Display Fish

I had a customer come into the store today.
One of those "I get what I want and I don't take no for an answer" sorts of customers.

Which are always fun to deal with when you have to tell them no for an answer.

Most of the time you just try and dissuade them to a lesser choice that won't be as bad.
Sometimes it's successful...sometimes its not.

She'd come into the store looking for large goldfish.
You know the full grown kinds. at least 10 inches or larger.

Which a lot of people have been looking for recently as they seek to restock ponds and such.
Unfortunately our goldfish come in like at 3 inches maybe 4 inches long at the most.
Often not large enough for the people seeking large cheap fish.

Our Koi come in slightly larger maybe up to 6 inches.
But still.
They're not the 'big' fish many customers want if they want big fish.

This customer though.
Who saw our selection and deemed them too small.

Asked if the Comet Goldfish in our Display tank were for sell.
They were tiny gold fish when we'd put them in, but now they'd become nearly full grown months later.

Under the last manager, the fish were not for sell. Frankly because they're annoying to have to fish out of the display tanks, and mess up the nice set up we have going there. So we didn't sell them.

But the new current manager of the department, has a different view. Since we have the fish in the store the fish are for sell.

Still. I was not anxious to sell them.
So I told the customer that I was not sure, I'd have to double check.

I couldn't get away right away though as she was easily distracted by the other fish and wanted to know how they'd do.

Which is when I discovered that the container she wanted to put the two large goldfish in our display tank in....
Was basically just a glorified fish bowl.

From how she described it and shaped it....
I'd be surprised if it was 20 gallons. It was probably less.

But basically it was a large fish bowl.
Outdoors.

That she wanted to put a live plant in....then have the fish survive off the plant.....so she wouldn't have to feed it or anything. >.<
ummmm....sure that can work, but only if you have the right kind of plants.....and if the tank is established.
But she wouldn't listen to that. She was confident in what she had planned, as she'd done it before apparently.

But everything she'd told me.
Convinced me that there was no way at all that I was going to let her buy the display gold fish.
From what she'd told me, it would be a bad living space for them.
After all they are currently in a 56 gallon tank.
Giving them a space 1/5 the size would not be good for them.

So again, when she said that she wanted them, I said I would check in with the manager.

So I went over to the office.
Where all the managers were having a meeting.

And said "Tell me the answer is No."

To which they raised eyebrows and chuckled but said "Okay, the answer is No. Why do we need to tell you so?"

So I explained the situation.
and thankfully they agreed with my opinion.
They couldn't allow the fish to be sold to her.

So I returned to her and said "Unfortunately, the goldfish aren't for sell."
And she was like *angry eyes* "Did you just say Fortunately?"
Which yes, it was fortunate that she'd blabbed too much and allowed me to not sell the fish to her. But I said "No I said Unfortunately. We can't sell the fish."
To which her ire left. "Okay."

I tried to convince her to go for some of the smaller feeder goldfish.
But she wanted as large as she could get.

Like I said. Sometimes a customer won't take no for an answer, but they can be given a lesser option.

She finally decided on a medium sized (about 4inches or so) Oranda Goldfish that we had on sell for $5. *sighs* Kinda wish they weren't on sale. Sales make people greedy.
But at least I convinced her to only buy one.

So she left with an Oranda Goldfish to put into her giant bowl.

The only other thing I could do....is 'forget' to tell her about our guarantee with the fish.

Because if she wasn't going to listen to me, and put the wrong size fish into her container....
I wasn't going to let her know she could return the fish if things went south and it died.
She'll have to deal with her own consequences there.

But hey.....it was only $5. *shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi