Market Prices?

[hoax]

I read the other day about some one who was being accused of driving down market prices, which got me to thinking.

How does a person determine market value? I understand how people that are "big" producers can come up with what a morph should cost (based on appearance and cost that it took to get to that point) but, how can a simple man such as my self come up with a fair market price for something they produce?

This might sound like a stupid question but for instance what should a Pastel Albino cost? I would hope to produce one, someday in the far future, but what would be a good price, how would I come up with a good price?

I know how it feels to have a product and have some one undercut me, I go with the lowest price I can survive at and add some profit if some one under cuts that how can they make it? I would hate to add to driving down a market, not that I will ever produce enough to make a difference to any one.

Mike

[Neal]

If somebody undercuts you it's probably because they don't rely on selling reptiles as a business. I myself don't agree with some of the market prices, and if I would produce certain morphs, I would drop the price I would sell them at, not to undercut anybody, but it brings more business in also.

[waltah!]

I think it's sad how much some of the prices have come down lately. When you think about all of the time, money and effort it takes to raise snakes up to breeding size and handle the incubation process it's crazy how low some folks will go. The problem is when ONE person lists something super low then others will certainly follow as they perceive that as the fair "market price".
Some folks may possibly just be hard up for cash at the time and are willing to dump animals off at super low prices. I just wish those sales would stay private instead of being advertised on websites and classifieds sites.

[wilomn]

I think it's sad how much some of the prices have come down lately. When you think about all of the time, money and effort it takes to raise snakes up to breeding size and handle the incubation process it's crazy how low some folks will go. The problem is when ONE person lists something super low then others will certainly follow as they perceive that as the fair "market price".
Some folks may possibly just be hard up for cash at the time and are willing to dump animals off at super low prices. I just wish those sales would stay private instead of being advertised on websites and classifieds sites.

How.....tyrannical of you.

Control of the freedom to know.....wow.

[mainbutter]

It's a free market economy. Unless you're commiting fraud or other illegal acts, no one person can drive the entirety of ball python prices.

I've heard people say that ball python breeders should get together to establish set prices to keep prices up for their animals.. That is tantamount to price fixing and violating antitrust laws.

[PythonWallace]

On the other hand, other than mass stupidity, what's it called when two hundred garage breeders all chase each other to have the lowest prices on KS, which is tantamount to setting accepted market prices for ball pythons, which will inevitably be $40/m - $50/f for most morphs? Price fixing is a wet pipe dream for the ball market. This is the only industry/market I can think of where people race to get the prices of their stock as low as possible without any real appearant need to. Everybody buy high and sell low.

[Neal]

Well if it's a big scale breeder, he should have a good bit of snakes to sell, and i'm sure he wouldn't under sell anybody. The only people I could see possibly under selling would be people that only have a few snakes, and breed them, and what they have wouldn't last long. Also you have to realize the reason they sell cheaper is because they are not as known as the other people and sometimes that's what it takes.

[aff19802]

All true I think Some people including myself (Althought I am not a breeder) want to breed and arent known and over time may figure that the hatchlings are and will cost them more in the long holding on and when this happens they need to get rid of them... but usually there stock wont last long and so what a few people luck up on a deal... if the "Market" stays with the "market value" then they market can't drop...

You may say that if you can't care for them don't breed but this isnt always the cause. I would breed to move on to bigger project and in that case i may need to send a few snakes out to cut my cost and make money for new projects... I do agree these could be private and do some good but you still have to market them somewhere...

I read somewhere pastels where 1000 bucks in 04... (I dont know about that that was before my time) but 5 years later I just got 2 females for 150. seems said but the market is what the community makes it!

I have a question for a new post.

[PythonWallace]

I keep saying this over and over, but it doesn't seem to ever get absorbed into the bp market dogma. People just refuse to believe this.

The demand is greater than most breeders give credit for. I only post on this site, with the occasional post on fauna, and I have only put up two adds for snakes, ever, and both were in the classifieds on this site. That is the extent of my advertising and my name being out there in general. Last year was my first season breeding, I hatched 5 clutches and sold out of all of the hatchlings except for two normal males, and a male mojave. This year I only hatched one clutch so far, and I had three inquiries about the hatchlings by the second day my website was updated to show the clutch (withing three days of posting the hatching pics here), and have already sold two spiders, within a week of them hatching, and at least three weeks before they will even be ready to ship, and I put up zero ads for this clutch.

1. The demand is there. (Players in this hobby GREATLY underestimate the actual demand that exists for ball python morphs.)
2. If you breed balls, people will find you.
3. If you breed quality balls, people will buy them, even at the higher end of market prices.
4. If market prices stabilized, and market prices only dropped 10% per year for recessives and 20% per year for co-doms, every breeder would still sell out at those market prices every year. If might take more than 2 weeks to get rid of every last one of them*, but they would sell.

* This is the part that freaks people out. Too many people aren't willing to hold onto the babies they hatch for more than a month or two, so they all lower their prices as low as possible to make sure they sell every last snake as soon as possible, even if that means shooting themselves in the foot by practically giving the snakes they worked so hard to produce away for pennies on the dollar.

[WingedWolfPsion]

I agree with PythonWallace.

I've had a lot of decisions to make this year on prices, because the market is SLOW. That doesn't mean people aren't willing to buy the snakes unless you lower the prices--it means people aren't buying them very quickly no matter WHAT price they are. And if they ARE buying, they will pay what you ask, if it's reasonable. I think it is very important to stand firm at a reasonable extrapolation from last year's prices right now. I just base this on the few sales I have had so far this year, and from watching the ads and sales on Fauna.

I've seen people freak out and lowball some animals because they need to get rid of them in a hurry (financial problems, moving, etc)....and those animals STILL take forever to move. Others keeping their prices 'normal' are selling at about the same rate. There's no point in lowering prices until the animal sells, this year--we'll just be cutting our own feet our from under us for coming years if everyone does that, and it won't help anything. A lot of the lowballers will be gone in the future, too--what they're doing isn't very sustainable, and a lot of them are only doing it because they're 'getting out'. Once the people jumping ship are gone, you won't see so much of that.

Expect slow sales--slow sales are going on in a LOT of industries right now, not just this one. The sad part is, those of us on a narrow budget have to wait until we do sell some snakes in order to take advantage of all the really great bargains floating by. It's torturous! lol...
The entire collection sales are so tempting, sometimes.

But, yeah--my snakes are selling, slowly--but they are selling for reasonable prices, not lowball prices. There is no good reason to go low.

I also know where hoax is coming from. Doing market research for ball pythons can be a HUGE pain, when you have combo-morphs. If no one else is advertising one, how DO you know what they are worth? There doesn't seem to be a set formula, or logical order to it. I have a little woma-lesser, and I will be facing just that dilemma in about a week, when I put him up for sale. How much is he worth? I have no idea, because I haven't seen another one on the market. lol I am basically just going to have to make a wild guess.