Which morphs are stabalizing, which are dropping?

All the prices are dropping too fast. I only breed what I have room to keep indefinitely. I produced some nice animals, and priced them all at the high end of the already ridiculously low market prices. If I don't sell a single animal I'm more than happy to raise them up myself. But guess what, I'm almost completely sold out of my '08 animals with only a single ad on this site and a single ad on fauna. There's absolutely no reason for people to continue dropping prices on every morph when it's so obvious that the demand still warrents the higher prices. With a thousand small time get-rich-quick breeders all trying to have the cheapest animals, it's a non stop cluster bomb of unwarranted market crashes. That's just the way this hobby goes, there's no such thing as stable prices.

Dont worrry people there gonna outlaw interstate trade of ball pythons soon, so you guys could sell em for more within state limits!!! woo hoo!!!

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

All the prices are dropping too fast. I only breed what I have room to keep indefinitely. I produced some nice animals, and priced them all at the high end of the already ridiculously low market prices. If I don't sell a single animal I'm more than happy to raise them up myself. But guess what, I'm almost completely sold out of my '08 animals with only a single ad on this site and a single ad on fauna. There's absolutely no reason for people to continue dropping prices on every morph when it's so obvious that the demand still warrents the higher prices. With a thousand small time get-rich-quick breeders all trying to have the cheapest animals, it's a non stop cluster bomb of unwarranted market crashes. That's just the way this hobby goes, there's no such thing as stable prices.

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jake thats not the arguement. for someone that is actually in the business of only snakes! well then they cannot hold back and pay feed bills for hundreds of animals. at some point you have 2 choices sell lower and cut losses or just go broke and loose everything you own then do it.

we see this all the time here jake and you know it as well as i do you have seen the same ppl selling online snakes for hundreds less online than at the show and the other way around some even with the same exact snake.

its not only kingsnake its on fauna also. are we going to compare retail to wholesale or breeder prices and most petstores are charging 100$ for a 5$ CH import. also note that most breeders do not change their prices on their site yet they sell everywhere for less even from the same breeder.

all ive even seen in threads like these is quality(which is personal preference) vs quantity(which you get ugly ones even while selective breeding). then its nerd(sorry kara and kevin) this or big daddy that or flipper this or whoever someone happens to be ranting about at the moment. either way do you think that nerd doesnt breed 100's of quality pastels and nothing but.

awhile back we had this same discussion with asfs and pricing of them. also rodent food. its all the same supply demand! its all reaganomics!

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

If you think there are hundreds of animals sold a pet shops for every one sold on the internet you are fooling yourself. Yes I sell to pet shops, but 99% of my business has been from internet sales for the last 10 years.....period.

I guess we are not in the same market. As I said, my market is everywhere. I see prices all over the map, all the time. These are MARKET PRICES. The market will always dictate prices, not the seller. If animals are not selling at $250, the market price is not $250. Show me some normal hatchlings for $50 with no added genetics. Those are retail prices, not market prices. Market price and pet shop price are not the same. So yes, if you own a pet shop and you sell normals, then you can get $50 for them. Most ask $80-100. Can I sell them for that? The answer is plain and simple.....NO.

Peace;)

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Ok. I now understand your confusion. You think that consumers don't buy hundreds of snakes in pet shops for each one they buy online...

You also think that just because you are not a pet shop you can not ask for and get a price based on current market (or as you say retail) value.

I would really recomend a sales workshop for you.


Mikey

PS
I would be happy to bet my entire life savings that the going price for spiders in 09 will not be under $100.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

All the prices are dropping too fast. I only breed what I have room to keep indefinitely. I produced some nice animals, and priced them all at the high end of the already ridiculously low market prices. If I don't sell a single animal I'm more than happy to raise them up myself. But guess what, I'm almost completely sold out of my '08 animals with only a single ad on this site and a single ad on fauna. There's absolutely no reason for people to continue dropping prices on every morph when it's so obvious that the demand still warrents the higher prices. With a thousand small time get-rich-quick breeders all trying to have the cheapest animals, it's a non stop cluster bomb of unwarranted market crashes. That's just the way this hobby goes, there's no such thing as stable prices.

