Sitstay.com: Even My Dogs Sit and Stay for this Site!
Written: Aug 18 '01
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The Bottom Line
This is the best online pet site I have dealt with. The products are top notch and unique, and the shipping and service are excellent.
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| Full Review |
This review is being moved from a generic web services category into the proper category for Sitstay.com. I've also edited it and hope you enjoy this review of my favorite pet site!
I love shopping online for the Cairn Terrors. I love it so much that I rarely go to the local pet supply stores (NOT stores that sell puppies and kittens. I don't let even $1 of my money support them, but I'll stop there before I get off topic). My favorite site to buy just our regular supplies from is Petsmart.com. But when I buy treats or chewies for the pups, I always head straight to www.sitstay.com.
The Sit-Stay Site
The site itself is easy to navigate and quick loading. The colors used are bright, easy to read, and pleasant to look at. The categories of products are listed at the top of the site so you can jump easily to whatever category you want quickly. The categories available are:
~ Closeouts (sale stuff)
~ Books (on many subjects like clicker training, health, and even cookbooks)
~ Clothing (for dogs and humans, including most every breed)
~ Collectibles (including Castagna and bronze sculptures as well as an oak keg that EVERY Saint Bernard needs!)
~ Edibles (too many to list, but I'll talk more about our faves below!)
~ Equipment (crates, training equipment, collars, etc)
~ Gifts/Cards (cards and unique items for the humans and dogs)
~ Health/Beauty (shampoos, combs, nutrititional supplements)
~ Toys (tennis balls and things to toss them, stuffies, frisbees)
When you click on a category, you are taken to the index page for that category which lists all the products available. The categories are broken down into subcategories for quick navigating to the item you want. You can go from subcategory to subcategory quickly as the subcategories in that category are also linked on each page.
Each month, they offer sales on many products. Those sale products are linked as well at the top of each page so you can quickly jump to those as well.
After dealing with so many hard to navigate, full of fancy flash and java sites, this simple site design is a pleasure to visit and view. It's easy to browse through the categories or head straight to the item you want for fast ordering.
The Products
Fun, fun, fun!!! Most of this stuff, you will have trouble finding anywhere else!
Are you into clicker training? I haven't found another site online that sells as much stuff related to clicker training. You can find the clickers themselves (and buy in bulk!) as well as various holders for them, the touch sticks, books, and even videos to start you on your way to clicker training (and I believe it IS the best way to train...my dogs have done great with it, and they are Cairn Terriers, typically a difficult to train breed).
The Edibles category is my favorite and in my opinion, the site's biggest selling point. They sell a variety of treats and chews that are all natural and about as good for your dog as any treat can be. Just like with their clicker products, they have things you won't find many places, including a huge line of salmon based treats that my dogs love! If you are a clicker trainer or like smaller treats for your dog, check out this site because they have a variety that are good for use in training.
Some of the Elly and Parker approved treats and chews are:
Lakse Kronch: A small, crunchy treat imported from Denmark. Its made of 100% fish, with 85% of that being salmon. Fish is full of Omega 3 fatty acids that are good for a dogs skin and coat.
Yummie Chummies: Soft treat made mainly with Alaskan Salmon. The pups loved these for their clicker training classes, and I liked the fact that they could be easily torn into small pieces so the pups wouldn't get TOO chunky.
Tia Chips: A flat, round biscuit type treat. We haven't purchased yet but they included a sample with our last order. The Cairn Terrors almost chewed through my hand and the bag to get to them. We will buy some with our next order.
Macho Stix: A treat made out of, um, how do I say this, um, um, uh, a certain part of some poor bull's anatomy...just visit the site. They have a great sense of humor, obviously! It's really no more disgusting that any of the other animal parts people give dogs (cows hooves, pigs ears), and these are much safer because they wear down gradually and can't be splintered off in dangerous pieces as the hooves and ears can. The dogs love them. Read the site just for a laugh if nothing else!
http://www.sitstay.com/store/edibles/chews1.shtml
They also sell a variety of collars, including the Premier Martingale collar. I have this same collar for my older Cairn, and we use it everyday for walks. It's very high quality. I reviewed a similar collar called the Coastal Pet No-Slip Collar. These are wonderful, and I recommend them to any dog owner.
I find the prices to be reasonable for the treats and such as they are such high quality, natural products. Their prices on other products are in line with other pet supply places (if you can even find the products there. I've seen the Macho Stix in pet stores, and the quality isn't remotely near the quality of Sitstay's.)
Ordering
Simple...click on what ya want to add it to your cart. You can further adjust the number or delete the item in your cart. When it's time to checkout, just click on "I'm ready to checkout" located at the top right of the screen.
Shipping
Shipping is reasonable as well. You are charged an amount based on the size of your order. My shipping charges on even larger orders has never been too much more than $5 or so.
The default shipping is USPS Priority Mail, but you are given the option of choosing overnight, UPS ground, etc. I never choose those even if I need an order quickly because I find that USPS along with sitstay.com's quick actions in packaging up your products works great. I've always gotten my orders in 2-3 days. The only exception to that was this past Christmas, but according to the postmark on the box, they had shipped it out just two days after my order. With holiday mail being as slow as it has been, it took another 4-5 days to get to me.
Customer Service
INCREDIBLE! I have had one experience with customer service. I purchased a collar that was too big for my dog. This was ENTIRELY my own fault for not measuring properly. I e-mailed them to check on return procedure. I got a nice response within a half-hour telling me what I needed to do. I wanted to exchange at first but ended up purchasing that same collar at a dog show the next day. They allowed me to send it back and credited my card almost immediately.
They always include a free product sample with your order. In our last order, we got the Tia Chips. They also include a free notecard from their line. BUT, in our first order, I left a comment on the order form about this being my first order and about my stubborn little terrors. I don't know if this meant something or not, but when I opened up the box, a TON of samples fell out! They had included so many samples of their treats. My dogs got to try a lot of what they carry, which did the trick to get Mom to order some of them!
It's a small company with very personal service. Unfortunately, you don't always find that on the web. That makes it even more wonderful when you find a place you can rely on.
Other fun stuff
The site isn't just a pet supply store. They have some other features to keep you there including message boards, links to news stories involving dogs (I love these!), and a pedigree generator. You can put your dogs pedigree on your webpage quickly and easily doing this. I have my younger dogs pedigree done with their generator. If you want to see an example, it's at:
http://members.aol.com/misselly0/pedigree.html
And one MORE fun thing...they have a monthly newsletter you can sign up for. It's just that, once a month, no spam included here. And when you sign up you are eligible to win one of many $25 gift certificates they give out each month. I've never personally won *pout*, but a friend that I referred to the site did *more pout*. :)
Ebates.com
For those of you who use EBates.com, you can get a 7% rebate by going through their site. I always use EBates, and it gives an even further discount on the order you place.
In the end, this is by far my favorite pet supply site. I can't find a single negative about it for me personally, but if you are a cat person, you probably won't be too thrilled as most of their products are geared toward dogs!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
SHeineman
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Member: Stacy
Location: Kentucky
Reviews written: 208
Trusted by: 165 members
About Me:
26.2
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