Price drops

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

it's not happening with any greater frequency or percentage drop than it has happened in the past.

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Well, I guess I will have to take your word on this one. You have after all been doing things WAY longer then me. My personal observation in the last few years is that it is happening a lot more now then it was even a couple years ago.

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

with prices, it's the same poop as always, just a different year.

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LOL, this brought a tear to my eye....

The price of the latest morph is going to slide faster and faster each time they appear - there's no sense in comparing them to birds, because different species of exotic birds are... well... different, and more rare/require more effort/input. There is no real difference between a normal ball python and a pied super-cinnamon. They're both members of a ubiquitous pet python species, and the average person isn't trying to "collect them all", or even most of them (many are just as happy with normals). As in; very few non-breeders are looking to score the really interesting color morphs, and with all the competition going on, the combos are all getting made and new ones come out in rapid succession, bumping eachother out of the spotlight.

So, imo, if you want to know what to expect from the ball python market, look at corn snakes.

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Originally Posted by Morphie

The price of the latest morph is going to slide faster and faster each time they appear - there's no sense in comparing them to birds, because different species of exotic birds are... well... different, and more rare/require more effort/input. There is no real difference between a normal ball python and a pied super-cinnamon. They're both members of a ubiquitous pet python species, and the average person isn't trying to "collect them all", or even most of them (many are just as happy with normals). As in; very few non-breeders are looking to score the really interesting color morphs, and with all the competition going on, the combos are all getting made and new ones come out in rapid succession, bumping eachother out of the spotlight.

So, imo, if you want to know what to expect from the ball python market, look at corn snakes.

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What happened to corn snakes?

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Originally Posted by omnibus2

What happened to corn snakes?

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prices dropped to like 20 to 50 dollars each... even for the morphs.

The idea that balls will end up priced like cornsnakes is in my opinion stupid.
Why do I say this? its simple. because BP babies cost a lot more to produce then corn snake babies.

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

prices dropped to like 20 to 50 dollars each... even for the morphs.

The idea that balls will end up priced like cornsnakes is in my opinion stupid.
Why do I say this? its simple. because BP babies cost a lot more to produce then corn snake babies.

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Ah. Sorry I haven't been paying attention to the whole thread, but could someone summarize how come the ball python prices would be going down so much? Thanks I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, I also doubt they will reach the price of corn snakes. Corn snakes lay more eggs, and are easier to produce.

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

prices dropped to like 20 to 50 dollars each... even for the morphs.

The idea that balls will end up priced like cornsnakes is in my opinion stupid.
Why do I say this? its simple. because BP babies cost a lot more to produce then corn snake babies.

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True, if you work things on a per baby cost.

One of the reasons corns dropped is because you can get 20 to 25 eggs out of a single female in a single clutch and many will double clutch. 40 babies is a lot of mouths to feed, cups to change, ads to place. If you've only got 10 females, that's a buttload of babies which you are not alone in producing.

I'm thinking that ball python production numbers will simply not be comparable once you realize just how many eggs a corn can produce.

Of course, those rotten corn breeders probably freeze male morphs to keep prices high for as long as possible......

I used to be irritated about this with CalKings. Now I just produce what I want and sell it for what I want. Sometimes I drop a price a bit if I have a bunch of a particular morph or someone is buying multiple animals but I am generally on the high end of he spectrum. Sometimes I have animals until the following spring, but they eventually sell for what I want.

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

This conversation as I see it though isn't about the normal dropping of prices that happens each year. It is more specifically about the people selling even way below the level of that normal, generally across the board, drop. Sure their has always been some people that do this, but lately there are a BUNCH of people doing it.

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What defines "normal"? There is no set price that an animal will fall per year. Lots of factors determine that.

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In other words, say spiders were $5,000 last year. Because of the economy and everything else, the average spice of a spider this year has dropped down to $4,000.

The $1000 drop is to be expected. It sucks, but just about everyone at this point in the game expects it to happen to a certain extent.

This thread though is more specifically about the people that see spiders have dropped to $4,000 this year and in order to dump their animals ASAP price them at $2,500.

