Shop Online or Local ?

[uhupong]

Do you guys like shop online for perhaps better price or local for convenience and better service ?

 

[JTM4UG]

Local is better and better for the club. If you absolutely need to order then liveaquaria, salt water fish.com or bluezooaquatics are good

 

[dilligaf29]

i try to shop local for all my stuff but some times the deals online r just to hard to pass up but i hate payen for shipping i get great great service from my local fish store and they always have great deals and they 5 mins away

 

[wdebenedettojr]

For livestock I would say 95% of my purchases come from local stores. Dry goods 50/50 for the simple fact that some stores might not have a particular dry good I'm looking for. Plus sometimes the great sales online are hard to pass. I would prefer to buy everything local but sometimes the crazy savings on dry goods prevents that. Even still I'll pay a little extra to get the person to person interaction

 

[twiddledog]

I am sick and tired of Online coral web sites saturating the colors of their corals. They all do even ones who say they don't. What you see is NOT what you get so I would much rather buy coral and fish local.

 

[uhupong]

I am sick and tired of Online coral web sites saturating the colors of their corals. They all do even ones who say they don't. What you see is NOT what you get so I would much rather buy coral and fish local.

Even from the one that has 14 - 30 days guarantee ?

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

 

[jdeb101]

I am sick and tired of Online coral web sites saturating the colors of their corals. They all do even ones who say they don't. What you see is NOT what you get so I would much rather buy coral and fish local.

While I'm sure this does happen, you have to also realize that many corals will look different under different tank conditions, specifically lighting. I've never purchased livestock online, but can say more often than not coral I buy from LFS appearance change once they enter my tank.

 

[ro_nicu]

i'm a 50/50 bird as well. The thing I HATE WITH PASSION is that local stores will not post a pricelist on their website. That means that I have to either buy blindly without research on price or the item itself or I have to waste my time going back and forth. If I could see the prices they charge in store, I would probably drop by more often and buy more local, since they don't I usually just buy online unless it's live, I need it ASAP or I happen to be in the store for another reason.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

I have yet to buy livestock online (though I'm not against it, but the shipping is a killer). I prefer to shop local anyways. Unfortunately, there isn't much on Cape Cod in the way of SW. But whenever I'm off cape I hit a store on the way back. Mandatory spreading out on my stocking, I suppose. If I were closer to a good store, I'd probably have them special order stuff for me but it is hard to do that when visiting once every few months...

Dry goods I prefer to buy local (ideally non-chain also). And I'll pay a more to do so, but not too much. And so I end up picking up some stuff with just a great price online, or stuff that I can't easily find locally.

 

[JohnK]

I've done both many times.

Overall LFS purchases are usually a bit higher in sticker price, but in the end I'm happier as I actually saw what I was buying before purchasing.
IME with online purchases obviously the sticker price is lower, but in the end the livestock rarely looks as good or large as the online pics seemed to suggest, and it's never as good a deal as it seemed on paper / computer screen.