thesea.org - Take 2

[jdsabin1]

(*Posted this on Nano-Reef but thought I would post it here also)
--------

Well, Seabass and I placed another order with Blane's operation Tuesday afternoon. Nearly 20 pieces in all. He still hasn't fixed the site from a 'real time' update issue (in other words even though a coral may say it's available, that means absolutely nothing. It continues to be a manual process where you send Blane an e-mail and he e-mails you back with what he has left that you asked for). Time consuming to say the least.

Still, he has some gorgeous zoos, rics and mushrooms that we really wanted so we went ahead and placed the order. This includes some outrageous blue zoos (that I am sure are all gone by now but I placed an order for those just in case I got lucky).

We're hoping we see some discount for an order that large.

Also, Blane seems to send frags using just 'standard overnight' versus 'priority overnight' which is also a little frustrating since getting here before 10:30am is a plus when you want to go in to work still.

Finally, the pictures on his site are frustrating. Some of the close up of rics for example are gorgeous but it would be nice to see the ric from a further distance and to see the whole thing rather than a macro close-up.

I know it sounds like I'm *****ing but we're trying it again based on the beauty of the corals he shows on his site. I will report back here in this thread on what kind of service/product we actually get.

-Jeff

[jdsabin1]

UPDATE:

Seabass and I e-mailed Blane and asked for a total of 19 corals. Of the 19, Blane did not have 6. Not too bad as I knew the bright blue zoos was not a possibility anyway (just wishful thinking). Still, Blane needs to fix his site so we weren't left waiting to see which ones he had.

Another positive, Blane e-mailed back within the hour to let us know what he had available. Since we're ordering 13 corals, he gave us a price break. I don't feel at liberty to say what that was since I don't want to create a precedent here but suffice to say we thought it was more than fair.

Next step is to see how fast Blane can turn this order around. Today is Tuesday so we are hoping to have these corals this week still. In the past, Blane hasn't been the fastest shipper around so time will tell. We have also asked him to designate on the bags, which is Seabass's and which is mine. Packaging has never been a problem so we don't foresee that as an issue.

*---------------------
EDIT: Wednesday Morning and still no word from Blane on confirmation that PayPal payment was received or to inquire about shipping dates.
*---------------------

I will post more as I have more to tell.

[scorcho]

I ordered from Blane and was a little unhappy, the zoo frags I recieved were really small about the size of an eraser on a pencil about 2 frags on each disc. I agree they really need to update the availability so you don't have to blindly order.

[mane3215]

I have been going back and forth with emailing blane for the past two days. I had emailed in a pretty large order, about 10 frags, for myself, and have been having a helluva time getting things squared away.

I am close to pulling the plug and just going to anthony at aquadesignz.com

[RonN]

I have found that their web site is very hard to get around, it took me 10 minutes to find what I was looking for.

[Azurel]

I just got my order from the sea.org and I am very happy with it. Shipping is now priority overnight so no problem there, the packaging is very good.Everything arrived alive and well....

[jdsabin1]

UPDATE: After lunch on Wednesday afternoon. PayPal transaction was completed nearly 24 hours ago. No word from Blane as far as a confirmation or when shipping might happen. We continue to wait.

[mane3215]

Yeah, he is very very slow. I send him emails the second after getting them and I have like a 6 hour return wait =).

Power is back out again =(....this sh*t is getting old now!

[jdsabin1]

In Blane's defense, on his web site in the shipping section he specifically states:

"I ship Monday through Thursday. Orders after Monday go out the following week. I ship in relative to when you place your order."

So info is there. To provide feedback, I would recommend Blane at least acknowledges he's received PayPal payment and when he estimates the corals will be shipped. That way at least even if his process takes longer than other vendors to ship out, you are up to speed on the details.

As of late this afternoon, we've received no update.

[MrJenkins]

In Blane's defense, he does get back with you personally by email and by phone. Maybe he has a large volume of orders right now due to his blue zoos.
That said, nothing I have ordered from them looks like the picture on the website. It's enlarged like five hundred times, so you never know what it will look like to the naked eye. And just like Scorcho said, some zoos are the size of pinheads. I have some that I got 6 months ago and they haven't grown a millimeter, they are still so tiny you need a magnifying glass to see them!
I keep telling myself I won't order from there anymore, however he has the art of displaying such awesome pictures something takes my brain over and places an order before I can regain control!
His zoos and ricordias are not cheap, so I feel a little cheated when I only get four to six pinhead polyps that will probably take longer than my lifetime (what little is left ) to get big enough to really see!

