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Markus

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Went into town to visit my local pet shops this morning, after my recent purchas of some monitors, and planning on breeding them next season, I thought id check out what is available and what they recomend for incubating eggs.

Shop 1 "we dont sell reptile incubators, only ones for chook and bird eggs"

Shop 2 " no, we dont sell them"

both of the above sold reptile accesories, including exo terra brand, who do make an incubator, no offer to find out about them or order one in, no interest in doing anything at all to help.

Shop 3 was worse,

" no we dont sell them, you should look online, it'll probably be cheaper anyway "

Is it any wonder we dont support local shops anymore?? In all cases I approached the most senoir person present, or the one that suposedly knew most about reptiles, none had kept monitors, and none had the slightest clue about breeding them or the inclination to find out.

It would be nice to have SOMEONE local to get advice from, but looks like I cant rely on my local pet shops.


Just my rant for the day/week.
How often do you hear retailers complaining about not being able to compete with online shopping? wonder why?

The reality is (in my experince) online retailers are often more informed and provide cheaper pricing.

I did at least try though.
 
The other thing is about buying from a shop is they are all usually selling imported products anyway.
 
Support the site sponsors and problem solved, well maybe almost, dependent on where you live.

I get all the information I need here regarding advice and knowledge.....two things that can't be bought.
 
Went into town to visit my local pet shops this morning, after my recent purchas of some monitors, and planning on breeding them next season, I thought id check out what is available and what they recomend for incubating eggs.

Shop 1 "we dont sell reptile incubators, only ones for chook and bird eggs"

Shop 2 " no, we dont sell them"

both of the above sold reptile accesories, including exo terra brand, who do make an incubator, no offer to find out about them or order one in, no interest in doing anything at all to help.

Shop 3 was worse,

" no we dont sell them, you should look online, it'll probably be cheaper anyway "

Is it any wonder we dont support local shops anymore?? In all cases I approached the most senoir person present, or the one that suposedly knew most about reptiles, none had kept monitors, and none had the slightest clue about breeding them or the inclination to find out.

It would be nice to have SOMEONE local to get advice from, but looks like I cant rely on my local pet shops.


Just my rant for the day/week.
How often do you hear retailers complaining about not being able to compete with online shopping? wonder why?

The reality is (in my experince) online retailers are often more informed and provide cheaper pricing.

I did at least try though.

What did you expect? Since when has anyone relied on local petshops? :lol:

Legal reptile keeping is extremely new in WA and the experience just isn't here. There's a few people around with an idea but you wont find them in your standard pet shops or even reptile specific shops. The best person I know at a shop is Matt Harris at pet magic and even he has little to do with lizards.

Why pay a premium at a shop when you can buy privately anyway? Same goes for the incubator, there's very few commercially available brands over here and the price is crazy compared to what you can know up yourself with a few cords and a thermostat.

Your asking asking a bit much from people working for minimum wage that have to deal with a wide variety of animals, not just reptiles.
 
What did you expect? Since when has anyone relied on local petshops? :lol:

Legal reptile keeping is extremely new in WA and the experience just isn't here. There's a few people around with an idea but you wont find them in your standard pet shops or even reptile specific shops. The best person I know at a shop is Matt Harris at pet magic and even he has little to do with lizards.

Why pay a premium at a shop when you can buy privately anyway? Same goes for the incubator, there's very few commercially available brands over here and the price is crazy compared to what you can know up yourself with a few cords and a thermostat.

Your asking asking a bit much from people working for minimum wage that have to deal with a wide variety of animals, not just reptiles.

I agree rep keeping is new in WA, but I dont think that is an excuse. I would never work in a retail store without knowing at least something about all the products/brands on the shelves. I can say in the past I made it my buisness to know!
Fair enough it may be a big ask for them to know specifics on breeding monitors, or even reptiles generally, but they should at least know that the main brand of reptile product they retail does make and sell an incubator, 20 seconds or less checking on thier PC would have confirmed that. A phone call to said supplier would have answered a few questions as to weather or not it would be suitable for my personal needs. Personally I dont think that would have been to much trouble.

As for the employee that told me to shop online, I can only say he wouldnt be working for me if it was my shop and I heard that said, but then, maybe its my attitude thats the problem. But then again, I did have a succesfull buisness for 25 years, so maybe I do know a little about what im saying.


Just peeved is all, I know it cant be helped, but seriously, its not that hard to answer a question or two and actually help a customer by finding out a bit of info. None of the stores had any other customers at the time, and most had several staff on, and not so much as an " ill see what I can find out" ?

Nah.


They just didnt even want to try.
 
In all cases I approached the most senoir person present, or the one that suposedly knew most about reptiles, none had kept monitors, and none had the slightest clue about breeding them or the inclination to find out.

In their defence, breeding monitors is a pretty specific knowledge base and not something i would imagine they get asked about very often; i can understand how their training priorities might be focused in other areas.

That said, it is a little weird that they didn't double check to see if they could get these things in (unless they knew they couldn't for supplier reasons). As someone mentioned above, wages aren't exactly stellar in pet industry, so i guess the drive to provide exceptional service might not be there for some.
 
Then there is the other side of the coin guys. I have a scuba shop in Sydney and I have lost count of the amount of times people come in, bleed me dry for all the info then go buy it online. Then more often than not come back with the gear they bought online and expect me to assemble it for free (which I won't).

The problem is the wholesalers are getting tighter with margins and they want minimum orders and cod for a lot of them. A friend of mine has a pet shop. I know what he goes through for a special order. Out of a $350 incubator he would be lucky to make $50 by the time he pays freight, cod, rent, electricity etc etc and that's not including his wages. So go a little easy. The stores have to compete with the net, but more often than not the store just gets used for knowledge. So that might be why they are a little jaded and really don't want to go to far from stock lines. I get that you want to support local and that's great, but remember its all about the retail space making money by turning the stock over as often as possible. I doubt they would turn more than one incubator a year and in my store it turns once a week or its gone.

I'm not having a go at the idea, but a lot of folks don't realise there is a lot of pressure on the stores to. Retail sux in this country lol
 
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This is exact reason I'm against selling reptiles in pet shops in NSW people give a
 
Because staff members don't know about breeding monitors...?
 
probably better off getting your info here(or other forums) and build your own incubator out of an old fridge and a heat cable and a thermo,heaps cheaper than a chinese factory made one and as big as you want
 
most pet shops know very little about most of the animals they sell and most are only in it for the money
 
I use local shops when it is viable but when I am told that an SD memory card (weighing a couple of grams) is 3 times the price I can get it in Melbourne, 6 times the price of the same item from the US because of freight! You just have to laugh and walk away. I bought a lift kit for my 4WD for $1000 cheaper than the Darwin price from SA. Exact same product. "Freight"was the story. The freight from SA was $25. Some are honest some are thieves. Buyer beware.
 
Then there is the other side of the coin guys. I have a scuba shop in Sydney and I have lost count of the amount of times people come in, bleed me dry for all the info then go buy it online. Then more often than not come back with the gear they bought online and expect me to assemble it for free (which I won't).

Start charging them $5 to browse like that Celiac store in Brisbane that was experiencing the same thing.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]
most pet shops know very little about most of the animals they sell and most are only in it for the money
[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]You mean people run businesses for profit???
Capitalist pigs!!![/FONT]
 
Pet shops are bad.

You have the internet, why the hell are you going around asking pet shops for info? Especially about monitor breeding?
By going and asking pet shops, you are actively trying to spend more money, while completely wasting your time. The guy who said go online was the best bit of info you will get.
 
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