place like that, i mean my roommate worked for a tiki place that only did mail order but let people pick stuff up all the time, even let the guys that owned the local retail tiki store come and pick stuff out for their store. that and maybe it's just me but Mr. Matt came off as a little rude and uninviting as a business person. which was the main thing for me, i work with customers all day long and i have the understanding that the customer is my friend, and even if they are rude, well they are still my paycheck. so treat every customer how i would want to be treated.

 

[afishdude]

if you were spending $100 then y wont you spend the extra 14? its a currer so he hands the fish to you, its alot safer then posting.

 

[AshleySpatula]

it's not really about the money, like i said it's more about the customer service, the person writing the e-mails just didnt really seem to give a crap wheather you walk away happy or not and if he is like that to most/all customers they must not really be doing good business.

that and i have been having a problem lately with shipping with everything, today i got a call from fed ex telling me they lost my package, and i will most likely have to contact aquariumguys.com to have them try to get reimbursed for the package so they can re-send it.

i have two things coming via USPS that have taken way too long to get here. i ordered from ebay, got shipping confirmation from both people and one was even supposed to be 2 day shipping and it's been a week. the other i ordered before that and it has been two weeks, no packages.

so right now i am just not very happy with the whole shipping idea in general. plus, if i am paying 14$ to pick it up from the fed ex location that they use to ship,
if i just decided to go with shipping would they be adding that 14$ onto the fed ex price? the website says there is only a 5$ boxing fee then shipping, but they charge you for your order and shipping in two different transactions, for some reason that seems wierd to me.

 

[Teelie]

Sounds to me like they might have had problems in the past with people doing local pick ups and are just opting for this instead. Maybe there were people who caused trouble or tried to do something like a grab and run. Who knows. He hasn't given an explanation so that's only a guess.