anyone ever buy from reef bids.com?

[CoralBeauties]

Just wondering if anyone has purchased any corals from reefbids.com before.  I got a 15% off email and was thinking of buy some new frags for my tank.  some of the frags look really nice and not way overpriced like most places.
Jeff

[lazylivin]

I ordered three frags from them. They should be here Tuesday, Will let you know how they come in.

[CoralBeauties]

I actually did order from them last week and received my corals this past friday.  they came in well packed and in good shape.  Lost their color some but seems very few keep the pictured color during shipping.  One of the frags had old stn at the base of it that I didnt notice in the small pic. (I didnt enlarge the pic on the web site or I would have seen it)  Picked up one that looks alot like reef raft's wolverine.  Their thread on r2r says they are partnered with RR. I couldnt make myself spend $200 for the original rr coral. 
Jeff

[CoralBeauties]

I received a call tonight from one of the owners of reef bids asking all kind of of questions about how I buy corals, what incentives I like to see, what I think of his site and the way they sell.  I thought that I would share what direction that he is heading with the web site and business.
  What he is wanting to do is to start basically a online consignment for sellers and buyers.  For instance I would list all the different corals I might have for sale.  The buyer would put the coral they were interested in into their basket and then get a shipping quote from them.  The buyer would them pay reef bids for the coral and shipping.  Reef bids would then issue me a prepaid shipping label and the I would then be responsible to pack and ship the purchased coral.  Reef bids would then also pay me for the purchased corals minus a 10% selling fee.
  I thought this sounds like an interesting idea that could make it nice to purchase corals online.  For one this would be a central place to look for corals online. It can get frustrating to try and find a new coral online while surfing several different site's for sale threads each day.  The shipping cost would be lower since you would be using their account and shipping discounts.   The other thing that might help out with would be to make it competitive for sellers and might bring down the price of many of the higher ended corals.
what do you think?
Jeff

[discus513]

The only problem I see is, some people have no clue how to properly ship corals or fish, and after a few guys end up receiving dead stuff or poorly packaged stuff they would end up blaming Reefbids.

[CoralBeauties]

I mentioned the same thing to him and he thought the buyers would somewhat self police the bad sellers.

[lazylivin]

I got three corals yesterday. They arrived fine. Good thing it wasn't that cold becasue one of the corals was in it's bag with no water. It had broke which leaked on the heat pack causing it not to work. They were cold but looked fine. Packaging was fine, just an unlucky break, it happens sometimes so I wasn't concerned and would buy again.

[discus513]

they don't double bag? I always double bag when I ship to try to prevent this from happening. I'm glad everything is okay, post up some pics of what you got. I signed up the other day, I may make a purchase of a few things soon.

[lazylivin]

Yes it was double bagged.

[discus513]

Yeah, then just bad luck, lol

[jdl513]

Sounds like an interesting idea but they would have to keep tight controls on who is allowed to sell their site.

I would hold the sellers portion in "escrow" until the two week warranty period is up if I was them.
If the order goes south or the order is fraudulent they need to limit their liability. 



 

[CoralBeauties]

From the conversation with reef bids it sounds as if he will probably be cutting his retail sales which I would guess would eliminate the warranty.
Jeff

[Topekoms]

I won some auction items from them this week should be here on Tuesday will post pics when I get them.

[wrassel]

I purchased a chalice from them last Thursday. I received my order on Tuesday. The packaging  was great and coral is alive but it's some sort of monti (looks like a mystic. ) I have sent multiple emails and called on two different days but I only get a voice mail that says mailbox is full. I was willing to eat the monti but would have liked to have gotten the chalice with a future order. Really just disappointed that I can't get any response.

[Topekoms]

I won three items from their auction one acro and two acans. Acro came a bit bleached * expected with the current temps outside and shipping* Acans came in full color and look awesome! Will buy from them again.

[Topekoms]

How they arrived

[Topekoms]

Pics from the site.

[chevydoc]

Hope that acro colors back up. It looked sweet.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Topekoms]

Starting to get ppe looks healthy enough should color back up