where is arachnocenter.com?

Bob

Arachnoangel
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Sep 17, 2002
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Hi Folks,
Anyone know Paul Becker from PetcenterUSA/Arachnocenter? I noticed his website was not getting updated in March. Now his site is down. Did he close down?

I bought quite a bit from him in the past, hope he is okay.......

Bob
 

Mister Internet

Big Meanie Doo Doo Head :)
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Hard to say... dealers come and go... the best I can suggest is finding the arachnocenter.com thread in the Online Dealers forum here, and try to contact people that gave favorable reviews. They may still have an email address where Paul can be reached directly...

...although it has been by experience that if people leave no clues as to how to be contacted online, it means they DON'T want to be contacted online...
 

Hamadryad

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Arachnocenter ate it.....

Well, I can tell you that Arachnocenter bit the dust.I live out here in Los Angeles and I had purchased a lot of inverts from Arachnocenter being I live about 20 minutes away from it and sadly Arachnocenter shut down about a week ago.I went there the last day it was open and grabbed a couple of spiders as everything was half off....this is the latest fiasco in the sad,sad story of PetCenterUSA.Paul had a great little store going there with the old PetCenterUSA and in my humble opinion he F'ed it all up.It has been utter chaos since he sold PetCenterUSA and it has never been the same since.I really have no idea what Paul was up to with demolishing PetCenterUSA - it WAS a great little store full of inverts and herps...I even worked there for awhile a couple of years ago.Paul just went bats--t and lost his mind I think.

Weird,weird,weird story......I have spoken to Spider Chris a lot about this and he is rather reluctant to discuss what actually happened to PetCenterUSA....he had some sort of falling out with Paul.In any event Chris has his OWN invert business now, Krazy8s invertebrates..his website is :Krazy8s invertebrates.com and I recommend that you check his site out and see what he has..he has a new business going on and could use some customers.....

The Evil Spider Hunter:?
 

Weapon-X

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re

sad story... that site dos'nt seem to work?, well this is gonna sound harsh but, perhaps now we won't see any hybrid t's being sold for a long long time,which is a good thing...--Jeff
 
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SpiderTwin

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This whole thing really does suck. I dealt with Paul a couple of times and he seemed like a great guy. The T's I got from him were very impreesive also. Too bad they are out of buisiness.:?
 

alidpayne

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Spider Hunter:

You don't happen to know what method of shipping Chris uses do you? He doesn't have anything on his site that indicates his carrier.

Ali
 

alidpayne

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Spider Hunter,

Nevermind. I emailed him and he told me he ships Airborne ($30 unless you are west coast then it's $25)

I placed an order with him, and he was very helpful and quick to answer emails.


Ali
 

Lycanthrope

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well this is gonna sound harsh but, perhaps now we won't see any hybrid t's being sold for a long long time,which is a good thing..

amen and good riddens.
 

Hamadryad

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Tell him Spider Hunter sent you!!!

:D If any of you guys and gals check out Chris's new site and his business be sure to tell him I sent you there! he is a good friend of mine and was like my original mentor in the hobby...he got me into spiders and stuff a couple of years ago back when PetCenterUSA was still around.He taught me a lot about basic tarantula husbandry....answered a lot of my questions and he is a generally good guy on top of it as well.We can all help his business thrive by ordering from him and helping him get it really going!!!!!!!!

The Evil Spider Hunter
 

Code Monkey

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Well, if any of the bigger online dealers deserved to go belly up, it was him. Although I will miss his often much cheaper pricing for competition with the others.

I checked out the Krazy's site and immediately thought: did he learn nothing from Paul? It's now gone from misspelled/butchered scientific names to NO scientific names. Spiderhunter, if you've got any sway with this Chris guy, I would suggest that he might want to update the site. Nothing wrong with common names for reaching the casual hobbyist, but the "hardcore faithful" aren't going to order a T that isn't reliably identified by scientific name.
 

Slide

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Originally posted by Code Monkey
Spiderhunter, if you've got any sway with this Chris guy, I would suggest that he might want to update the site. Nothing wrong with common names for reaching the casual hobbyist, but the "hardcore faithful" aren't going to order a T that isn't reliably identified by scientific name.
That was my first thought, as well. Nice looking site, some nice organizational options and whatnot, but I don't know my common names at all. I mean, Indian Ornamental means nothing to me; I could infer it's probably a pokie, but what about the 'Ornamental Baboon', which is actually a Heteroscodra?

I'm lost without my scientific names! :(
 

alidpayne

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Chris does have scientific names, just not in the main list.

When you click on any of the common names, it opens a new page with the scientific name and some details about the species and the size of the individuals for sale.

Ali
 

Slide

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Ok, wow...that's pretty cool! I'd still like to be able to see those sci names on the main catalog list though.. :)
 

alidpayne

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I emailed him and pointed him in the direction of this thread. So, I am sure he will see your comments.

Now, if we could just do something about Todd Gearheart's mangled catalog listings on tarantulaspiders.com. I get a headache everythime I look for anything on there.

Ali
 

Code Monkey

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Originally posted by alidpayne
Chris does have scientific names, just not in the main list.

When you click on any of the common names, it opens a new page with the scientific name and some details about the species and the size of the individuals for sale.
That's good to know, but it's still godawful design.

I honestly don't know what his target customer base is, or how much volume he's looking to do, etc. But, the people who are going to potentially do a few hundred dollars business with you a year indefinitely don't want multipage layouts and the need to click for secondary pages just to get an ID.

Give me a nicely formatted list in alphabetical order by scientific name so I can get in and get out if you don't have anything I can't live without or, or place an order if you do.
 

Slide

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For that matter, I'd like one main site that would list species, by sci. name, and links to each dealer who has it. Nothing more, nothing less. Just let me know that, if I'm looking for, say, H.masculata, I can currently obtain it from the following vendors.

I was thinking of coding something like that myself; quickly realised that the amount of work involved in making a screen-scraper handle all of the dealer's sites, sci. name typos, etc., would suck, and decided not to bother.

If only everyone had a database, and provided an XML-formatted stock list.. ;)

Hey! I'll trade my web/db skillz for spiderlings! How's that sound? :D
 

willywonka

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pushed out

I spoke with an employee at Pet Center Usa/Arachnocenter just days before it closed and he did mention the reason the store was closing. Apparently there are other stores openning up in the area with a greater cash flow than Paul had and basically put him out of business. Sad to see them go since I have bought almost all my tarantulas from them. :(
 
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