An order placed on a...

Monday will ship 8 days later.
Tuesday will ship 7 days later.
Wednesday will ship 6 days later.
Thursday will ship 5 days later.
Friday will ship 11 days later.
Saturday will ship 10 days later.
Sunday will ship 9 days later.

Optimizing your shipping costs

All of our products are packed in heavily insulated boxes containing dry ice.  While our methods ensure your product will arrive at the temperatures needed to guarantee freshness, they also add to the cost of shipping for every box we use.  To ensure you receive the most value for your shipping costs we have added a feature to our web site that allows you to monitor how many boxes will be needed and what percentage of free space you have left.  On your product summary page before checkout, as well as when browsing our products, you will notice "space taken" information.  These numbers reflect how much space a particular product will occupy in one box of your shipment.

When items are added to your cart the total amount of space that item occupies will be shown on the summary page.  The numbers displayed in pink pertain to UPS shipments while the numbers in green are for optimizing shipments with Greyhound PackageXpress (GPX).  The boxes used in GPX shipments are twice as large as those used for UPS.

At the bottom of the summary page there is an indication of how much space is remaining in your box or boxes.  Use this information to calculate how much of any particular product you may add to your order without requiring use of another box.

If you are shipping to an area where Greyhound PackageXpress (GPX) delivery is available, the summary will contain information pertaining to both UPS and GPX as shown below.

As you browse our products you can use the information found in "Box Space Taken" to determine how much of something you can add to your order without requiring another box.

How shipping charges add to the cost of your order

When using UPS as your courier it will always save you money when you try to reduce the amount of free space that is available in your box.  For example, an order consisting of 100 mouse fuzzies being shipped to California (100 fuzzies @ .19 cents each = $19.00 plus $41.15 for shipping and handling) would cost $60.15.  That's about .60 cents per fuzzy.  If you increased your order from 100 fuzzies to 200 fuzzies (200 fuzzies @ .19 cents each = $38.00 plus $40.19 for shipping and handling) your new total cost  would be $78.19 making your new cost per fuzzy about .39 cents.  This is a total savings of about .21 cents per fuzzy.

When using GPX (Greyhound PackageXpress) as your courier it will always save you money when you try to reduce the amount of free space that is available in your box.  For example, an order consisting of 75 large rats being shipped to California (75 large rats @ $1.39 each = $104.25 plus $75.00 for Greyhound) would cost $179.25.  That's about $2.39 per large rat.  You have 25% free space available meaning you could order 25 more large rats, incurring no additional shipping costs, for a total of 100 rats (100 large rats @ $1.39 each = $139.00 plus $75.00 for Greyhound) making your new total cost $214.00.  Your new cost per rat is $2.14 each therefore reducing your cost per rat 25 cents each.

Other cost cutting ideas

By ordering quarterly as opposed to monthly you may take advantage of our quantity discounts.  Quantity discounts will always save you money.

Visit our site frequently and look for the "hot deal" icon.  When we are offering an item at a reduced price, it is generally on sale until inventory has been reduced and then it will immediately return to its normal price.

Splitting an order with a friend, friends, group, herpetology club etc. will enable you to take advantage of our quantity discounts and may also provide an opportunity to have others share in the cost of shipping.

Understanding Greyhound PackageXpress

Customers in certain delivery areas have the option of choosing Greyhound PackageXpress as their method of shipping (This usually offers a considerable savings to these customers on larger orders).  When those who are given this option choose it, the amount of product that fits in a box is double what other shipping methods allow and the numbers reflected on the site pertaining to "GPX Box Space" should be used when calculating the use of available free space.