[FDStation152]

I've never done it myself for the same reasons you mentioned. And just talk to the people who work at the pet stores how their fish show up from shipping. Of course some fish handle it much better than others so I wouldn't entirely rule it out. Another prohibitive factor is the shipping cost. You're still paying retail prices and covering the shipping costs. A lot of LFSs will order in fish for you with their regular shipments and it'll end up costing less generally speaking.