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Hooray! Someone that gets it.

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Originally Posted by Mike Cavanaugh

Ok. I now understand your confusion. You think that consumers don't buy hundreds of snakes in pet shops for each one they buy online...

You also think that just because you are not a pet shop you can not ask for a price based on current market value.

I would really recomend a sales workshop for you.


Mikey

PS
I would be happy to bet my entire life savings that the going price for spiders in 09 will not be under $100.

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Mikey, please open your eyes and read my post again. I DID NOT say the GOING PRICE for spiders in 09 will be under $100. I said the price will break $100.

And there is no confusion. Show me a pet shop that sells tons of spiders and I'll show you 10 breeders that sell twice as many. There is a good reason many petshops have closed their doors in recent years......internet. Some just know how to do it.....breeding their own animals or buying at ridiculous prices. Yes, prices that are way below what I have stated.

Further more, I do ask current market prices. I sold my spiders this year for $250-300. Why? Because that is what they are worth to me. Pastels?.....males $100 and female $200. I also sold my mojos for $350-450 because I had extremely nice ones, while my friends were selling theirs for $200-250. Trust me, I don't need a sales workshop. lol. Again, it's not about what I do. It's about what the market IS doing.

Adult proven male ghost $250 at Daytona from one of the "big names". Sub-adult/adult male Enchi for $125...same thing. Market is market.....not what you think it should be or what you want it to be.


I apologize again if I hurt your feelings. We all have an investment in this and want our returns as high as possible. Some are ahead, and some are way behind. Trust me, I am way ahead. I know all about expense vs. profit margin, etc.

........

Sadly with todays economy, many many people breeding morphs....etc. Prices will Drop dramatically. People getting laid off, Hours getting cut, and Bills piling up will mean less money to blow on ball pythons. People would rather put gas in their cars, and food on tables then spend it freely like they had in the past. The way to survive is make Good choices, like selective breeding and Making triple genes, quadruples, codom recessives....etc. But...I'm not in this for money thank god.....

I think that I regret starting this thread at all... It's kinda scaring me... I agree with all the posts about breeding for the love of the breed and not the money... But I had expected to see some return on my investments to sink back into the hobby. If it's going to cost me more to rent a table and pay for gas to get to a show than I can make selling animals at that show... I think I will end up with more mouths to feed than I can handle long term. I would love to have 34523456 pet BPs but that just won't work for me. I need to be able to sell a few pieds and albinos so that I can buy axanthics het for pied because what I truely want is an axanthic pied. I need to sell some bees to afford to buy a clown to make what I really want, albino clowns... Etc, etc, etc.

I wonder if the majority of the reason prices are falling is the economy, and if that being the case the market will go back up when the economy gets better.... Or if these are permanent prices... I think really only time will tell with that and hopefully it will turn out well for those of us who stick with the game, versus those that sell their collections because they were in it for the money.


I have another question that maybe will have less depressing answers, maybe not...


Are we close to hitting a wall with the ability to create "new morphs" or are the possibilities endless? Is there a point soon where everything we can create will have been created? Will the only options then be the redundent "Hmm.... Is there anything else I can mix pied into?" ?

Or are there brand new morphs waiting to be discovered in the wild? Are there even wildly cool combos still to be made with what we have in our colections now?

Dizzy, my point has been all along that if you breed quality animals, you will get quality prices, in most cases. Do yo' thang girl!

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Originally Posted by dizzy

I have another question that maybe will have less depressing answers, maybe not...


Are we close to hitting a wall with the ability to create "new morphs" or are the possibilities endless? Is there a point soon where everything we can create will have been created? Will the only options then be the redundent "Hmm.... Is there anything else I can mix pied into?" ?