[Blane Perun]

Unfortunately I don’t have a shopping cart program so if 60 people submit orders and I reply to each. Each persons acceptance or refusal of what is in stock affects the next. So just as cumbersome for me although that may be hard to believe J

I do my best to reply to each order, and put specific direction on the sit in which to submit the order. I find many people complain about going back and forth but never actually read the process in the first place which makes it a bit more difficult.

There is a section on my site called ordering, I was not sure what to call it but had hoped in calling it this everyone would check it out. Possibly you guys could come up with
Some alternative titles.
________________________________________________________________________
Here is line one
“This is not my full time occupation, so please be patient. I try to respond to mails within 24 hours. If you still have not heard from me, all my contact numbers are in the contact section.
“

right off the bat I try to explain its going to be slow. Now that fall is coming I work 12 hour days. I have two children and when I get home some times I’m just not able to get to mail.

Line two
“Ordering (step one)
EMail selections, Include alternatives,
phone, & address. please include all the info above of it
slows the process down.�

I state right here if you don’t send all the required info. That means
It slows it down from the perspective of 24 hours.
_______________________________________________________________________
Most people do not send a phone number, when they do I can and work
Through the order in 2 minutes, instead of two days

Most people do not send alternates, so that ends up being another delay.

I currently have os commerce installed on a new server but it will take some time
To set this all up. I have to do it in my spare time




I’m not exactly sure what to do to remedy the problem, if a person does not
Want to read what I wrote about ordering, I cannot force them.

I was thinking of having an auto response mail go out with all the text on
The site, but I’m not sure people will read that either.

Any ideas ?

[Blane Perun]

i posted an update to the site about reading the ordering page.

hope that help, any other ideas would be great.

could you mail them to me as well

[jdsabin1]

Thanks for responding Blane. Please don't misinterpret my thread as negative. The fact is, you have specific corals that I haven't found online anywhere else and your prices are decent so I know a lot of people keep an eye on your livestock. I wanted to post my experience so others could make an educated decision on ordering from you.

Part of the problem from a customer's standpoint is the fact that you do have all these neat zoos and such but you're doing this on the side. A lot of people have ordered from businesses that *only* deal with corals, etc so it's a lot easier for them to get back to the customer quickly and mail out often the same day too. I commend you for working long hours and taking care of your family. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily help the customer when they have placed an order with you.

Aside from the frustration with the whole 'what do you have in stock' issue (which it sounds like you plan to address in the future), communication is key. Personally, rather than place some of the info you are referring to on links within your site, you may want to go ahead put a disclaimer or notice right on the front page(?). That way you don't have boneheads like me rattling on about not seeing your disclaimers.

Also, perhaps a 'form' type of canned reply to PayPal payment with the whole spiehl again back to the paying customer. Nothing is more frustrating than paying for something online, and then waiting a considerable amount of time without knowing exactly where you are at in the whole process.

I guess what I am trying to say is communication is the key and I think you could find ways even with your busy schedule to ensure your customers are for the most part, up to speed during the process.

All constructive criticism so take it for what it's worth.

Sidenote - Brian sent you an e-mail asking about other corals we wanted so if you haven't shipped that first order out yet, can you check to see if you have those in stock so we can throw those in with the first order? Again, you have really great looking frags so we couldn't resist wanting more of them .

Thanks....

[Blane Perun]

on the paypal do you have any idea where to set that up ? i sort of tired to neb around for it but was not able to figure it out.

that is a good idea because then the people who order will get that response rather than people who inquire

im moving my whole site acutally from asp to php to get into a shopping cart program i am on a windows server right now so it met moving the whole deal rather than just a segment.

all that stuff you guys wanted in the clearance section i have, i jsut mailed him

if you have any info on the paypal stuff maybe one of you guys could mail it to me or anyone readin this. that would be a great temporary help

[William Hippensteel]

Hi,

We just got in an order from Blane, and everything looks great. Well packed and healthy.

When we placed our request we listed them in a first and second choice for each frag. We intended to order nine, as that was how many we thought the box would hold. Within a very few hours Blane wrote us back telling us what he had, and indicated he had eleven of the eighteen we had listed. When we opened the box there were twelve!

