I am truely glad you feel that way, but your type of thinking is seriously in the minority. Most people want "cheap" fish. Hell, I try to sell people the $1.99 fantails that I keep in tip-top shape on an independant system espeically designed to make goldfish happy, and the majority of my customers would still rather buy the sickly, crappy looking 25 cent feeders because, well, you know "goldfish don't live that long anyway." And to top it all off, most of my 25 cent feeders are a good two to three inches in length, and people want to put them in two gallon tanks! Or bowls no less. There is only so much public education I can provide to a person who still insists that they don't want to spend the money on a proper fish or set up without lossing the sale. So I sell the person what they want *shrug* what else am I suppose to do? Refuse to sell to them? *snort* I'm sorry, my paycheck is worth more to me than preventing some stupid moron from killing their fish. I did what I could, I made the suggestion that the $1.99 fantail would be the better buy. I speciffically told them that the feeder wasn't going to be as enjoyable...what more can I do? If you've got suggestions, let me know, because I could use it. I'm at my wits end with morons.
To me, that's not taking advantage of the beginner, that's giving the customer what they want because of course they're always right. Taking advantage of a beginner is trying to sell them the itty-bitty cute oscar for a ten gallon tank and not telling them it will eat everything and grow huge. Sometimes I ask a person, "what size tank do you have, what type of fish do you have?" before I bag their choices, but many people don't like getting the third degree (oh boy have people given me attitude about that!) then told the fish they want isn't approiate. Again, not sell the fish, or loose my paycheck? Hmm... I do say "Gee, I really don't think this is the fish you want...Now something like this..." and steer the customer away from the six inch gourmi to the platies for their 10g..but 90% of the time they need to hear the whole life history of the gourmi before they decide on the platy, and still...75% of the time after that they want to "give the gourmi a try." I've got lots of other things I need to accomplish during my shift, hand-holding every customer while they pick out their fish isn't something I can do very often. Espeically on a very, very, very busy day when I've got five other customers rolling their eyes at me because they have to wait to be hand-held in picking their fish. They point, I bag, "Have a nice day" and they go off happy because they got the fish they want, and I go off happy because I get my paycheck on time. Once the fish leave my care, I release all responsiblity for them, their actions, and how the customer cares for them.
I do not sell sick fish. I tell a customer when I think a fish is sick, even if it is only one ich spot, or a torn fin, or whatever. I treat and medicate fish to make them healthy, and if I know it was the health of the fish and not the customer's screw-up that could've killed it, I'm pretty understanding about making an exchange. But I hate being accused of selling "sick" fish when I know for damn certain that fish was healthy when it left the store, and had been living in my care for two weeks or more in prime condition. I don't do that. Again though, I can't be responsible for what my co-workers sell when I'm not there. I could put up a hundred quaritine signs, but that doesn't mean people know how to read.
But hey, if you're going to be my sole customer, I'll put together a fish-store just for you, but don't be suprised if the tetra you want is $500.00
~~Colesea