Aquarium Depot (online) (-)

[njtiger24 aquariums]

@Mark_C as I hear more and more it doesn't seem like AD is worth taking a risk. As a customer we should be able to cancel an order WITHOUT needing to contact them. Also is there any place on their site that state that you need to contact them to cancel an order; I didn't see anything? Also if they are trying to 'clear' their 'bad name' it doesn't seem like they are trying too hard. If I was Christina I would be on top of your issue making sure you gotten taken care of. It does make me think if she blow smoke about why the name change

 

[Trio91]

Well you tried, i guess that bad rep kinda sticks

 

[CentralNano]

As someone that has an e-commerce business I can tell you that there is no way for a customer to modify an order online. It has to be phoned in and is a major pita.

The reason is because if you make an order... we pick it... we pack it... and if we are putting it on the shipping truck and the customer decides to alter there is no real time way for us to tell. There is no way to stop 1 package from going on the truck, opening it, modifying it, repacking it, and getting it out... not on a 15% - 30% profit margin. Not only that but there is no software to do so... unless youre amazon and invest tens of millions into a custom interface. I can only imagine how many times customers would alter their orders if they had a chance, then ask why it didnt ship the same day. Remember, e-commerce businesses are typically 1 - 10 employees.

My advice is check twice before hitting the place order button... otherwise contact the company asap or first thing in the morning if it didnt ship.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

As someone that has an e-commerce business I can tell you that there is no way for a customer to modify an order online. It has to be phoned in and is a major pita.

The reason is because if you make an order... we pick it... we pack it... and if we are putting it on the shipping truck and the customer decides to alter there is no real time way for us to tell. There is no way to stop 1 package from going on the truck, opening it, modifying it, repacking it, and getting it out... not on a 15% - 30% profit margin. Not only that but there is no software to do so... unless youre amazon and invest tens of millions into a custom interface. I can only imagine how many times customers would alter their orders if they had a chance, then ask why it didnt ship the same day. Remember, e-commerce businesses are typically 1 - 10 employees.

My advice is check twice before hitting the place order button... otherwise contact the company asap or first thing in the morning if it didnt ship.

@CentralNano maybe I miss understood Mark. I thought the order wasn't place just in the cart. As you saw he said he tried changing the Qty and if you place an order then there should be no way to mod the qty. I agree once you hit submit/check-out/what ever label they use then yes one would need to call cause like you said to much going on in the background

 

[MadReefer]

Well that sucks Mark; hope the zoas survive. Based on your experience and what I read online I will never order from them.

 

[Mark_C]

As someone that has an e-commerce business I can tell you that there is no way for a customer to modify an order online. It has to be phoned in and is a major pita.The reason is because if you make an order... we pick it... we pack it... and if we are putting it on the shipping truck and the customer decides to alter there is no real time way for us to tell. There is no way to stop 1 package from going on the truck, opening it, modifying it, repacking it, and getting it out... not on a 15% - 30% profit margin. Not only that but there is no software to do so... unless youre amazon and invest tens of millions into a custom interface. I can only imagine how many times customers would alter their orders if they had a chance, then ask why it didnt ship the same day. Remember, e-commerce businesses are typically 1 - 10 employees.
My advice is check twice before hitting the place order button... otherwise contact the company asap or first thing in the morning if it didnt ship.

Understood, and thus my comms with AD as I had some good orders with them in the past and was hoping to help people see past the bad rep they seem to have developed, honestly and truly trying to help. Please note there was considerable communication between myself and AD regarding this order as I had planned on using them as part of a large bulk group order in July and was using this as a 'test order'.

The initial order (#40024) was placed on 4/23 (Sunday) with a ship out date of 5/1 (the following Monday), an 8 day window.
It included a note to add the Jungle Juice coral if it became available in that time.
It did become available in that time, but it was not added to the initial order, which I was monitoring.
On 4/29 (Saturday), I attempted to cancel the order and couldn't.
I submitted what I believed a modified order with note.
This second order/modification, almost identical, was submitted 2 days before the shipping date.
No confirmation of 2nd order/modification.
Contacted AD and felt assured order was OK and ready to ship with no probs.
Two orders arrived 5/2 (Tuesday), in the same packaging, under the original 4/23 order (#40024).