Or are there brand new morphs waiting to be discovered in the wild? Are there even wildly cool combos still to be made with what we have in our colections now?

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considering the fact that we have trade embargos with some of the countries that ball pythons live. any kinda answer one way or another would be a guess. also whos to say that those countries didnt smuggle them to one we do trade with and send them here

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Originally Posted by nixer

considering the fact that we have trade embargos with some of the countries that ball pythons live.

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We have trade embargos with Togo and Ghana:weirdface

Dizzy, you meet doomsday predictors anywhere you go.... Why start listening to them now?

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Originally Posted by nixer

jake thats not the arguement. for someone that is actually in the business of only snakes! well then they cannot hold back and pay feed bills for hundreds of animals. at some point you have 2 choices sell lower and cut losses or just go broke and loose everything you own then do it.

we see this all the time here jake and you know it as well as i do you have seen the same ppl selling online snakes for hundreds less online than at the show and the other way around some even with the same exact snake.

its not only kingsnake its on fauna also. are we going to compare retail to wholesale or breeder prices and most petstores are charging 100$ for a 5$ CH import. also note that most breeders do not change their prices on their site yet they sell everywhere for less even from the same breeder.

all ive even seen in threads like these is quality(which is personal preference) vs quantity(which you get ugly ones even while selective breeding). then its nerd(sorry kara and kevin) this or big daddy that or flipper this or whoever someone happens to be ranting about at the moment. either way do you think that nerd doesnt breed 100's of quality pastels and nothing but.

awhile back we had this same discussion with asfs and pricing of them. also rodent food. its all the same supply demand! its all reaganomics!

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Unless you're talking about guys like that rarepythons dude, people who only breed snakes for a living have all started out smaller and built a reputation that got them to the point where they were selling enouh animals to make it a career. I'm just saying that there are way too many people unnecessarily crashing the ball market by trying to have the cheapest animals. I have done practically no advertising, and I have yet to build any kind of reputation in this hobby. My only exposure comes from posting on this site. Yet people still manage to find me and buy my higher priced animals. That tells me that the demand does not warrant the never ending price dropping on ball pythons. People like Adam, Ralph, NERD, and plenty others do this for a living and have no problem moving animals, without lowering their prices. People have talked about how every spider hatched in '07 was sold at '07 prices with a list of people who were willing to pay those prices to get their hands on an '08, but then as soon as some breeders started hatching out '08 spiders the price tags were automatically dropped some random amount and now anyone who wants to sell a spider has to be competative with these guys who marked down prices for absolutely no reason. It's the same for every morph once there are enough people working with them. It seems to have nothing to do with supply and demand, and everything to do with 300 breeders all trying to have the cheapest priced animals because they can't afford to take care of what they produce. That's why I don't see any morphs stabalizing, and it just seems stupid and counter productive for profits. I have no one in mind when I say this, but if more breeders bred for quality and worked hard at getting their names out there and building a reputation instead of popping out as many mediocre morphs as possible and making sure you mark them as cheap as they come, this hobby would have a shot at a true supply and demand relationship that most markets use, and prices would be able to stabalize a bit. The question was, which morphs will stabalize in price, and the only answers I can think of are the morphs which haven't gotten into the hands of too many of these price droppers yet, or the newer $10,000 morphs. Once they do, it seems like all morphs will innevitably end up in the $50-$100 price range, no matter how great the demand or the high prices people are willing to pay for such stunning animals, and investment opportunities, for the ones who make a living breeding them.

Jake, I couldn't agree with you more.

Prices will always drop until actual licenses are needed to breed, as of right now anyone can breed, which makes more on the market to sell, everyone wants to make money so they sell less than the other guy and it will remain to get lower.

Another problem is the snakes except the triple and double morphs have no real monetary value, it is just what someone thinks they should be worth, but if you ask me all Co-Dom should be the same price, all Recessive should cost more, but all roughly the same price...feel me?

