Quote Originally Posted by Mindibun View Post
But there's always going to be those people that DON'T do their homework first, and DON'T shop around (*sings* you gotta shop around ) and so they think, "Oh wow. How convenient - I can get everything I need right here. And that's not TOO bad a price, really."
I totally agree. IMO pets are one of the worst, and unfortunately most common, impulse buys people make. They go into the pet store for a can of cat food, decide to check out the fauna (who doesn't right?) "just to see the cute little animals", and next thing they know they're walking out the door with a whole (inadequite/completely wrong) setup and a new pet, and a handful of (poor/false) husbandry information from an uneducated employee trying to make a sale.

In a perfect world, an ethical petstore would forbid people to do this. If someone came in and wanted to buy fauna and setup all in one shot the employee would insist on selling them a book instead. Tell them to read the book and come back in a week or two if they still really wanted the animal. We all know this isn't the case and profit is king. That's why there are so many mistreated/rescue/abandoned pets.