# My first time importing from the United States in a group buy



## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

So as many people know a group buy just happened and went alllllmost as good as you could ask for. I figured I would post this thread to show people how I organized the group buy, the risks I took, the risks the other buyers took, how the day of the buy went down, and some "fun statistics" of the group buy.

How I organized the group buy:

First off, I had to find a supplier that I really liked *and* shipped to Canada. There are a lot of great suppliers in the States, but not all ship to Canada or have experience shipping to Canada. I sent off some e-mails to a few suppliers whom I found through cichlid-forum ratings (all with 4.5 stars or higher). After receiving some replies, I decided that Dave's seemed like the best option for me.

Once I had decided on my supplier, I needed to decide whether I wanted to purchase the fish by myself, ship them to the States, and bring them across the border myself; or have them all shipped here. The prices were quite drastically different from what I had heard - about $55.00 shipped to Bellingham vs $130.00-150.00 to Vancouver. I read a helpful thread written by another member, Tony1928 (seen here: http://www.bcaquaria.com/forum/fres...porting-fish-us-myself-step-step-guide-36166/ ) and spoke with a member, Jbyoung0008, abuot how group buys work. I felt that if I could get enough interest, a group buy would be not only a better option for me, but a better option for the BC aquarium community.

From this decision, I posted a thread on our forum and waited to see how much interest there was. Once I got 5 members I figured that $150/5=$30 and all was good so I decided that I'd go ahead with this buy. Eventually the members jumped up to 9 which I think was very important. I then e-mailed Dave about a group buy and whether or not he needed the orders all placed by one person or if a variety of people could send him orders and have them all shipped together. He replied that he could do either. I then decided that the latter was a safer option for me risk wise.

Risks I took:
I'm fairly new to this community and haven't even been keeping fish for more than a year. Every person on this group order except for one I had never met prior to accepting them on the group order. This meant I had some risks. First off, would people actually pay me for the shipping? I won't lie that I was certainly worried that I would end up spending a bunch of money on shipping and have a bunch of fish at the airport and then have a bunch of people essentially bail out. I was especially worried of this before I knew that Dave accepted people paying their own way versus me paying for the entire buy. I was also fairly unsure of how to proceed with customs, and whether or not I would be charged any duty on certain fish. The final risk of course, is shipping fish across the continent in little bags from a warm climate to a cold one. The fish were taken to the airport at 6:45 pm on Thursday, November 21st (and were likely in the bags at least 1 hour prior). They traveled from San Antonio to Las Vegas, and then Vegas to Vancouver. The shipment was supposed to arrive at 4:16 pm but ended up being delayed until 5:23 pm. Essentially, these fish were in the bags at least 24 hours before even being in Vancouver and I'll discus the outcome in a later section.

Risks taken by others:
Similar to my own risks, every member in this group buy took some risks. First off, who on Earth is Steve? As previously mentioned, I'm fairly new to this so the members of this buy entrusted me to properly handle the shipping date with the supplier, to get this fish passed customs, and to essentially make sure that everyone was treated fairly. After this, similar risks to fish health as previously mentioned applied to all group members.

How the buy went down:
As previously mentioned, each member placed their own order through Dave. Dave gathered each members full names and phone numbers which he passed to me so I could call anyone if they didn't show up, and so I could show customs that I wasn't some crazy loonie bringing in $1800 of fish all for himself. I picked a date that no one seemed to have a problem with and then chose the shipping time that resulted in the least amount of stress on the fish according to the supplier. The time we chose was one that kept the fish in San Antonio longer than in Vancouver which I think turned out to be very important because it likely kept many more fish alive. The temperature in Vancouver at this time of the year was around 0-6 degrees Celsius (I believe it was 2 degree when we picked the fish up). The heat packs only last 24 hours which meant that they had expired by the time we picked the fish up.

