Are pets like bicycles?

No they sold everything, but I was the bird whisperer. Lol.

Sorry, but when pet stores stock 150gal tanks and lighting fixtures that cost hundreds, they could stock larger caging. And thermostats don't take up a ton of space. I could be wrong, but I think with most stores it's all about the margins, rather than what's best for the animals. Otherwise none would sell the crummy little analog gauges, and they would stock decent t-stats. I do understand the stores have to make money to stay open, and if a store has only a few reptiles I wouldn't expect a huge selection of equipment. But I'd hope for decent quality in what they had. Anyway this is getting too far off the track of the thread, so my apologies to the OP. Back on track, yes most retail niche stores will make the bulk of their cash on secondary items and consumables. Having worked at a retail pet store, I know things like bedding, feeders, and in the case of the store I was at, RO water and salt, were kind of the bread and butter items.

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Originally Posted by Darkbird

Sorry, but when pet stores stock 150gal tanks and lighting fixtures that cost hundreds.... *snip* .... if a store has only a few reptiles .... *snip* .... getting too far off the track of the thread, so my apologies to the OP. Back on track, yes most retail niche stores will make the bulk of their cash on secondary items and consumables. Having worked at a retail pet store, I know things like bedding, feeders, and in the case of the store I was at, RO water and salt, were kind of the bread and butter items.

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Actually, it's not really off track. Bike stores that try to cater to every type of bicycling, from a kid's first bike to a roadie to a commuter to a bike tourist to a MTBer don't necessarily do a great job of serving any of those customers. They carry a lot of gear that works more or less OK for a lot of people, even if it isn't quite the perfect thing for most of them; and they don't carry much specialized equipment that only works on one type of bike. If they do carry more specialized stuff, it's probably geared toward the category of rider they make the most money off of. One reason a pet store might prefer to stock a 55-gal aquarium over a similarly-sized Vision enclosure is that you can sell it to people who have reptiles, or fish, or small mammals, or whatever. You can't put fish in an enclosure with a sliding front door; and plenty of aquarium enthusiasts spend a lot of money. Similarly, a bike shop would carry a bunch of stuff that's good for roadies, but might not carry more specialized gear that's only used for particular types of riding.

But if you find someplace that specializes a little more, you'll find a lot more of what you're looking for. Lots of those places have online presences, in addition to (or instead of) brick-and-mortar stores. You'll also get better advice; someone who knows about mountain bike racing won't necessarily know about ultra-distance road riding, just like someone who knows about fish doesn't necessarily also know about geckos. So it's really a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation.

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I could be wrong, but I think with most stores it's all about the margins

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This right here. Yes, pet stores could stock some of the lower end herpstats or VEs like the Intro or VE100, but why sell those $90ish tstats, that they'd have to mark up even further just to break even when you consider overhead cost, when the zoomed dial one markets for over $50 and probably costs pennies on the dollar to buy whole sale? It's the markup that kills it. Plus people don't want to blow their whole budget on one $100+ piece of equipment, knowing there's about 50 other things they need to get, and the employee isn't going to tell them "hey, it's cool, buy this thermostat from us, then go to home depot/wal-mart/whatever and buy this list of super cheap stuff that works as well as if not better than what we're selling".

Combine that with the fact that reptiles (and fish) are still very much considered a throw away pet. You can convince the lay person with no knowledge of their new pet to spend a few hundred dollars on the cute feathery or fluffy pet that interacts with you, but the general public still thinks of reptiles (and again, fish too) as unfeeling decorations. They want to put in the bare minimum effort and expense, and the store still wants to get the biggest sale. So. You end up with sub par "specialty" items that do the bare minimum of functioning while being sold at huge margins which gets the store profit.