Here are your answers Race,
Chris Turnier managed Reefer Madness, he did not own it, you should know that.
PAF had no financial interest in Reefer Madness, I purchased 75% of the shares of PAF and that included exactly 0% of Reefer Madness. Reefer Madness was owned by share holders (I do not know how many or the share breakdown) two of those shareholders jointly owned 22% of PAFs shares. When I bought into PAF I inherited an agreement that Reefer Madness would rent tank space from PAF.
The building that PAF occupies is owned by a real estate trust and we have a lease agreement for the building. Reefer Madness paid rent checks monthly to PAF for their share of tank space.
Reefer Madness had no special vendor relationship with PAF other than what other large customers have. I had and still have accounts that have a stronger vendor relationship with PAF.
Chris Wray is a nephew of Deb Smith, he worked for Reefer Madness and has now been hired to work as a coral specialist at Blue Zoo. He has never had a financial or ownership connection with either company.
I might hire my son to work for me, I see nothing wrong with putting relatives to work.
PAF does not have a FEDEX account, Blue Zoo has a FEDEX account. If I want to ship something from PAF via FEDEX it has to go out on the recipients account, PAF has no account and ships from 104th street only if the recipient uses their account number.
I am sure that Blue Zoo would be happy to ship to any LFS accounts with the free shipping. In fact they do ship to some store accounts and give a large discount to boot along with the free shipping. PAF does not as we are not able to ship FEDEX and do not offer free shipping. (That seems pretty straight forward and simple, I do not understand why you don't get this).
I am sorry that Chris Buerner charges you so much for livestock that you can not offer free shipping. I know that Quality Marines prices are high, he has an expensive set up and has Quality fish and I think that they are worth the cost. In fact Blue Zoo buys quite a few fish from them daily yet still offers the free shipping. They can do this because Quality Marine is not drop shipping for them, Blue Zoo pays the regular wholesale price for fish at Quality Marine, takes the fish back to their warehouse and ships them from Carson, CA. I understand from your posts that you pay Quality a higher price for your livestock so that they will drop ship it for you.
Blue Zoo buys at the same arrangement from PAF that is offered to any large customer. The offer is good for Live Aquaria also. From what you have said I guess that buying from PAF at that deal would allow you to offer free shipping. There you go, I solved your shipping problem (don't get upset about the flippent statement, I say it in jest).
Dropshipping is more destructive to the LFS because the average LFS can not compete with the drop ship model. They can however compete on a level playing field if competing with a business that warehouses and ships its own products. Any legit business oper
ator can sell fish via the internet and ship from his own brick and mortar facility. Not everyone can get a major wholesaler to drop ship for them. By drop shipping for Live Aquaria but refusing to drop ship for their other regular customers Quality Marine is undercutting their LFS base. If they required you to ship everything out of Wisconsin then they would be leveling the playing field for all of their customers. They are playing favorites with Live Aquaria. PAF will not drop ship for any customer no matter how large or small.
You are the only one that considers PAF and Blue Zoo one and the same. The state of California does not consider them the same, the IRS does not consider them the same, U.S. fish and wildlife does not consider them the same, the employees at PAF do not consider them the same, the employees of Blue Zoo do not consider them the same, the bank does not consider them the same, FEDEX does not consider them the same, my accountants do not consider them the same, I do not consider them the same, the walk in customers that I have talked to do not consider them the same. YOU consider them the same but it takes some convoluted thinking to get there.
I think that answers most of your questions, I hope that you have your facts straight now.
Dave