Have Caviar, Will FedEx
By Ahmad Diba
June 26, 2000
(FORTUNE Magazine) – Luxury should be easy: Whatever it is that you want, you shouldn't have to budge from your divan to pick it up. In that spirit, FORTUNE tested a variety of Websites for service and quality of beluga caviar (still the ne plus ultra of conspicuous consumption). We selected only those that deliver anywhere in the
The most famous caviar store in the world is the Paris-headquartered Petrossian (petrossian.com). Founded in the 1920s by a pair of Armenian brothers, it now sports branches in
Caviar Express (caviarexpress.org), based in
For quality,
When we called New York-based Caviarteria (caviarteria.com), the company must have been mired in a really bad week. First, our order was completely neglected (which is why we had to call them--it wasn't until then that they discovered that their computers were down). To Caviarteria's credit, the salespeople did manage a rush order; on the other hand, the delivery site was only a few blocks away. In the end, the caviar was just a step below
Finally, there's Brooklyn-based Just Caviar (justcaviar.com). It priced beluga at $29.75 per ounce, cheaper if you buy more (17.5 ounces cost just $375). While the caliber of the caviar wasn't nearly as attractive as the price, Just Caviar remains the best place to buy bulk when quality isn't your first priority. Order in advance, because Just Caviar also tacks a processing delay of four to five days onto the overnight delivery time. When we called to check our order, an elderly woman advised us in broken English to try again after 8 P.M. Following her instructions, we finally spoke to a salesperson who explained the apparent lack of brick-and-mortar resources by saying, "We're a real Internet company."