On-line shipping ?

[Somethingfishy]

When you guys in the States/Canada buy your fish on-line, how are they packaged and sent to you? What would one have to look out for and be careful of?

Just asking, looking into some business deals here in the UK, at least none that seel to the man on the street. There aren't any real 'live' shops on the net here. You can buy a lot of stuff for your tanks, live plants, ornaments, medicines and things like that but as yet I have not come across an on-line 'live' shop. A friend of mine and I were discussing it tonight and we thought we would start small and strat selling to the local LFS and see how things go.

I know I would first have to look into laws and things, but what would you recommend?

Thaks for the input guys.

 

[fishfreek]

Here is a post I made on my most recent online purchase.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=248

I took pics of how it was packaged.

I will also explain how it was packaged.

Their was a box cardbord that was very heavly taped all the seams where taped.

Inside this was a styrofoam box with lid that fix perfectly inside the cardbord box. All the seams around the lid of this box where taped aswell.

Inside this box are heating pads/cooling pads if its hot/cold when it ships. Items shipped now in the states would most certenly have a few heat packs to help keep the temp from dropping to much.

Each bag was tripple bagged with a dark thicker plastic cup like thing between two of the bags where the fish sat.

Each bag had only 1 fish and if it had 2 the bag was much larger than a single fish bag.

From my understanding the bags are shipped and oxygen is injected into the bags jst prior to tieing them shut so as to maintain oxygen levels durring shippment.

All the bags where placed so they did not shift durring transport. In my case there was a small baggie of water added as fillter.

That should get you alot of the basics.

 

[Somethingfishy]

Thanks, thats a good start.

 

[Grant R]

Well, if you pulled something like this off successfully, you'd be a very rich bloke as I too haven't yet come across an online stockist.

Having relatives of law in the family, I know that you would, as you say, have to look into certain laws - my guess being Transportation of Live Stock Regulations & I think if you did, you'd get regular check-ups and visits from Health & Safety, Animal Watch Groups and everything else.

Would be some business venture though ..

 

[Somethingfishy]

I am hoping so. Will start small with a couple of guppies, gold fish, maybe some Koi, some cichlids and then move onto more difficult species like pl*cos and the different sorts and some marine species. But we will have to see as there is a lot that has to be planned.

 

[Grant R]

Well, best of luck with it all, ideas like this aren't all as impossible as some people may think. As soon as you get the required licences etc, thats it - you're away !

You'll have to think of a catchy web domain name too.

 

[Somethingfishy]

Yeah Like I said we still have a lot of planning to do, my partner is still going to get 'fish' certified, there is the a lot of work to do on the building in which I want to keep all the tanks, the nice thing is this friend has a friend who builds tanks and said we could get some good quality tanks for a fraction of the price you can get at in the shop.

We are only getting together this weekend to discuss what, how who and all the finer details.