In retail you have to be on your toes. It feels like 25% of the people coming in are what they call "scalpers". They exist in your life solely to try and find products the "market" online has decided can be sold well above initial release price before you find out. Another portion are there to directly shoplift from you. I wasted 4 trips to court over the last 14 months just to have to go sit in court, not getting a penny back and losing money in potential sales while the store was closed. One of those was Christmas week. Even when I had the first pet store I was robbed all the time. Nice little old ladies promising to bring you money for that cockatiel and cage once the government check arrives to those shoplifting bait off the shelf for fishing. Back then I used to have an American Rod and Gun wholesale account. They're the parent company of Bass Pro. People insisted you price match with their catalog prices if you expected to sell anything but a product like Berkely Power Worms doing so may only have 25 cent profit. One pack gets shop lifted and you don't break even selling all the rest of that color. One girl shoplifted a guinea pig TWICE seven years apart. In the collectible business, a number of people want "perfect" packaging or they will not buy your product since the entire plan is for some hypothetical point down the road to resell it at a profit. hen like yesterday, you get the dad coming in and turning two kids lose unsupervised to handle, wrinkle, crease and drop more product than I care to know about finally leaving buying nothing when I was forced to come hang around and watch his kids for him. I've had people take product to another part of the store and HIDE it. Multiple times. I'm assuming they want to come back at some point down the road but I expect out the door, out of their mind and if it's an item I had internet listed and it sells, which has happened and I can't find it, I have to issue a refund and maybe get a bad review. A little pessimism is the only way to survive.
