[sciteacher]

OK, last week I vended a local reptile show. In the past, I had always displayed my sale animals in mini-kritter keepers. When I sold one, I'd transfer it to a different container for the buyer to take.

I had been meaning to make a deli cup display for the next show, so I ordered a bunch of deli cups from "Ship Your Reptiles" since I had to order some shipping boxes from them anyway. Well, the show rolled around and I never got my display cut out and made, but I decided I'd pack the geckos in the deli cups anyway and just set them out on the table instead of using the kritter keepers. I had my labels all made up the night before, so the morning of the show, I get up early and put the geckos into the new cups and head off to the show. So, I'm rushing around trying to get my table set up with lights, sign, etc... and I'm putting out the deli cups containing the geckos and I'm thinking to myself, "they usually are fired up way better than this when I take them out of their transport box." Probably an hour into the show, I pop the lid off one of the cups to give a customer a close look and he says, "wow! I didn't realize she was so bright!". So I take a closer look and I realize that the deli cup lids are not completely transparent. They had just a very faint translucence to them which served as a wonderful "dulling filter"... not exactly what you want when you're trying to show off your geckos . The deli cups themselves were crystal clear. Only the lids were not. So I started telling customers to "look through the sides" or "let me take the lid off for you". They really looked like different geckos when viewed through the top.

Now I'm wondering if I should order completely new deli cups and lids, or if the lids for 4.5 inch cups are pretty universal, can I just order some crystal clear lids and use the deli cups I already ordered? I can use these for shipping geckos, but I think I ordered a couple hundred of these (figure if I'm going to pay for the shipping, make it a worthwhile order), and it's going to take me a long time to go through all of those. Any thoughts? Where do you get your deli cups and lids?

Gary

[Hilde]

Been there, done that, kicked myself too
I'm not familiar with too many brands of cups, but the ones I can get here all seem to have something different to keep the other brand lids from fitting just right. Even some brands don't have interchangeable lids within their own lines.

Why not get new ones for now, but check to see if the lids fit the old ones? That way you can order lids to use up the old ones, but still have good cups for the next show.

[Nayte]

If you know anyone who works for a restaurant, you can always give them a hoot and see if they can order some for you. Restaurants can sometimes have a good deal since it's all calculating into their final bill. Shipping wont be as much and you can even give them a tiny bit of profit while you get it cheaper still.

Just an idea?