Thesea.org service is 2/10

[Los]

Folks-

Quick review. On Wednesday over a week ago, I put in a $300+ order asking for Friday delivery. The order was accepted online, but I was subsequently told that I wouldn't be told when it would ship until Sunday or Monday of the next week. Fine.
I didn't hear from Blane Perun until Tuesday, a day later than I was told. By now, it was already one day short of a week after the order had been placed. He said he'd ship the order on Thursday for Friday delivery.
On Thursday, the day before the delivery was to arrive (and after we had already made plans to be home all day), he sent me an email saying that he didn't have enough quality stock on hand and the shipment would be delayed yet another week, for some undetermined date.
After having waited and waited, I cancelled the order.
On the plus side, and to his credit, I didn't get shipped subpar specimens. On the negative side, he should have known that they weren't available before the day of shipment and let me know earlier so that we would not have wasted me and my friend's time scheduling to be home. He either has poor knowledge of his inventory or he accepted new orders after having scheduled mine.
One more point. He said he was waiting for 3 deliveries over the next couple days, which would give him stock to ship me. I thought his site heavily implied that the stock was propogated. Well, that isn't the case.
I can't comment on the quality of his stock and he did, to his credit, not ship me junk. Still, I experienced several delays and he twice missed dates which he had given me. Finally, he couldn't perform and, not wanting to wait any longer, I chose to cancel.
He did waste my time, for which I am not appreciative. Caveat emptor.
LOS

[SciGuy2]

Originally posted by Los
One more point. He said he was waiting for 3 deliveries over the next couple days, which would give him stock to ship me. I thought his site heavily implied that the stock was propogated. Well, that isn't the case.

How do you know that the deliveries that he was waiting for weren't propagated livestock? Maybe he is brokering someone else's prop. stuff?

[Los]

Certainly could be. Good point, although the big benefit I see to getting propogated corals is that they haven't endured the stress of being shipped over and over again. Still, you are absolutely correct and I stand corrected.

Thanks,

LOS

[Carl_in_Florida]

Looks like Blane's marketing got ahead of him. It seems like he has a good head on his shoulders, hopefully he willl be able to pull it together. It is often hard to turn a hobby into a succesful business. Keeping up with customer demand and keeping afloat when there is no demand are hard forces to balance.
His stuff is to expensive for me but I hope he works out the kinks.
Good luck Blane!

Carl

[Los]

Carl, I too hope he gets things fixed. That being said, what I was trying to get accross is that this was NOT the result of unpredictable demand. If you look at the timeline, he apparently took note of his stock and then gave me a shipment date more than a week after the order was placed. Fine. But then, on the date of shipment, he emailed me saying the quality stock I had ordered wasn't available and I'd have to wait for a later shipment. There are only two possibilities: 1) He didn't have the stock when he took my order and scheduled shipment; or 2) After taking my order and scheduling delivery, he went and sold my stuff to someone else. Either way, he should have known before the shipment date, so that my time wouldn't have been wasted.

Demand fluctuations should result in "out of stocks" when the order is placed - not on the day of shipment. In my case, I ordered stuff that the website said was in stock. But, not until the shipment date was I told that he didn't have it.

I hope he gets it fixed too. In the meantime, I wouldn't place an order if service is important to you. I'd also read the reviews of others, since it's not just me that's had problems:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=431157

Good luck and I'll join you in hoping that he gets things fixed.

Los

[carcynogen]

i think recently most of his stuff isn't propagated, because it says "collected prop"...when it is propagated it's like "perun prop" or something..

the site can be misleading..

[Footbag]

A lot of his stuff is not propogated at his pittsburg facility. I belive that he has another facility that is propogating in the ocean. That is "collected prop". The "perun props" are his propogated corals.
Most of his finer zoanthids are "collected props". These are some of the nicest zoanthids I've ever seen.
Yes you do experience a little die off from collected, but they are amazing morphs and very large frags.

[okiebones]

We must have got frags from different Blane Peruns.....my frags were miniscule at best. I agree...his pics of his zoos are some of the most beautiful I've seen (marketing) but when they arrive, most were not as pictured. I dont know about photoshopping stuff but the colors have definitely been enhnced somehow. I've been burnt and have learned my lessson.

Doc in Tulsa