I’m not sure if leopard geckos really count as exotic, given they’re about as close to domesticated as lizards get currently, but they’re more exotic than cats and dogs. In any case, I with people in general would understand that pet stores, especially large chain ones, but the smaller ones are often included too, cannot be trusted to give accurate advice on how to set up and care for an animal, and as such, asking the employee for what to get to go with the animal while buying it does not constitute adequate research into that animal’s care.

I’ve seen way too many posts on the leopard gecko subreddit, before I left reddit, from people with wildly insufficient or actively harmful setups, based on advice from a pet shop, or “starter kits” marketed as being for the species. Many were well meaning people who simply assumed that the pet store employees were professional and therefore must know what they were talking about, and while most ultimately seemed to listen when everyone warned them that they were doing something wrong, some stubbornly would insist on trusting what they had been told to buy.