We are quite contented with this system as we want so many of the frags we looked at. We began this transaction on Friday afternoon, and got our shipment this AM.

Blane called prior to the shipment and took the time to answer any question we had. What else could one ask for?

Bill and Gail
Augusta Georgia

P.S. The Blue Zoo's look FABULOUS!!! ;^)>

[Bryan Thompson]

I wanted to chime in here to give my point of view. What we are talking about here is a double edged sword for 2 reasons.

1) Starting an online business to supply aquacultured or rare corals is not an immediate opportunity to quit your current job. The startup costs are high and it takes time to find quality suppliers and livestock. It also takes time to grow the corals. The negative to this is you cannot always reply to every order or email rapidly due to your other fulltime job. Once you can increase your capacity to hold and grow several corals then you can start to sell the volume needed to provide and income. This is a long and hard road.
2) Online shopping carts create their own problem. If you load your products with an inventory number then it does allow people to see that it is available or sold. The problem is when someone adds the product to their shopping cart and then never completes the transaction. The next person sees that it is sold but in reality it is not. This hurts both the person who really wants the coral and the person selling it.

Customer service is very important and almost every vendor tries as hard as they can to provide the best. Sometimes it is very hard to do everything when you are trying so hard to grow.

I am not making excuses or downplaying the importance of customer service I am just trying to provide a different point of view.

Bryan

[Green Mariner]

Originally posted by Bryan Thompson
The problem is when someone adds the product to their shopping cart and then never completes the transaction. The next person sees that it is sold but in reality it is not. This hurts both the person who really wants the coral and the person selling it.

Bryan

Actually, you should be able to have the shopping cart refresh at a set interval, so if someone puts something in their cart and doesn't follow through with the sale it will be placed back into stock. I have set-up a few sites like this, so Blane or Bryan if you have any questions please feel free to email me!

BTW, Blane I may have a less expensive and more functional alternative for you, if you are interested.

Regards,
Lou S.

[Bryan Thompson]

Our software does delete all carts after a set time period. The problem is that when you sell something like Blane's purple people eater, even a 5 minute delete will not work.

I was not trying to start a debate about software I was just adding a different point of view from a vendor side.

Every company has hurdles to jump and some are harder than others.

Bryan

[logical]

Just a note on those points guys, and the way I work it is. Nothing is deleted from the page until Paypal sends an IPN to the server and tells the database it's been paid for.

Leaves it open for the rare instance of two people putting the same item in the cart at the same time...but almost impossible to pay at the same moment. Then simply takes a very fast response to the customer that paid a minute late. Never a problem as most online customers understand these types of things if you just communicate with them.

Peace, Bryan

[Blane Perun]

Green Mariner

i started on the migration to php about a month ago
so im about half way done and 50% of the budeget
has been spent with the programmer.

do you not like os commerce ?

blane

[OscarBeast]

Bryan, not all shopping cart software packages "hold" or temporarily remove items from inventory when they are added to your cart.

Also, you can always pay a programmer to develop any solution you need really. But that is usually quite out of the price range of most small online vendors.

[EinsteinTheGrey]

I also think it would be nice to see non-macro photos of the zoos. It really is impossible to know how they will appear during normal viewing. This bothers me much more than slow communication and unavailability. I want to know what the product will actually look like when I get it. This is my biggest pet peeve.

[Tagamet]

