Buying Fish Online/Via Courier

Hi Paddy.
I was looking for a very particular fish that I want to get in a few month. I knew I hadn't seen it in any LFS, so turned to ebay and found a company called Kesgrave Tropicals. I have had a look at a few places (tropical fish forums, etc.) and the majority of reviews are very good. They do next day delivery as standard, and are also happy for customers to collect. They are based in Ipswich, which is just over an hour away from me, so I would collect if I bought anything.
Obviously the downside is that you don't see the fish before you buy, but it would be worth checking out the returns policy.

Cheers LF, I take it you are around either the Norwich area or London-shire? The postage seems to be fairly commonly priced around the online services so I would need to be guaranteed an overall good deal on price with a reasonable returns policy before I even considered it! But thanks for sharing what you have found.

I - like many others I imagine - would rather drive a distance to view the fish I would end up with. But there are merits to using vendors like this I'd imagine.

The price for delivering fish is high because only licensed couriers are allowed to transport live animals. In addition, the fish in their bags need to be in special polystyrene boxes to keep them warm.
When I stocked my tanks the first time, I bought from a wholesaler, over 200 fish arriving all at once! The prices were about a third of shop prices and the fish were at least as healthy as shop bought fish. They arrived all OK, no problems with any, all disease free. There was a minimum order of £75. However, I believe they no longer supply to anyone except shops, glad I bought when I did as it saved me about £300.

MA can get any fish from their 'list', but whether they will get a particular species for one customer is down to the individual manager. You can always ask.

I have asked shops to get fish in for me. But it does depend on what the wholesaler has. Some fish are seasonal so you would have to wait till the right time for the wholesaler to list them.
And just because a wholesaler says they have them doesn't mean they do. A shop once ordered some fish for me and when they came in they were a different species labelled as the ones I wanted.