How we rate koi dealers

FindKoi exists because the question hobbyists actually ask — "which dealers can I trust?" — is answered today in scattered forum threads, not anywhere a buyer can find. These are the rules we compile listings by.

Every fact has a source

Each listing is compiled from the dealer's own published website and public community discussion. Every factual claim — location, shipping policy, quarantine practice, which Japanese breeders they import from — is stored with the URL that supports it, and the sources are visible on every profile. If we couldn't verify something, the profile says "not stated" rather than guessing.

Reputation is quoted, never invented

Community reputation summaries come from real hobbyist venues — the koiphen forums, koi-bito, and Reddit's pond and koi communities — with each thread cited and dated. We summarize both praise and complaints neutrally. When there isn't enough discussion to summarize fairly, the profile shows "not yet rated" instead of a rating we can't back up.

Buyer reviews

First-party reviews are for actual purchases and rate three things: packing quality, whether the fish matched its photos, and health after 90 days. Every review is read by a human before publishing. A verified buyer badge means the reviewer showed us an order receipt (which we never publish). We don't remove negative reviews at a dealer's request — factual disputes get the dealer's response appended instead. Aggregate scores appear only once a dealer has three or more approved reviews.

Facts are not for sale

No dealer can pay to change what their listing says, remove a cited complaint, or alter their reputation summary. Paid placement, if we ever offer it, will be clearly labeled and will never touch the facts of any listing — including competitors'.

The verification ladder

• Unclaimed — Listed from public sources; not yet claimed by the business.
• Claimed — The business has claimed this listing and confirmed its details.
• Verified — Details verified by FindKoi through documentation and a direct interview.

Claiming is free and gets a dealer's corrections into the listing (with sources). Verification requires documentation and a direct interview. Claim your listing here.

Live inventory listings

Where a dealer runs a public online store, FindKoi reads its publicly published product feed — the same data any shopper's browser receives — to show that dealer's in-stock koi in our cross-dealer search. Every listing links directly to the dealer's own product page, is clearly attributed, and sends the buyer to the dealer to complete the purchase; we sell nothing ourselves. Our crawler identifies itself (FindKoiBot), respects robots.txt, and fetches gently (about one request per second, once per day). Aggregated asking prices from these listings power the price index. Dealers can correct, enrich, or opt out of inventory listing at any time — see the dealer FAQ; opt-outs are honored within 24 hours.

Price data

The FindKoi Price Index is computed daily from live listings: for each variety and size bucket with at least 3 current listings, we publish the median asking price and the 25th–75th percentile band, with the listing and dealer counts behind every number. These are asking prices from dealers' public stores — not sale prices, and not a valuation of any individual fish. Alongside the index we keep curated reference ranges for varieties with too few live listings; those are estimates and labeled as such.

Mistakes

If a listing is wrong, we want to know. Dealers can correct their own listing by claiming it; anyone else can reach us via the about page. Corrections that check out are applied with the listing's source list updated.