Keep the customer informed
Explain the delay, keep communication open, give useful updates, and follow through when safe shipping becomes possible.
Spider People Network
Live-animal standards.
These standards apply to every SPN Approved Business that sells or ships live animals. They're the minimum we require before we'll publicly endorse that business.
Legal shipping
Brown boxing isn't an approved business practice.
For this program, brown boxing means hiding or misdescribing a live-animal shipment, leaving off required wildlife markings or documents, or using a carrier or service that doesn't accept that animal in order to avoid rules, contracts, handling requirements, or cost.
A plain brown box isn't automatically brown boxing. The problem is an unmarked, falsely described, or unauthorized live-animal shipment.
Approval requires live-animal businesses to:
- Follow current federal, state, and local law.
- Follow the current rules of the carrier and service being used.
- Describe the shipment honestly.
- Use all required live-animal and wildlife markings and documents.
- Use packaging that protects the animal and prevents escape.
- Use a delivery service that's reasonably safe for the species and conditions.
When federal wildlife marking rules apply to an interstate shipment, the package must show the required shipper and recipient information. An accurate list of the species, number of animals, and whether any listed species is venomous must accompany the shipment unless a permitted alternative applies.
A two- or three-day service isn't prohibited only because of its speed. It may be used when the carrier accepts that animal through that service, the shipment is accurately marked and documented, and the packaging and expected conditions are reasonably safe. Using a slower or cheaper service to hide a jumping spider or evade a carrier's live-animal rules is brown boxing and makes a business ineligible for approval.
Carrier rules change. The business is responsible for checking the current rules before shipping. A package being accepted by a clerk or entering a carrier's system doesn't prove that the shipment was allowed.
Weather holds
Animal safety comes before a shipping date.
A business may delay shipment when weather, carrier conditions, or another real safety concern makes shipping unsafe. A reasonable weather hold isn't automatically a business failure.
Give a reasonable option
There's no fixed maximum weather-hold period. If safe shipping becomes open-ended or very different from the expected timing, reasonable customer care includes an honest update and a reasonable option to cancel for a refund.
DOA and live arrival
Every live-animal business needs a reasonable policy.
The policy needs to:
- Give the customer at least two hours from carrier-confirmed delivery to report a DOA.
- Explain what photo, video, or other reasonable evidence is needed.
- Explain the remedies available for a confirmed DOA.
- State how replacement shipping costs will be handled.
A business may give the customer more than two hours. When it does, that longer posted window applies. The two-hour clock starts at carrier-confirmed delivery. Customers are expected to plan for timely pickup and remove the animal from shipping confinement as soon as reasonably possible.
A confirmed DOA that wasn't caused by the customer requires a meaningful remedy under the business's posted policy. Reasonable remedies include a replacement, refund, or full purchase-value credit. Offering no meaningful remedy doesn't meet SPN's standard.
SPN will review disputed DOA claims case by case. We may consider delivery records, weather, packaging, the timing and quality of the customer's evidence, the business's posted policy, customer conduct, communication, and the health and safety of the animal.
Legal compliance
Your signed agreement is your confirmation.
The signed application confirms that the business follows applicable animal, shipping, permit, licensing, labeling, and carrier requirements.
SPN won't routinely collect or verify permit or license documents. We aren't a licensing agency and won't decide regulatory violations for the government. Someone claiming that a business lacks a required permit or license is responsible for supporting the claim and reporting it to the proper authority.
An accusation alone isn't proof. Spider People Network management may still consider official findings, admissions, credible evidence, the business's response, and animal safety when deciding whether SPN can continue endorsing the business.
Known illegal sales or shipping, deliberate brown boxing, intentional unsafe shipping, serious animal mistreatment, or dishonesty about legal compliance may result in denial, suspension, or removal at SPN's discretion.
Approval versus membership
Approval is a higher standard.
These are endorsement standards. Brown boxing by itself doesn't automatically remove an ordinary member from SPN, but a business using it isn't eligible for SPN approval.
An ordinary member or creator may run an independent business that SPN doesn't officially endorse. SPN will direct members toward the Approved Businesses it has reviewed and is willing to vouch for.