Hi Everyone,
Thanks for your support and loyalty! It's been a great year so far, and we're very happy to serve you!
As you recall, we periodically give you "reports" on items of interest, and "survey" you guys and gals to solicit a little feedback about how we're doing, what we can improve, and what we need to change...It's been a couple of months since we did that, so we wanted to "report" on things we've been up to to make your customer service better and better. We'd love to continue to hear some feedback. Many of the changes we have instituted in the past have been a direct result of your valuable feedback, and we thank you for it! We hope to continue this spirit of cooperation and feedback! I have a few topics I'll touch on, which we have continuously improved, thanks in part to your excellent suggestions and feedback. Anything you want to add (suggestions, constructive criticisms, etc.) would be great!
We are working very hard to be YOUR go-to source for coral!
1) Pricing: We have been working very hard to keep costs down, which in turn results in less expensive prices for you, the consumer. We continuously propagate many corals in our own raceways, which will keep costs affordable. We have also developed some great resources for corals, which help keep our costs down. We are certainly not the cheapest outfit out there, but we believe our pricing is no where near the most expensive, and reflects our passion for quality and level of service. Unique is not a "discount" coral vendor, but we are not operating on the assumption that we can charge crazy prices for everything just because it might be "rare". Rather, you will see prices that reflect quality and the expenses associated with bringing the coral to you. Sure, we have some crazy high-end stuff, but that is certainly not the bulk of our market. We always value your feedback on this issue.
2) Quality: As those of you who have visited our facility know, we just don't toss out hundreds of pieces of coral "just because". We have a huge inventory of coral, much of which is farmed in our facility, and may not be ready for sale at any given time. We have not, and we're not- going to release fresh-cut, fresh-glued corals for sale. Rather, we will wait until the corals are healed up, colorful, and ready to sell. Consistent quality is super important to us. You deserve our best. Period.
3) Service: We said from the outset that we want to have the best service in our industry. Period. Service is HUGE to us. Wether it's a call to confirm a shipping date, making sure that you receive your corals on the day that you want, offering suggestions on your purchases, or the bonus frags in every order- customer service permeates everything that we do. Those of you that have had to have corals replaced for one reason or another can vouch for this. Unique has what we feel are some of the most generous and liberal guarantee policies in our industry. Whn something goes wrong, it's our responsibility to make sure it's corrected to your satisfaction. We simply will not make you jump through hoops to get a coral replaced during our guarantee period. If it dies, we replace it. Period. Sure, we may ask a few questions to see what we can do to prevent future losses, but you will not be interrogated, subjected to suspicious reviews of emails, accused of lying, and "called out" on public forums.
We see "horror" stories on vendor feedback forums and just cringe at the way some of these go down. It's a small reefkeeping community, and believe us, known "troublemakers" and abusers of company policies are well known to vendors. They are few and far in between, so we kind of figure that most people are honest, reasonable, and just want good service. We're not going to adjust our practices just to protect ourselves from a few "bad apples". In general, communication and understanding are so important in this business, and can avoid many problems. Bottom line: We are human. We have screwed up before. We will screw up in the future. Occasionally, corals may be lost as a result of our mistakes, or things beyond our control. If it's during our guarantee period, we will work with you to find the best solution. Order with complete confidence. How can we improve this, and make our service even better?
4) Consistency: As you have seen, we update our inventory daily, and don't rely on occasional "bursts" of new items. We are in this business for the rest of our working careers, so we make it a point to do things in a consistent, continuous basis. Sure, if we have some extra special stuff, we might break from our tradition, but we aim to offer you new items every single weekday, and often on weekends as well. We know most of you have daily "virtual shopping routines", and like to visit our website (and others) daily, so it's our goal to always give you something new to look at! And thanks to your suggestion, we have changed our inventory to 100% WYSIWYG, and the feedback has been great! Thank you! Your suggestions are always welcome!
5) Photography: We have worked extremely hard and spent a lot of money to develop the best photographic practices possible. As those who have purchased our corals or been to our facility can attest, our corals look just like they do in our photos, often better. Our photographic practices have been called some of the best in the industry by some very picky critics, and we are quite proud of this. We will not rely on excessive color saturation or post production to "sell" the coral. Happy, healthy corals are remarkable in their natural coloration, and don't need our Photoshopping skills to be beautiful. One of the worst nightmares for any legitimate coral vendor is to receive a call from a customer who just received a coral that bares no resemblance to the one they thought they purchased. Keeping it real avoids this unhappy situation, and we make every effort to assure maximum color accuracy.
6) Shipping: We have dropped our shipping costs significantly since we opened for busienss, and will continue to make shipping more and more affordable, so that "flat rate" shipping costs (an evil necessity of our business) will absorb less of your hard-earned "coral cash". We have some of the lowest flat rate shipping in our industry, and will make every effort to keep it that way. Our threshold for free shipping has fallen, and we hope that we will continue to be able to adjust our expenses downward to keep your outlay for shipping as low as possible.
We're looking forward to seeing many of you in person when our "Unique Boutique" opens later this Spring! It will be a great place for reefers from Southern California and beyond to just visit, hang out, and talk "reef", and we're really excited about it! Watch for updates on our build progress coming soon!
Again, we greatly appreciate your loyalty, friendship, and feedback, and promise to continue to innovate and improve our products and services.
Warm Regards,
Scott Fellman and Joseph Caparatta
Unique Corals
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I will definitely be ordering again soon! 
