Be patient when emailing for shipping quotes, etc (pleas allow at least 24 hours). We have Toddler twin girls to care for so it has become necessary to add this paragraph. Please be aware that we deal with a large number of fish each shipment (around 200-300 fish) and minimally 50-75 customers.
What Is Involved In Transshipping?
This paragraph will hopefully explain what exactly is involved with transshipping and why there are fees involved for the customer. Please note that I am not becoming rich off of your transship fish, there is very little money to be made from transshipping fish. In fact at times the hassle of dealing with many unreasonable customers far outweigh any monetary compensation the transshipper will receive.
You may wonder why it costs $5 for you to have the fish shipped from Thailand to the U.S. Well it's simple really. When the Thai Sellers ship "your" fish to me here in the U.S., I am not getting a single fish. Basically, it costs the Thai Exporter around $150-$175 US Dollars to send one box of fish (containing around 100 "betta size" fish). In order for the Thai Sellers to be able to charge you, the customer, $5 for shipping, a group of several different Sellers will pool together all of their combined sales over a 2 week period to send in one single shipment. Therefore dividing up the cost ($150-$175) among all of the customers so that each individual customer is charged $5 US Dollars.
In order to receive live fish shipments from outside of the United States, the person receiving the shipment is required to have an Import License by the U.S. Department of Fish & Wildlife (which costs money to obtain and maintain). Here is why:
Generally all wildlife imported into or exported from the United States for any purpose must be declared to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and cleared prior to release by U.S. Customs and Border Protection or prior to consignment for export. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has a system of ports to allow for the import and export of wildlife, including parts and products. These ports are used for all movement of wildlife, including for commercial, non-commercial, scientific, or personal purposes. Certain port locations are designated to allow the international movement of any lawful wildlife, while other locations are restricted to allow only certain types of wildlife for certain purposes. All wildlife (including parts and products) must be imported or exported through one of their designated ports, of which there are 18 in the US.
An Import License does require an annual fee that has to be paid by the Importer or person that holds the license ($100.00). A 48 hour notice and request for appointment for inspection must be made with U.S. Fish & Wildlife for any shipment that will be arriving. Certain documents must be completed and presented to U.S. Fish & Wildlife so that the shipment can be inspected. Once the shipment arrives at Air Cargo, the Importer (transshipper) must notify Fish & Wildlife that the shipment is ready for inspection and wait for an agent to inspect the shipment. The Importer must pay U.S. Fish & Wildlife an Inspection Fee for each shipment that arrives and is inspected ($186.00). Once the shipment has been cleared the Importer must obtain the required paperwork from Air Cargo and travel to the U.S. Customs office to have the paperwork cleared. Once cleared with Customs the Importer must then return to Air Cargo and pay the Air Cargo Company a required Air Cargo Fee ($50.00) for the shipment and provide them with the cleared documents from Fish and Wildlife and Customs. The Importer then goes to the dock area to wait for the shipment of fish to be brought out to him/her so that they may take the boxes home and begin unpacking/inspecting and acclimating the fish. This alone usually lasts the entire day and the unpacking of fish lasts well into the evening hours. All of the above fees come out of the transhipper's pocket. These fees are in turn recouped by the transhipper charging the customer tranship fees.
So you see there are several expenses required for each shipment (Inspection Fee, Air Cargo Fee, Fuel Expenses for travel, Import License Fee, Shipping Bags, Shipping Boxes, Paper, Toner and last but NOT least TIME) that the transship fees are based on. For the TIME part of it, we have to disinfect and prepare dozens of tanks and even more beanie containers. This takes up the entire day prior to the shipment arrival. As for the "Box Fee", I do get the actual boxes for free HOWEVER, the foam inserts are NOT free and is something that has to be purchased to make the box suitable for shipping live fish.
So please understand that fees are in place pretty much only to cover the expense of transshipping the fish period. Everything involved with this process has a fee on my end (the inspection, air cargo, license, gas, shipping bags, shipping boxes and not to mention AGAIN time). So DO NOT email me trying to haggle price on these fees. And do not expect to come and pick up your fish locally and pay Import fees only, you will be charged Handling Fees as well. Otherwise everyone could forgo the shipping aspect and pick up their fish while I incurred the rest of the time & expense.
Also, and this is becoming a bit of a problem lately, if you neglected to read your auction description thoroughly and were not aware that there were separate fees because of not reading the description. Emailing me with an attitude will get you nowhere. Regardless of whether or not you read and/or were aware of the separate fees will not change the fact that these fees are owed. And your fish will not ship until they are paid. Otherwise, please take it up with the Seller. There is no reason to be rude and email someone you don't know with a bad attitude because you neglected to read something thoroughly. And you may not agree with there being fees for having fish imported. But again, that is a reality of importing anything and not something within my control, so please refrain from any negative attitude regarding this when emailing me. I am happy to explain things to you or answer any questions that you have.
For Frequently Asked Questions, Please see the following page:
