claudiusx":17tnhnvk said:
Who is on your short list of breeders you're looking into?
Geez dude, we just got back from the first show! :lol:
The show was--I think--better than expected. I checked off every vendor on the list that we saw/met (only 3 or 4 no-shows, but also 3 or 4 who weren't on the "official" list, so that evened out), and got business cards from most. I
was surprised at the number of vendors who
didn't have business cards! :shock: ...just excuses for why they
didn't.
[
Mini-Rant]As a previous small business owner myself, not having the most basic form of advertising/marketing/publicity was... mind-boggling--really threw me. I mean... you can get 500 cards for less than $10 or print them on any home printer, but I digress... [
/Mini-Rant]
I graded each vendor with a + (impressed by/would do business with), - (not impressed/
probably not do business with) or nothing/neutral (undecided). Totals: 3+, 1-, 20 neutrals. A few we didn't bother with, like if they only did snakes (not that there's anything
wrong with that--we're just not into snakes, so we just looked quickly, smiled, thanked them, and moved along... ). Everyone was very nice except the one minus. Aside from being excessively rude when I mentioned I couldn't find any contact info for his business, there was this:
Yup, that's a live adult beardie crammed into a take-out salad container--ostensibly for 7-8 hrs or more. I get it with smaller stuff like geckos (who can at least move around), but this just didn't seem... appropriate. Every other vendor who had beardies had them in large tanks or tubs.
Anyhoo, I
did wind up buying something. Not the aforementioned lighting fixture (nobody matched/beat online prices), but a nice cork round--
24" long x 5-7" wide, and big enough for a beardie to hide in, with 3 access points. The fellow was extremely nice, and like a couple of other vendors, was selling cork rounds by the pound. 3.5lbs.--$30. Other vendors were selling the same size rounds for up to $100, so we didn't feel bad about it.
Do I need to bake this thing or something? :study:
Still looking forward to meeting some other vendors at the next shows (like Dachiu and others) before compiling the "Short List" 8)
[
EDIT] The cork round is 24" long--not 20" as I originally mistyped.