Am I wrong to be a little peeved?

Ok so after seeing that one of our sponsors had some yellow fin loaches (hillstream loaches) in stock, something I have been looking for forever, I quickly get onto whatsapp, get the details and hey my shipping from PTA to Brits is FREE!! WooHoo!, I rush off first thing the next morning (Thursday) to deposit the cash so there won't be any delays, only to find out that I am going to have to wait till monday...Ok no problem...will be waiting patiently as with all things fishy patience is needed.

So Monday comes and there is no news, now at the moment work is hectic as hell I am working 14 hours a day starting at 1 AM 6 days a week so if I am over reacting someone please let me know as I may be getting a little loopy....so anyway Monday comes .....not a word from the courier, so I start phoning around, it is now 5 in the afternoon, not been able to sleep as the signal on the farm is lousy and I still have to drive into town to meet the guy, only to find out that the parcel was only picked up at like 3 o clock but that it will not be coming to Brits but going to Rustenburg and only tomorrow (Tueseday) will it be sent to Brits....Ok no problem I suppose that is the way it works so once again I will wait, my excitement at receiving these long awaited fish is slowly turning into something else.Plus who can sleep now!

Tueseday still not hearing anything from anyone about my delivery, in between a DAY FROM HELL at work (and maybe 2 hours sleep) I manage to track down the courier and drive into town (I work on a farm 25 km outside Brits) and meet Richard the courier dude, who asks me "hey man what is in this package because no one said that we should handle it with care, it fell over and there is water leaking out of it" ..........UM OK Well let me get home in a hurry, open the cooler and find the bag with the long awaited yellow fin loaches deflated but still with some water in so I float the bags and see the fish is OBVIOUSLY NOT LOOKING GOOD, start dripping them in and well one is not going to be making it and does not make it,(now 9o clock and no sleep getting up at 12:45 to be at work 1am) the other one died.Oh I ordered 3 and only received 2, no one thaught to make a note that the fish were sold? or what?..I don't know?

Now we all know that shit happens and business is business at the end of the day, I just cant help but be really, REALLY DISAPPOINTED! AS THE PERSON HANDLING THE SALE ALSO SEEMS TO BE ALLERGIC TO WHATSAPP, as the messages sent yesterday have not been answered, I also do NOT want my money back, all I want is:...Oh and some sleep would be nice.

Ok so I am finished ranting and I think I may also be finished with the PetShop....lets see what happens.

 

Sorry for your loss ... must say shipping live stock - even plants I always feel it is a 50/50 game. Only logistic and shipping company I am ok with is TakeAlot - true they shipped me BOB from the USA at no extra charge many moons ago and the other day I ordered 2 spades and a pickaxes and got it the next morning, but it does sound like something went horrible wrong with your experience.

Later Ferdie

 

Yeah I would be more than a little grieved too. I always have a problem with things not being as someone said it should be. If it is going to take 3 days then say so and don't say 1 and then take 3.

Same happened to me and a courier (not same shop) but luckily it was just Moss.

The shop can also not blame the courier as it is their service provider.

 

Shipping livestock is a specialized job, shipping live stock that needs to be kept in temperature controlled and oxygenated water doubly so. Unless your supplier uses a courier that has policies and procedures in place to deal with these special requirements, it will probably end in tears.
If you take the U.S. where a lot of fish are couriers door to door, and read some of the threads about shipping disasters, I am not sure that SA is in a good position to provide this service, time will tell. Obviously if the service level you experienced is the norm rather than the exception, this venture will quickly die, people vote with their feet....

 

Surely if you are making the comitment to ship a product it is your responsability to ensure that your courier understands your needs, I work in the dairy industry and we draw milk samples on a weekly basis it is at our courier before 7am and they know that it will be the first delivery for the day.

And if you are shipping, surely you should be able to provide you customer with a delivery time as we all have work etc to fit into a very short busy day?

Running a "non essentials" type business like a petshop you should surely want to put in the extra effort weather it is a R50 or R5000 order.

If you say you are going to do business using whatsapp then use the whatsapp....not so?

 

@Moolis ...your thaughts?.......

 

sorry about your loss and strength to you brother, I would be going totally frickin ape..

 

Cant blame a courier company for instructions that never reached them. Most courier companies work on a hub&spoke system, so all shipments land on conveyor belts that gets sorted by postal codes (which is why it's so important to add them when you shipping stuff off...as the sorting computers/scanners can only read digits). It's a time game...you tried sorting 50 000 shipments a night and get them routed, it's not fun...trust me.

Only if clear instructions are given to the company, will special care be taken...as the shipment wont go through the "normal" procedures...but will be handled as "incompatible freight" and therefor will be hand sorted.

All this however costs money...and you get what you pay for. People moan and bitch about paying for a service, but they fail to comprehend what it takes to provide such a service. A parcel sent from Pretoria to Cape Town for instance, gets handled by over 30 people and travels on a plane (or super link if sent via Road Freight) and at least 5 other vehicles...yet people dont wanna pay R150 or R200 for an overnight door-to-door delivery. They'll rather save R100 and drive counter to counter via Postnet or Aramex (not thinking about what the fuel and time costs them...but I digress)

What's of bigger concern...is that Gary only got 2 out of the 3 fish that he paid for...that's not due to any miscommunication between the shop and the courier. Maybe that's why delivery is "free". Retain half the stock to pay for the delivery charges?? I dont know...maybe it was just an honest mistake.