There was no issue of 'changing my mind once shipping was initiated'. The order was made 8 days before my requested shipping date, modified 2 days before the shipping date, confirmed the day before shipping, and I received a double order (with the added Jungle Juices).

April 23rd I receive confirmation of order 40024 (edited to remove stock number details), scheduled to ship for May 1st

>Amphipods & Copepods -500
> BamBam Orange Zoanthids 3 polyp
> Candy Apple Zoanthids 10+ Polyps
> Tapestry Nerite Snail 4
> Subtotal: $63.91 USD
> Shipping: $0.00 USD
> Grand Total: $63.91 USD

APRIL 29 I 'modify' the order' to include the Jungle Juices, and remove the Candy Apples.


I never receive an acknowledgement for the new/modified order as I did above, so I assume it didn't go through.


April 30 still shows original order, I check, before shipping that if the modification was not received, that the Jungle Juices be added...

HI Christine,
Please add 5 of the Jungle Juice polyps to my oder and add to bill appropriately.
They look fantastic.
Just posted a reminder in the NJRC boards and hopefully you’ll get a few add ons.
Regardless, I’ll review and use AD as out bulk order for July meet.
Mark

May 1, shipping date, Christina's reply seems to reassure me that the order was modified appropriately...

Hi Mark – I see you added to the order however I did not get any more orders for your group, others than yours. Looking forward to working with you in the summer.
Thank You
Christina

May 2, I receive

> Amphipods & Copepods -500
> Amphipods & Copepods -500
> BamBam Orange Zoanthids 3 polyp
> BamBam Orange Zoanthids 3 polyp
> Candy Apple Zoanthids 10+ Polyps
> Jungle Juice Zoanthid Coral 5 polyp
> Tapestry Nerite Snail 4
> Tapestry Nerite Snail 4
> Subtotal: $137.78 USD
> Shipping: $0.00 USD
> Grand Total: $137.78 USD

So, that's how it went down.

 

[CentralNano]

Makes sense... yea that sounds a bit weird. A lot of companies that I have dealt with across the board are ok at customer service at best, it's really an art form to get it right. Obviously the bigger the company the better, some people are just not trained in customer service. I literally check emails every 5 min, phone calls are all answered right away, the chat function is on during business hours... if you need to contact us there are 3 ways to do it and you'll get a response right away. There was a learning curve and we still learn on a daily basis. Our outfit is 4 people and we do roughly 100 packages a day... mis picks, delayed shipping, or any other issue with an order is roughly 1% of what goes out, and I'm rounding up. 4.9 star reviews on google, google trusted stores, facebook, etc. It's not easy but if you have the right people doing what they need to do it can run like a well oiled machine. The issue you had would never have gotten to that point with us, unfortunately we sell car parts lol.

 

[Ruth C Lewis]

Wow they are pretty. Im doing a zoa tree little by little. I love those!

 

[Mark_C]

Final input on this

I sent a note to Christina, sorta in resignation...

Lets not worry about it. Probably down to the fact I didn’t know a third party was involved and there was a loss of communication or miscommunication.
Mark

As a side note, just to make you aware for the future, the party shipping the frags for you are shipping VERY young and small zoas.
Only one set of the Orange BamBams were average size.
All the Jungle Juice and the second frag of 3 Oranges BamBams were quite immature, less than 1/16” each closed.
One of the JungleJuices has died, 1 hasn’t opened and isn’t looking good. The 3 that have survived/opened are beautiful but are only about 1/16’ to 1/8” in size.
Of the candy apples about 6 have opened, but none appear dead, just slow.

Received this reply late tonight...

Hi Mark – I did not want you to think I had forgotten about you. I spent a lot of time in the shop this weekend in our coral department. And I hired a Quality Control Manager for my coral department. My coral guy has had some family problems and seems to be drifting a bit – and as you can imagine with 25000 gallons of saltwater – I have to have someone on top of it or everyone suffers.
I think the most frustrating this is that we have the corals fragged and multiplying … so I am not sure how this happened – But I am very sorry.
I think his Mamma Drama keeps his brain in a tissy.

