ordering plants online?

I've actually got to agree with Robert this time, and that doesn't happen all that often, but Who Have You Been Ordering From?! I don't know if you really thought about this but at least on my site all shipping weight is done by plant weight alone. The cost of the box and it's weight come out of our pocket, not your's. I can't speak for any of the other vendors but we try to use the smallest box possible for a couple of reasons.

1. If you have a correctly fitted box the plants don't get bounced around and damaged nearly as much.
2. We are paying for the box!! Bigger boxes only add extra weight which we wind up paying for.

And lastly, I like the way my site, AquariumPlants.com, looks. I did a lot of it according to what I wanted to see my site look like.
 
Oh, and one last thing.

When we substitute a plant, something which we don't like to do, we either make sure it has as close to a similar appearance as possible to what you ordered or, if it's really obvious what kind of tank it's for eg..Discus plants, we will then sub with a compatible plant. We'd rather just hold an order for an extra week so that we could send you exactly what you ordered.
 
Robert H said:
...I am not a professional WEB designer, so if it doesn't meet the expectations of WEB geeks, I could care less! :) I get nothing but compliments on my WEB site, ...
Click to expand...
:laugh:
I will also compliment your site Robert! Now only if Aquariumplants.com would quit having everything I want in stock, I may get a chance to order from you some day. ;) Seriously, I do plan on ordering from you next time I order online, but I don't forsee it anytime in the near future.

opiesilver, (M@!^ is it?), are you aware of the...questionable problems others have posted about ordering (receiving orders) from you? I personally haven't had any problems in the past ordering from aquariumplants.com, but there seem to be an uncommon number of...problems relating to orders placed by others. Thought you should know and/or maybe comment on that?

Bill
 
As usual, I'll add my 2 cents worth.
Robert H, I like your website, your reputation, and your forum, I can't use your store due to your shipping policies, and my lifestyle. Someday I will need plants when I can actually plan to be home and meet the ups guy. you will then get an order from me. I understand that your policies are there to protect you and your customers both, but I can't use them. If you were to change them I'd be more than happy to accept some risk but other don't feel the same I'm sure.

Aquarium plants .com Your reputation far exceeds my personal experience, but I haven't written you off completely, because you shipping policies are far more lax, and I can work with them. My special shipping instructions were followed to a tee, on the plants I ordered, I wasn't happy with several aspects, All of which I tried repeatedly to resolve, and although I don't feel I am owed anything, I sure wasn't satisfied, and didn't recieve all that I was promised. Plants were substituted, and the particulars were unnacceptable to me, I have been repeatedly reassured that I would recieve the plants I wanted, and have not seen them yet in 9 weeks. In the meantime that plant is still and has always been shown in stock when I checked the website. The plants I did get were excellent, good healthy plants at a reasonable price. no complaints at all with quality/quantity of what I received.


Aquabid, I have experience with one vendor only, and couldn't be happier in any way shape or form. since my initial visit, I have estabilished a relationship with that vendor, and have ordered several more times direct from him. I get regular updates and requests for special orders from him, and will proabably contimue to do buisiness with him and may try other aquabid vendors with good feedback as well.

Either way I would not be scared of on-line ordering, It is a far from perfect system, but gives so many more shopping options, and competative pricing that it is well worht the risk to look on-line for plants.
Dave
 
Robert H said:
1. sometimes out of stock - so they substitute
2. horrendous websites
3. poor customer service at the majority of online stores
4. over charge on shipping - they put them in elaborate - huge boxes that just raise the cost and are 100% useless
Click to expand...

Who the heck have you been buying from? All my plants are shipped in a 12X8x6 box, unless the plants are too big for the box. I am not a professional WEB designer, so if it doesn't meet the expectations of WEB geeks, I could care less! :) I get nothing but compliments on my WEB site, which has been up since 1999. I charge whatever UPS charges me, plus $2 for the cost of the box and handling, and if your order is over $100, I don't charge the $2. Is that over charging?

When you buy plants from me, they have a 90 day guarantee...that's ninety days from the day you recieve them. I only substitute as a last resort, and usually just hold the order another week if the missing plants will be in that week. I am not sure what else I can do, but I am always open to suggestions!
Click to expand...
I wasn't implying your website (or opiesilvers!), I've never ordered from either of you as far as I can remember

as for my points
1. i see no contention here...it seems like common practice. and sure you substitute similar plants, but if I order a Tiger Lotus and get shipped a regular Lotus its just not the same...especially if I only find out about the substitution when I open the box!

2. For a brick and mortar its location location location, for a website its navigation navigation navigation, these are seriously lacking in the majority of aquatic plant websites. You say you've had nothing but compliments, so consider this a complaint:) I remember in another post on poor websites that others agreed.
I'm not a web geek. I'm a web consumer, and I appreciate an easy to purchase environment where things are easy to find. While you might not care about the web savy, it is a growing population which sooner or later you will need to address (perhaps) I will pay more to use an easier to navigate site any day of the week.

3. Only need to look on the aquatic plant boards on aquarium forums and you'll see tons of people that dont' know what happend to their order, call customer service and get no call backs, no returned emails, plants arrive in poor condition, substitution without notification, etc.....again I'm not pointing fingers, this is just a sweeping generalization based on posts I am constantly reading on aquarium boards, this might not apply to your company.

4. in my experience making small orders (<30$ of plants) they can easily fit in a padded envelope and be shipped for 3-5$ vs typical charges of 15-25$ for insulated/padded double boxed cardboard.

none of these things IMHO outweigh the benefits of buying online...I'm sure everyone agrees there is no substitute to buying plants online.
These are just minor gripes.
 
Last edited:
daveedka said:
I can't use your store due to your shipping policies, and my lifestyle. Someday I will need plants when I can actually plan to be home and meet the ups guy.
Click to expand...
same here, I can never order from a place that requires:
"All orders are sent out with a signature required for delivery."

maybe when I retire or if I hit the lottery and can stay home all day *LOL*
unfortunately my type of work wouldn't permit it to be delivered there...
 
Last edited:
Bill,

I can only resolve issues as I become aware of them. I haven't been a member here for very long so I really don't know of the issues yet. As I come across problems I work very hard to resolve them. Part of the reason why you might see more instances of problems is that we do about 100 to 150 orders a day and that gives us a larger customer base than most other companies, so the 1% of orders that might have problems translate into a much larger number of total people with internet access and an opinion.

geoffgarcia,

We tried the padded envelop thing in the past and it really went down in flames. I sometimes thing that there are no people in the sorting rooms at the post office but only Gorillas. We had a number of really costly orders returned to us that looked like they had been tied to a delivery truck bumper and dragged to their destination. Boxes really are the only reliable way to go.

daveedka,

Have you talked to Mark the owner yet? He get things resolved pretty quick in most cases. Maybe you should send me a PM with your order number and I'll have a look into it for you.

All,

I am working on getting an automated shipping system working properly. It's got a few bugs and will take some time to fix them all, but when it's all said and done you will be able to check your order status day or night, know exactly where it is, know if something is back ordered, and have clickable links for your tracking numbers. I actually had this working over Christmas and then had the server die on me over the Christmas break so I had to start all over again.
 
Nope, I forgot the golden rule. I may have just lost my BOFH status.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom