Do you ever pre-sell snakes?

[FranklinMorphs]

Tiny bit of background here, I was a BP breeder a few years ago, relatively small collection, 3 males 4 females, nothing big at all. Unfortunately, at the time I had a business partner, who actually introduced me to the whole idea of BP breeding. Sparing you guys the long story, things went south, two snakes died, we sold the other 5 and parted ways as business partners for good.

I'm finally in a living situation where I can consider having snakes again, and what better way to get awesome snakes than to breed them, help make the hobby self-sufficient or make some money along the way. Unfortunately, I don't have the cash to plunk down on the Designer snakes I like, or would need to make it to my end goals for gene combos. To this point I've just figured it will take a few years, no big deal, that's pretty standard, but in talking with a friend who does a lot of start-up/small business/angel investing, he brought up the idea of treating the snakes more similarly to a standard product, and getting money up front to speed things up by doing a crowdfunding/pre-selling campaign.

Apparently this is something he's worked with other companies on, and has had huge success, however he's never tried it with anything living, and certainly not with anything that has the genetic odds involved in ball python breeding, which I fully recognize up front, but it seems worth at least considering.

However, this raised the question in my mind, do any of you pre-sell snakes? Be it a specific gene/combo that someone is specifically after, or batches of normals, anything.

[kriwu]

Pre-selling live animals is a LOT harder than any other products, because, well, you can't guarantee anything. You can't be certain you'll have a certain sex or they'll be in good health, and what happens when you just can't produce a certain morph someone pre-bought? Don't count your chickens and all.

It'd be an incredibly risky business.

[Eric Alan]

In manufacturing, you're in control of the product 100%. That's far from the case when living creatures are involved. It sounds very much like a cart before the horse scenario for all but the highest volume breeders ("farms") that support mass retail.

It's hard enough for most people to sell animals when they actually have them to sell!

[Megg]

I've heard of Boa breeders having waiting lists for specific morphs or localities. Unless you were producing something very special, I doubt it would work with ball pythons. There are too many of them out there for most people to be willing to pre pay and wait for a BP from you when 10 other people have the same thing right now.

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[Stewart_Reptiles]

Never, too many unknown, if it's before they hatch you can't always predict what you gonna get if you do, and once they hatch you can't guarantee anything until you know for sure that the animal will thrive (not all do)

If you pre-sell an animal and you're not able to come through it will be a big headach.

Never put the horses before the carriage.

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[Jabberwocky Dragons]

Tiny bit of background here, I was a BP breeder a few years ago, relatively small collection, 3 males 4 females, nothing big at all. Unfortunately, at the time I had a business partner, who actually introduced me to the whole idea of BP breeding. Sparing you guys the long story, things went south, two snakes died, we sold the other 5 and parted ways as business partners for good.

I'm finally in a living situation where I can consider having snakes again, and what better way to get awesome snakes than to breed them, help make the hobby self-sufficient or make some money along the way. Unfortunately, I don't have the cash to plunk down on the Designer snakes I like, or would need to make it to my end goals for gene combos. To this point I've just figured it will take a few years, no big deal, that's pretty standard, but in talking with a friend who does a lot of start-up/small business/angel investing, and he brought up the idea of treating the snakes more similarly to a standard product, getting money up front to speed things up by doing a crowdfunding/pre-selling campaign.

Apparently this is something he's worked with other companies on, and has had huge success, however he's never tried it with anything living, and certainly not with anything that has the genetic odds involved in ball python breeding, which I fully recognize up front, but it seems worth at least considering.

However, this raised the question in my mind, do any of you pre-sell snakes? Be it a specific gene/combo that someone is specifically after, or batches of normals, anything.

Some animals can be sold in the egg. As an example, it can be common for some sellers of monitors where there are no morph odds, no sexing at all of hatchlings, the hatchlings look dramatically different as babies than as adults so selection doesn't really matter, and the seller has a waitlist anyway so customers are okay making a deposit as soon as possible.

None of these criteria apply to ball pythons. This statement pretty much illustrates why this is not a good idea...and he brought up the idea of treating the snakes more similarly to a standard product, getting money up front to speed things up by doing a crowdfunding/pre-selling campaign. I don't buy my ball pythons from sellers who treat their snakes as a "standard product" and I think most here would agree with this. There are plenty of large drop shipping companies out there who do something similar. Would you rather order from them or a breeder who takes pride in their animals? Preselling animals like ball pythons and bearded dragons raises a big red flag.

Similarly, speeding things up is not a good idea. Take the time to learn how to do things properly. Husbandry of animals, breeding goals, interaction with customers... these are things which shouldn't be sped up but rather learned as skill sets and that takes time.

[FranklinMorphs]

Ok, basically my exact issues with the idea being echoed here, nice to hear.

And Brian, I do absolutely understand your additional concerns relating specifically to people who are not already familiar with the process, and I am new here so I can understand your presumption, however I think it's safe to say that those concerns do not apply here. I have kept and bred ball pythons in the past and am intimately familiar with their care and housing.

To your point though, the person who brought the idea up is not a reptile person at all, he is an incredible businessman though, which was the only reason I even gave it the thought, or put up the thread here to begin with. He would have no way of genuinely understanding the reasons why it would not be feasible to this industry outside of the objections I noted up front to him. His response to that was to offer stickers, t-shirts, hats, etc as rewards on the crowdfunding instead of reptiles, which simply does not seem to me to carry the weight necessary to function.

[wolfy-hound]

I would never presell hatchlings because I would not want to anger the egg gods. I mean, not only is it a risk to produce any certain morphs or sexes but you can't guarantee that you'll get eggs at all.

As far as crowd-funding with t-shirts, I think you might be able to offer tshirts or stickers with actual hatchling photos on them. So someone can pick which of the hatchlings they would get on the tshirt/sticker/hat... once the eggs hatch.

Or you could presell by offering to give credit for the money they put in, with a certain amount of discount at the different levels.

So if someone pledges $100, they get $150 credit to spend with you when you have things to sell. But if they pledge $200, they get $250 credit, but ALSo a 10% discount on the price. That way people would have a reason to be paying you start-up money. Since the hatchlings don't actually cost you much, you might make out okay.

The downside to that would be if you didn't have enough hatchlings to let everyone use their pledged money or how to say what order people get to pick hatchlings in.

[bcr229]

To your point though, the person who brought the idea up is not a reptile person at all, he is an incredible businessman though...

Show him the price of single-gene hatchlings in 2011 thru 2015 for common morphs suchas pinstripe, spider, lesser, mohave, black pastel, enchi... and work that forward with expected returns on the "product". Even assuming no disasters, vet bills, females slugging out, etc. the expected returns for a breeding business just stink. If he understands business at all he will tell you to go into business doing something else.

[FranklinMorphs]

I would never presell hatchlings because I would not want to anger the egg gods. I mean, not only is it a risk to produce any certain morphs or sexes but you can't guarantee that you'll get eggs at all.

As far as crowd-funding with t-shirts, I think you might be able to offer tshirts or stickers with actual hatchling photos on them. So someone can pick which of the hatchlings they would get on the tshirt/sticker/hat... once the eggs hatch.

Or you could presell by offering to give credit for the money they put in, with a certain amount of discount at the different levels.

So if someone pledges $100, they get $150 credit to spend with you when you have things to sell. But if they pledge $200, they get $250 credit, but ALSo a 10% discount on the price. That way people would have a reason to be paying you start-up money. Since the hatchlings don't actually cost you much, you might make out okay.

The downside to that would be if you didn't have enough hatchlings to let everyone use their pledged money or how to say what order people get to pick hatchlings in.

That's a very interesting idea, thanks!