A quality control guy was hired, apparently inspired by my emails?

So, accordingly, it seems this actually is a 'shop', and they are running 25k of water with 1 guy with family problems overseeing all the coral orders.
Yet, she did send this previously...

We import the orders into a shipping software – so unless an order is manually canceled & refunded and pulled form this third party shipping software it still ships.

Which seems a standard e-commerce deal.

Note...
I really trusted these guys (gal) based on the excellent pod orders in the past and was hoping, based on that, to help them out.
But...
Excuses with no offer of refunds for double order. No offer of small refund for dead livestock. Nothing offered to accommodate future business.

Also, for those who asked, I'm not going to sell on the extra BamBams or the the Candy Apples. The BamBams are very small and half the Candy Apples still haven't opened. Going to write this one off, at $60 it was OK, at a doubled up $140 with no compensation it hit me harder than expected. I'm sure they're not in on the July bulk order at this point.

 

[Trio91]

That whole thing sounds like bull $h!t from AD. If they are hosting that much saltwater in their facility, why after a small $60 order would you hire a QA mngr? They should have a fleet of ppl overseeing this op.

Honestly I've heard several bad stories about them on R2R so I'm not really surprised about this

 

[MadReefer]

On a few Facebook pages I joined they also get a bad rep. Hope what is ever left survives for you Mark.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

@Mark_C to me it sounds like she is just given one excuses after another without trying to fix the issues. Also is it just me or is none of the issues 'her fault' as the owner. It might just be me but its seems to always be someone else fault. Its the e-commerce site, its a third party software, its a worker who over worked, etc... Granted all of these could be true but as a business owner at one point (mainly with dealing with a customer) you need to take ownership of the issues and take proper steps to fix them. Even if she didn't want to refund the money (which business own would want to) I would had at least apologize for the issues and maybe offer like 15 to 20% off your next order in trying to get you to order again. The more and more I hear the happier I am that I didn't get in that order with you. I do feel sorry you go the short end of the stick.

 

[Ruth C Lewis]

Yea my last order everything came in dead..back and forth w pics and emails. It took about 2 weeks to get a refund. She kept on telling me let them sit for a while they'll open up...but they were goners from in the yellow bag of water...then she told me i needed to ship the next day next time. But it was only pods that were great...a feather cluster 2 zoas 3 yellow polyps....so it should have been fine. Now i just get the pods and maybe 1 or 2 other things. I did buy the tiger conch that was huge!

 

[Ruth C Lewis]

Does anyone know any contact info on these guys...i would like to cancel a 1/2 order...but dont know if i can. I just placed the order last night

 

[Mark_C]

Ruth,
I'm confused.
After this research, which ended up costing me $150,
after confirmation of bad practices including the inability to cancel an order,
and after your own response stating you received a completely dead order on your last order...
you've just ordered from them again?

 

[Ruth C Lewis]

Ruth,
I'm confused.
After this research, which ended up costing me $150,
after confirmation of bad practices including the inability to cancel an order,
and after your own response stating you received a completely dead order on your last order...
you've just ordered from them again?

Well i love their copepods....and i have pipefish so i do order pods there...i dont order coral from them anymore...the only other stuff i ordered was a conch and some snails plus the 1000 count of pods....i never had problems with the inverts from there ...my friend could use the 250 pods so hes picking them up when they come but the rest he cant use...

 

[Mark_C]

Got ya. Agree the pods were good, the corals were duds.

 

[Altohombre]

What makes these pods better than pods in a bottle like Arcti Pods?

 

[Mark_C]

You get a substantial amount of larger amphipods (and assume some copepods).
Problem is they come in filter floss, semi-dirty, so you have to dig a ton of them out. As you're pulling floss apart the things are crawling up your arms and jumping onto the counter.
When they do their $19.95 deal or BOGO with free shipping its worth a look, but I'd steer clear of any corals and ensure you don't make any mistakes with your order.
Most bottle stuff is copepods, I've just ordered a few copepod bottles (Tisbe) to start breeding for a future mandarin (did not order it from these guys).