Did you guys have a DOA agreement??

 

@Smurf Man, good points, it seems we lack the planning/experience/sophistication/infrastructure, call it what you like, to ship live fish. You should not make it optional to ship airfreight/overnight, door to door, whatever the additional cost are. All shipments should be covered by a DOA policy, this puts some pressure on suppliers to ensure they use capable, responsible couriers.

 

double post

 

It's not a lack of planning...it's about money at the end of the day. People want as much as possible for as little as possible, shops want to make as much as possible (understandable...they are there to make a living)

FREE shipping sounds excellent...and many people will jump on that. BUT...free also comes at a price. You get what you pay for...maybe this is an isolated case, let's hope so. I'm more concerned about the shortage of fish tho.

You mentioned the US shipping of livestock, yes, but the minimum charges for shipping livestock is $30...MINIMUM. Look at Ted's fishroom as an example.

I've never had DOA's on any fish that I shipped...and I've sent fish all over (including Welkom in the winter, which is nowhere near a major route). But...I charge around R250 for PACKING and delivery...which includes a polystyrene cooler and heat packs (which all costs money).

 

Thanks for describing the delivery chain so well @Smurf Man. I think that communication is the key to good customer relationships, when things go wrong. A sincere apology and an undertaking to rectify the situation can appease most customers. Hope your situation gets sorted @GaryG... With a work schedule like that, you deserve some happiness dude.

 

Super cool fish too.. Agreed, stuff can go wrong despite the supplier's best efforts, but an apology and an effort to rectify the situation goes a long way.. And not keeping you updated on delivery, well, that's just not cool..

 

Hi guys

Sorry for replying only now but I had a managers training session with my 3 new managers AND my TLB was sabotaged last night so I am in a rush as I need to get to the SAPS to open a case as well.

But you do not want to hear of my problems so back to the issue.
Had a short meeting and I can give you guys this feedback for now:

• The packer made the mistake of not telling Talita that he "lost" one of the loaches. How and why I will find out later
• Talita showed me her whatsapp and it is acting up:cry: I sent her a test message this morning and it is not delivered on her phone yet? Anyone able to advise why her phone (a new AG ghost) takes so long to receive whatsapps?
• Regarding the courier - we have sent 25+ boxes with them this month and average over 40 per month. This is only the second complaint in 3 months. Yes livestock is a sticky subject for couriers as it is not a regular item on the vast amount of parcels they handle.
• Loaches with a gift already ordered for you (I sent a request for a bag full of these BEAUTIES for middle next week, if they arrive you will get 3 no problem) PS I love them myself as well :love::love:

Talita is very upset and felt she could have done more but I can not fault her:

• She did tell the courier (like all the other times) that it is live stock
• She only gave the terms as the courier guy told her regarding the delivery time (I will "talk" to him:evil
• She always responds to her whatsapps within 15 minutes of receiving it EXCEPT if she need my or Shawn's advice on the content of the reply (perhaps she must start to use SMS or emails?)

PS. Her passion is to keep EVERY client HAPPY and she still have to learn that life also happen. That is why she was to afraid to respond here. AS I AM SURE ALL CLIENTS THAT DEALT WITH HER WOULD TELL YOU

I have to run now but Gary you have all the right in the world to be upset and with a combination of all these mistakes together (without work stress) I would also be unhappy.
SO PLEASE EXCEPT MY SINCERE APOLOGIES !!!

 

Well done Moolis +1

 

Wow. Very nice reply Moolis

 

Sorry to here about your issue. Livestock is difficult to ship. The shop in question has a seriously good reputation and I am sure they will sort this out. I assume this is a learning curb for them as well.

 

@GarryG Yes you have all right to be. But not at the shop but the courier company.

I have been going to Pet Stop for quite some time now. They do not sell crap fish. Unfortunately Hillstream Loaches don't like having they oxygen taken away from them, which makes them bad transporters. @Moolis will not, intentionally, send you dud fishes. I saw them on Friday and there was nothing wrong with them. Please remember that these Loaches need cold water and high oxygen. The courier company will not take care of this. To them it is just another package, even if it is marked as live stock.

 

Hi all, sorry for the late reply, had to catch up on some sleep yesterday.

I feel a little bad now after reading the reply - there are always 2 sides to a story. @Moolis thank you so very much, I was pretty certain that you would sort it out, just got a little frustrated at the lack of feedback, so I would like to apologize to Talita as I didn't know why there were no replys, as for PetStop, I have baught hundreds of fish from the shop and NEVER said that they sell crap or dud fish @Pierre Schoonraad , I have been keeping hillstream loaches for more than 5 years, not to mention the other 21 species of loaches and other fish spread between the 14 tanks I keep.

As for the courier company - Basically if they want your business and to keep your business, they NEED to follow your instructions if not there are many other courier company's waiting to take that business-Just saying.I am in the dairy industry and we ship Milk samples to a lab in onderstepoort on a weekly basis, our courier does not know witch day the samples are coming but they do know that when we drop the sample (before 7am) it MUST be the first stop for that trip, and it is as our results are in before lunchtime every time!
:top:
Once again thanks to @Moolis for the great service Let me know when the loaches are there as I may want MORE, see if I can get my hands on some "stash" money without getting myself into some serias kak with the missus:blink1::cheesy:

 

:top: I have bad days and weeks myself. This was the exception and "stuff" does happen, and my experience is when it does IT GOES BIG :cry: