Ugh @ Rodent Pro

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Originally Posted by rlditmars

A local supplier in my state jacks their prices up between 15 and 45 percent depending on the product whenever they are at a show. Their logic is you are saving on shipping so they can charge more. I doubt they are turning much of a profit on the shipping portion of their operation anyways. So ask yourself if you were in their position, do they sell it to you for regular price or do they sell at the show for more?

Whenever a situation doesn't make sense, 999 times out of a 1000 the answer to the question why, is money.

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You do have to keep in mind that it costs them money to be at the show, as well as transporting the rodents to the show. So an increase on the price per rodent is the only way that they will recoup that. And their logic makes perfect sense as you are still paying less then you would if you had to have the rodents shipped. Everybody wins.


To the OP:

Does it make business sense... yes perfect business sense as they are maximizing profits. Is it the right/nice thing to do no but business is business.

Rodent supply seems low recently across the board.

Someone with good business sense and enough capital should use them to start a rodent breeding business.

Lots of people are starting rodent breeding. It's a cycle. A lot of folks will be breeding rodents, then the market will be flooded and people will have issues trying to balance a price that will sell the rodents, with still making a profit with the price of feed, cost of time to care for breeders, etc etc. Then some will leave the business because there's fewer places that are buying from them, because someone else is selling cheaper...

Then suddenly there won't be ENOUGH breeders, because several shut down. So the price goes up, the demand goes up, and people start to think "Gee, maybe I should start breeding rodents and making some money!"

It's a natural cycle in supply/demand, made more complex by things like the legislation affecting snakes, the corn prices being affected by drought(feed), the economy making people more willing to do side businesses to bring in extra money for the home budget...

In the end, you can lose money breeding rodents, or make money selling extra rodents, but it'll depend on a lot of factors and there's always those start up costs(breeders, racks, water bottles, etc etc etc) and finding people to buy the rodents(stores are the best bet, individual people will hare off and buy elsewhere if they find a 'deal').

Doesn't surprise me. You figure they probably do the online preorders at internet pricing to move product they have surplus of and would have to wait longer to move otherwise. Plus people ordering online are probably buying in bulk and spending a lot of money. So it is a win for them. With that outbreak they had, large mice are probably in short supply. Add to that the financial hit they must have taken because of the outbreak. So at this point they are probably short on supply, have already taken a big money hit for the year and want to maximize their profit on the item. It sucks, but it is the nature of the beast. See if you can find another supplier at the show. They can't be the only game in town?

to the op... sounds like you are talking about the cleveland expo. Im not sure about where in ohio you are but there are several mom and pops rodent breeders throughout the state. The down side is most of them only sell live. Its not difficult to humanely euthinize them. You can actually find quite a few on craigslist. I don't breed mice but i frequently sell my surplus rats on there.