I've posted feedback before on Blaine's operations, so readers may just want to look that up. I TOTALLY understand the difficulty "delaying gratification" when we see critters on there that make our collective mouths water. The problem is that they are that beautiful, unique and desireable, BECAUSE there is a very limited supply. I can't imagine anyone being able to meet the incredible demand for these guys given the simple fact that they take time to grow. As it is, Blaine sends out a "heads up" email that says that the available corals will be posted on the site shortly. I know people who wait up, logged onto the site, just hoping to be one of the very few that by definition will win the race to buy. I chose to drive 8 hours round trip to his place just to save the corals the trauma of shipping AND (admittedly) I didn't want to wait a moment longer than necessary to get my hands on these beautiful, rare specimens. While there, Blaine mentioned that when he posts the heads up email his website gets "hits" exceeding 3 thousand(!) the very next day. Frankly, I have no idea how he does as well as he does with TRYING to do the impossible - meeting everyone's selections AND the be expected to do it in a timeframe that's simply impossible to meet to anyone's satisfaction. I believe that some of the frags are small simply because they are "seeds". They are not INTENDED to be centerpiece display corals until they have reproduced in our tanks to the point of being gorgeous colonies. I have never seen any descriptors on his site that even remotely implies that these are huge colonies. If he waited until he only sold display size peices, he'd be taking even MORE heat.
My experience was that he: has a fantastic assortment of rare and beautiful seed stock. They are not inexpensive, but worth every penny he gets. He was personable and gracious in person and volunteered info on each corals care, and since I'd taken a day to make it a pilgrimage, he even "threw in" one of his signiture neon green zoo plugs. All of the emails we exchanged both before and after the purchases were VERY timely and accurate.
I think that the answer to his problems is that there ARE no answers to his problems. He has a great product. He does this on a part-time basis and has his priorities staright as to whether family or business comes first in his life. He has no way to accellerate the critter's growth rates to increase the supply side of the equation. And given the quality of his beasts, the demand will likely always be great.
This just isn't like buying crushed coral from a pet store. It's more like buying a 48 inch plasma TV from the Sharper Image (except that they have far greater supply side support).
I'm just glad that Blaine is around to provide even a few of the lucky ones some of his critters, so that eventually those seed critters will be able to be shared from our tanks to other's tanks, and so on.
I'm sorry for the soapbox bit. I just really got the sense that he works so hard at meeting everyone's needs and inevitiably ends up with a lot of disappointed people. I'm sure there are none more disappointed than Blaine.
My $1.50
Tagamet

[Jaykon]

I have to give Blane a big You do a awesome job.

For a guy who is thought to have communication problems by some he was 1 out of 2 from a total of 12 that replied to my e-mails.

When I phoned several of the others to try and get answers i got the same answer over and over again "Your from Canada we dont deal with Canada". Not "we don’t ship to Canada but maybe we could answer some of your questions". I would have settled for a generic e-mail stating they do not deal with Canada.

Blane was the ONLY one who tried to help me find legal ways to get me corals. He was also more than willing to answer my questions when nobody else bothered.

From a retailers prospective I know its a fact that you can give them the best product at the best prices with the best service you can possibly provide and still they will find something to hate you for. I also know everybody is willing to tell the negative but not so motivated to share the good !

For a guy who does this P/T I think he does a dang good job. He at very least gives us a chance to get our hands on some very rare stuff while providing a wealth of knowledge.

Thanks again Blane

I will step of my soap box and accept my flaming now.

[jdsabin1]

Originally posted by Jaykon
I will step of my soap box and accept my flaming now.

I don't think you'll get any flaming and I don't disagree with anything that's been said here. I agree that Blane has great looking corals ... is there *anyone* here that disagrees with that anyway?

Some of you are missing the point. Constructive criticism should be helpful to a new or even part time business owner, regardless of what they are selling.

To break it down, regardless of what anyone says:

1) There needs to be a better way to shop on Blane's site. Hell Blane admits it himself and is working hard to make that happen. If he is getting 3,000 hits the next day after he announces new corals, then nobody is experiencing as much pain trying to answer all the emails and checking off against stock than Blane is. Still, it's not working very well the way it sits now.

2) Blane does have some additional info about shipping and the like, and even though it *would* be nice to see faster turnaround, a problem exists between the time a payment is sent to the time further communication is made. Again, Blane acknowledged this and so I, for one, assume he is working on it.

3) The pictures on Blane's site, while really gorgeous, don't often tell the story. It would be nice to see some pictures of the coral as a whole, rather than a just a macro of it's texture.

The only other comment I'll make is I have received several pvt messages telling me to beware that Blane's zoo frags are very, very small and in turn, some have questioned their value. According to someone over at Nano-Reef.com, Blane has addressed this issue as well (Note: I didn't say this, others did, so if you want to flame about this, don't shoot the messenger).

I am not questioning Blane's character, or even his customer service. Rather I am pointing out areas that I think Blane could make some changes for the better. I started this thread because I realized he has some really nice looking zoos and the like and if he is getting 3,000 hits, etc, then obviously others would like to know how the process works and what kind of service and product they will get as they progress through the transaction.

*shrug*