Survival/DOA rate for mail order fish?

[GaryE]

It would be interesting to see how other non US people do. My feeling about the UK is that there is still a network of decent shops, and things aren't as 'fast foodized" as they are for Americans. Are people in other places as pushed to have to buy online?
In Canada, the network of online sellers is expanding, but people tend to be very naive about our climate. We're spoiled by Amazon dry goods and seem to expect fish to be plastic.
I get most of my requests to send fish after it's become too cold to ship safely.
What happens in Australia, Asia, and the EU?

 

[Essjay]

I can't speak for the rest of the UK but within half an hour drive of where I live I have 2 Maidenhead Aquatics (a national chain), a Pets at Home (but don't shop there) and at least 4 independent shops.

 

[gwand]

Within half an hour of where I live we have two independent shops and four national chain stores, two Petsmarts and two Petcos. That is a bad ratio.

 

[Colin_T]

It would be interesting to see how other non US people do. My feeling about the UK is that there is still a network of decent shops, and things aren't as 'fast foodized" as they are for Americans. Are people in other places as pushed to have to buy online?
In Canada, the network of online sellers is expanding, but people tend to be very naive about our climate. We're spoiled by Amazon dry goods and seem to expect fish to be plastic.
I get most of my requests to send fish after it's become too cold to ship safely.
What happens in Australia, Asia, and the EU?

I can't comment on what happens in the pet industry currently but online shopping here in Australia is massive since Covid19. Before Covid19 a few places did online shopping and most people simply went to the store. Now every business (or nearly every business) has online shopping with either "click & collect" or "direct to boot" orders. I have been doing a lot of direct to boot orders to get food so I don't have to go into a shop where I might catch something. I actually caught a bug on Monday when I had to pick up the thermal paste for my new computer. I went and did some shopping after that and Tuesday night my sinuses were gunked up and I couldn't breath. Wednesday night my throat started burning. Today (Thursday night) my sinuses are still gunked up and my throat (top of mouth at back near throat) is on fire and I can't talk. I sound a bit like the Godfather (from the movie). I can't even understand what I am saying. This is why I have been doing direct to boot orders and my medical mask didn't do its job when I was at the shops.

But online orders are big now and so much stuff is being shipped by courier and postal services. There's a new crime wave with bad guys following couriers and stealing items being left at doors.

We don't get carried away with 24 hour shipping and immediate delivery and hopefully never will. But most things can be delivered to your door within a day or two if you don't mind paying extra for the postage. Going back to the thermal paste I bought on Monday, I ordered it online and it cost about $15.00 for 3.5 grams of paste in a small plastic syringe. I could have paid to have it delivered but the prices started at $19 for delivery in 4 days and went up to $49 for next day delivery. I don't have that sort of money so drove in and did my click & collect order, which cost nothing except the price of the item (and me catching a bug afterwards).

 

[Donya]

So after the various responses here, I decided to try again, but not with the same place. I specifically went looking for some place to order from that would stricly avoid the "double bounce" issue while minimizing geographic distance. I found one such place and gave it a go. I did two fish this time and, thankfully, earlier today I got two very healthy and active fish in bags and they started eating right away after acclimation. Honestly they are in such good shape I think if anything goes wrong from here out, it's at least partly if not all on me. I now realize having seen the packing on this box that, even though I thought the previous shipper knew what they were doing, there is most certainly a tier above that. Among other things, a much larger volume of water relative to fish size was used.

My feeling about the UK is that there is still a network of decent shops, and things aren't as 'fast foodized" as they are for Americans. Are people in other places as pushed to have to buy online?

I don't think my situation is terribly widespread in the USA. It's actually the first time I've lived in an area with no reasonably reachable LFS, and I've moved around a lot over my life. The total absence of LFS in my current place is relatively recent and due to overall business attrition in less wealthy areas of the state, which didn't just hit LFS but also a ton of other shop categories - it snowballed right after I moved in and was kind of grim. To use Colin's mention of thermal paste as a good example, I don't think I can even get something specialty like that now within a 2h drive, if not longer. Even the fast food is signiicantly diminished. But if what you want is some hay bales, you've come to the right place LOL. Basically if I was still living closer to the coast or even just less totally remote, I'd still be spoiled for choice with LFS and have no need of online ordering. Most if not all of the various shops I used to visit along the vaguely coastal metropolitan span from eastern NY up through Massachusetts are all still active, and I've seen on other social media sites that some have even expanded.