For the day itself, members were aware that the fish were supposed to arrive at 4:16 and that people should arrive between 5:45-7:15 pm since it is possible that it can take up to 3 hours for the cargo to be taken from the plane to the holding facilities. Unfortunately for myself and some others, there was a stall on the Arthur Lang bridge and what should have been a 20 minute commute turned into a 1 hour and 40 minute commute making me exceptionally late (I showed up at about 6:30 or so). Once I got to Menzies (the cargo holding facility), I was very quickly given the paperwork and informed that my package was in holding. Phew. At this point, 2 other members had come inside to meet me. I was then driven to the terminal by Adanac50 (thanks!) so I did not have to pay $8.00 for parking and went to customs. The customs officer was quite nice and just asked me a few questions about my shipment: Is this my first time importing fish? Are these fish for commercial purposes? Are you going to be the only person keeping these fish? He ripped through a bunch of the paperwork and checked over every single page (I'm pretty sure I had about 50 pages with me). He then took the main fish list and entered a bunch of data into his computer and told me the tax I'd have to pay (12% on the Canadian dollar value of my shipment). I had originally calculated the dollar amount in US so my figures were slightly off when people came to pick the fish up but it only ended up being an $8.00 difference and a few members pitched in a bit more (thanks guys!). I then waited about 25 minutes for a cashier to come so I could pay; this was very, very frustrating as I knew the fish needed to be on their way shortly but there was no way I was going to be pushy to a customs officer. Once I was all paid and had my stamped sheet, I headed back to the terminal. I gave my stamped sheet to Menzies, paid $63.00 (the total weight of my package was 110 lbs), and received the packages. At this point, members paid me for the shipping, handling fee (Menzies), and tax in cash. Every member also chipped in to pay for my shipping which was very kind of them. All of the bags were labeled with species names and customer names so it was easy to figure out which fish belonged to which person. We then inspected the fish to make sure none had died, although unfortunately a marble pleco didn't survive. There was also a single fish that apparently didn't get shipped. At this point, everyone grabbed their fish and headed home. A couple of the bags were leaking, but they still had about 50% of their water in them. I noticed that some of the fish that seemed to be in the worst conditions were ones that were stuck under folds in the bag and essentially pinned down. I helped mine escape before I took them home. Once home, I floated them for about an hour while adding in some of my tank water to equalize the pH and hardness. So far all of mine have survived although a couple of them have some frayed fins from the aggression taken while in transport. This concludes my little group buy story!

If anyone has any questions about my experience, they are welcome to PM me! I hope I was able to inform some people 

*Edit: I figured I would also state that it took about 1.5 hrs from the time I got to the airport (~6:30) until the time the fish were in the car (~8:00). About 45 minutes of that time were spent with customs, the rest of the time was at the holding facility getting paperwork, receiving the package, and giving out the fish.
*
Some fun statistics:

- The group bought a combined 148 fish, 146 of which made it alive to us, 1 did not make it, and 1 is currently MIA.
- The average cost of each persons buy was $196.55.
- The most expensive buyer spent $600.00.
- The least expensive buyer(s) shared a $96.00 order.
- The shipping came out to $180.80 for a 110 lb shipment which was 6 boxes. This price included a $30.00 "next flight guaranteed" tag which meant that our fish were guaranteed to be on that flight. I *HIGHLY* recommend people considering long shipping options to add this on because if our fish missed the flight there definitely would have been a lot more deaths.
- The most popular genus purchased was the Altolamprologus with 6 of the 9 buyers all purchasing at least one species of the genus.
- The most expensive fish bought was a wild caught Copadichromis trewavasae Lupingu (caught in Tanzania) for $45.00
- The cheapest fish bought was a Metriaclima estherae "Cherry Red" for $5.00
*- The average cost per fish before shipping, handling, currency conversion, and tax was $11.95
- The average cost per fish after shipping, handling, currency conversion, and tax was $15.69 (so each fish was about 25% more expensive than it's initial listed price)*
- The fish bought came from Lake Victoria, Malawi, and Tanganyika; some strains were also human-made


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

This post should be made a stickie. Does anyone have pictures?


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## randylahey (Jun 25, 2013)

Thanks for sharing your experience, this makes me feel good about group buys. Having not been involved in one before, I was too afraid to join in. Too bad, those colorful bnps that Dave's had were awesome. Depending on where It's from, I will probably jump on the next one.

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

Thanks for this post. Great to see how bca members came together to make this work. Great job!!!


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## adanac50 (Apr 26, 2010)

Great post...I would do it all over again with the exception of buying fish labelled as 1". The risk is high
of that size getting caught in the folds of the bags. Luckily we got the fish cleared through customs pretty
quick or else it would've resulted in a few more DOA's. 

Here's to the next group buy in the spring...


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## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

Great job Steve. This helps a lot of people who are nervous about buying fish online. You explained every detail 

I think the group orders are awesome. It help us all get fish we would never have the chance of getting otherwise. Using a Canadian supplier is easier and cheaper but you don't always get the selection of fish. All and all well worth it in my books.

The only downfall IMO was not knowing the exact time and day of shipping until a few days before. I'm pretty flexible but not everyone else is. The Friday traffic to the Airport was crazy!!!


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## Steve (Mar 27, 2013)

Thanks for the kind words guys! If I were to do a group buy with Dave again (and I know there's a few people interested already), I'd do it in the spring, ask him for more accurate sizes, and ask him if he can find bags that are better for transportation (ie plastic bags with square bottoms to reduce the changes of folds). The exact time/day of shipping could also be scheduled weeks in advance if necessary. The reason this one was so last-minute was due to the weather getting cooler and people taking a while to submit orders!


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