I don't believe this violates any TOS, but if it does, mods please remove it or quarantine it or whatever.

So Rodent Pro vends at a show nearby every other month or so. This is awesome because if you place a pre-order by the Thursday night before the show (shows are always on Sundays), you get website pricing plus your order is already boxed and ready to go when you get there. Oh...and you don't have to pay shipping!! I plan my orders so that I buy enough food to last my collection until the next show, assuming that even if I can't personally attend, one of my friends surely will and they will pick up my order for me.

So I'm looking through Rodent Pro's website yesterday, getting my order together and I notice that they're saying XL mice are unavailable until Nov 9. Well, I think, that's great, because the show's the 11. So I email in my order and this morning, I receive a confirmation stating that I cannot preorder the XL mice, but they will have a limited quantity at the show. I ask why they would deny a guaranteed sale (preorder) in favor of a questionable one (bought at table) and why I'm being penalized by being forced to pay a higher price as well as having the uncertainty of them not having the product in stock at the show by the time I arrive. They said that because of a competitor going out of business (or perhaps a recent zoonotic disease outbreak?), the demand is really high for large sized mice right now so they cannot allow any preorders. The person I was emailing with encouraged me to arrive early and buy off the table.

So I know a lot of people on here don't like Rodent Pro, and I'm not their biggest fan, and this really grates my nerves. I was half tempted to tell him to just cancel the whole order. The fact is, I just can't find a better deal, especially considering shipping. It just doesn't make business sense to me why they would deny someone a preorder in favor of putting the product on the table where it isn't guaranteed to sell. They've got be between a rock and a hard place because I'd really like to find another supplier, but I just can't find better prices when you add in the fact that by getting them at the show, I don't have to pay shipping.

Anyone have any ideas about this? Anyone know anybody at Rodent Pro personally? This just doesn't seem to make good business sense to me. And if there really was a competitor that went out of business, who was it?