Then someone else that sees the $2,500 add, who also wants to dump their animals obviously isn't going to price higher then the $2,500. So they match it or even go lower.

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That's capitalism for you. Its competition, plain and simple.

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

prices dropped to like 20 to 50 dollars each... even for the morphs.

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Yeah, but the newer combos still easily fetch in the $300-$500 range.

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The idea that balls will end up priced like cornsnakes is in my opinion stupid.
Why do I say this? its simple. because BP babies cost a lot more to produce then corn snake babies.

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I think you have a point in that bps won't end up like corn snakes for the fact that their clutches are smaller. But in a couple of years, many will be in the sub-$200 range. Even recessives will eventually drop as there start to be more homo x homo pairings.

What will stay up will be the newer morphs - especially triple and quadruple co-doms.

Adam said it best about having a long term strategy.

For example, lets say we assume lessers will eventually be $200 in two years. So you buy a lesser BEL male hatchling this year for $2k and a couple of proven females and a yearling female pastel.

In a year you breed him to two normal females and get 12 eggs from them both and produce 12 lessers. Maybe you can sell them each for $300. That's $3.6k gross, figure $500 for food, a $1k for your set up, and then $2.5k from the initial investment. So you're in the hole $400 at this point.

Well the following year you do a repeat breeding with the normals and then with the pastel who's now ready to go. Lets say you get another 12 eggs from the normals and 4 eggs from the pastel. So you produce 12 lessers and this year they're $200. And lets say you have perfect odds and get 2 lessers and 2 lesser pastels from the BEL to pastel breeding. You sell 14 lessers for $2.8k and one pastel lesser for $400 and hold back a lesser pastel. This year you grossed $3.2k. You were in the hole $400, and $500 for food again, so your net is $2.1k.

This is just an example, but if you plan ahead, have goals, and a long term plan in mind, then falling prices shouldn't be that big of a deal.

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

The idea that balls will end up priced like cornsnakes is in my opinion stupid.

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Thanks for calling my idea "stupid", but you seem to have misunderstood a little. I don't expect balls to all fall to cornsnake levels, but i do expect that the vast majoriy of non-combo morphs will all slide to a very affordable price that are in close ranges of each other. You will be able to buy any base color morph for the same price as any other, and they will be just as easy to find as normals. Then the pet stores will carry them and...

well, you get the idea.

Even if you are making a profit with falling prices, the point is that ball python morphs don't need to be dropped as low as they are, as fast as they are. And if each snake costs $100 a year to care for, you are losing money when people push the prices down below $100. There isn't a ball python morph morph out there where females should ever fall below several hundred dollars, and males $100. Normals is a different story, because so many are imported.

No one can make anyone sell their animals for any price, but we can try to get it across that it's unnecessary and counter productive for each breeder, and for the hobby as a whole, to drive the prices down so low so quickly. If your animals aren't selling at market prices, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to try harder than it does to practically give them away publically, helping to crash your own market, and effecting everyone in it. We can try to get it across that breeders would sell out of females every year, even if the prices dropped 10% every year and never fell below $300. The message is that it's just plain stupid for so many breeders to continually lower prices as quickly as possible, to prices that are way below what they could be for sales to be the same as they are at the cheaper market prices. Is there really anyone involved in this conversation that doesn't think that female pastels would not get sold out every year had they not dropped so quickly, and if you couldn't find one for less than $300? Of course they would. So why are so many breeders in a hurry to give everything away, instead of taking the difference in price from a decent market price and the prices they are dropping them at, and spend it on improving your breeding stock and advertising your quality business? Stupidity, selfishness and greed, in my opinion. We can't tell anyone to sell their animals for more money, but when you all battle to have the cheapest of any given morph, you are telling the rest of the hobby that we can't charge as much as they are worth. The market is supposed to be what dictate a range for prices, but in this hobby the market itself is dictated by too many people who would rather shoot themselves in the foot and destroy the market for everyone, than to do any actual leg work or make any attempt to spend any time or money to make the sales like the decent half of the hobby does. The fact that female pastels ever dropped below $300-$400 proves that something other than common sense or actual supply and demand determines the market value in this hobby.