What To Know When You Order Seafood Online

As more and more people hear about the health benefits of seafood – especially cold-water seafood and fish like halibut, tuna and lobster – it’s becoming more common to order seafood from an online source. There are many good reasons to order seafood shipped directly to your door if you live a distance from the ocean, and a number of things you should know and understand before you place your order.

Benefits When You Order Seafood

When you have seafood shipped to you from a dockside market, you’re practically guaranteed to get all the wonderful goodness that fresh seafood has to offer. You can almost be certain that the seafood shipped to you is fresher than anything you’ll find at your supermarket’s fish counter. In fact, unless you’re ordering a local seafood specialty, fresh seafood shipped from an online fish market will even be fresher than anything you can buy in the local fish market.

Your order will be individually packed on ice and shipped directly to you in a foam cooler, usually by 24-hour shipping. The fish you buy locally in your supermarket has probably spent days on the road, crowded on a railroad car or shoved frozen into the back of a refrigerated truck. Large shipments of salmon and halibut and tuna are often shipped in huge frozen blocks that are thawed and sold as “previously frozen” at their destination. Which do you think will taste better?

You can have your order delivered directly to your door. If you’re planning a special occasion dinner or serving seafood for a party, having your seafood shipped is a huge timesaver and convenience. When you order seafood from an online fish market, you don’t have to spend half your day running out to the market to get your fish or buy lobster tails.

What You Need to Know Before You Order Seafood

The single most important thing to know when you place an order, whether it’s for halibut, tuna, smoked fish or lobster tails, is the reputation of the market from which you’re buying. Keep in mind that many online seafood sources aren’t actually fish markets. In fact, they’re middlemen, selling frozen and previously frozen fish that’s no different than what you’ll find in your grocer’s fish case.

These days, social media and review sites make it much easier to find fish markets that actually sell fresh-off-the-boat seafood, and take pride in providing only the best. Don’t be satisfied with the “testimonials” you’ll find on the market’s website. Instead, search for them at a review site that lets customers post honest, unbiased reviews of local businesses. It’s one of the best ways to make sure you’re doing business with one of the best places to order seafood online. And after all, you wouldn’t want to serve anything but the best.