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Originally Posted by mricyfire

Prices will always drop until actual licenses are needed to breed, as of right now anyone can breed, which makes more on the market to sell, everyone wants to make money so they sell less than the other guy and it will remain to get lower.

Like I said, I don't drop prices to be the cheapest and people still find me and buy my snakes. From what I've seen, people who have the most expensive bps have no problems making sales, because the demand is huge. Price droppers seem to be underestimating the demand that's out there.

Another problem is the snakes except the triple and double morphs have no real monetary value, it is just what someone thinks they should be worth, but if you ask me all Co-Dom should be the same price, all Recessive should cost more, but all roughly the same price...feel me?

They do have value. How many people out there want a champagne and aren't going to wait for them to be $500 before they purchase one? There are plenty of people, therefor the demand says that they do have the valuie of the pricetags. If a new morph is found and there are people who want to buy that snake for $50,000, then they successfully breed it and hatch out a few and sell out in a week at $20,000 a piece, what about this scenerio dictates that they don't really have value? And if they didn't have value, why would combos suddenly have value? I'm not feeling your logic

If I had the money, I'd buy a clown or a piebald for $4000, but I'd never pay that for an axanthic or a hypo. They just aren't on the top of my list. Most people seem to like pieds more than axanthics, so if pieds were selling out at higher prices, I don't understand why the prices should be the same as axanthics if they aren't selling as fast. If all co-doms were the same price, fires, lessers, champagnes, etc would sell out quickly while the available YBs and other subtler morphs sat in breeders' racks. I think supply and demand would be a good enough model here.

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Originally Posted by mricyfire

Prices will always drop until actual licenses are needed to breed, as of right now anyone can breed, which makes more on the market to sell, everyone wants to make money so they sell less than the other guy and it will remain to get lower.

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In Florida you do need a license, not to breed but to sell. All you need is to register for a ficticious name and pay $50 to renew your license every 12 months. Don't really think this has to do with falling prices.

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

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point taken, but on the other hand I have seen pies going for $600 and albinos for $500, sure it was someone that doesn't frequent web forums, but their ignorance proves that you can buy one for way less...which just shows there is no standardized pricing, thus making value what the seller has it as.

Adam @ 8Ball selling his pied for $1800 while this kid sells his for almost a 1/4 the price...same snake see where I am going?

The reason I say combos have more value is it clearly takes a lot of time and money to make recessive combos.

I know my arguement was poorly written, but not saying that they should be the exact same price, but when you have the same type of snake for example the co-doms (all prices quoted are from 8Ball)

Pastel: $100, Cinnamon: $250, Lesser: $600; Enchi Pastel: $500 (wish there were some YB and Butters) but just from these the prices are pretty sparatic for the same snake with a different paint job.

Not saying I have anything against what people charge, but if there was more standardized pricing to justify prices than prices would be more stable.

Hopefully what I trying to say makes sense.

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Originally Posted by FIREball

In Florida you do need a license, not to breed but to sell. All you need is to register for a ficticious name and pay $50 to renew your license every 12 months. Don't really think this has to do with falling prices.

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LOL @ Florida laws very easy to circumvent...I think that law applies to big breeders, but not sure they could do anything if I had a small operation at home.

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Originally Posted by dizzy

I think that I regret starting this thread at all... It's kinda scaring me... I agree with all the posts about breeding for the love of the breed and not the money... But I had expected to see some return on my investments to sink back into the hobby. If it's going to cost me more to rent a table and pay for gas to get to a show than I can make selling animals at that show... I think I will end up with more mouths to feed than I can handle long term.

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Many of the small breeders I know treat shows as a public relations venture. Very rarely do they make a profit at a show. Even some of the larger breeders I have talked have said the same thing. Online sales were the bulk of their sales.

JonV

I'm not a breeder yet and when I do it will be for the hobby not for a business. Unfortunately Dizzy, the prices are dropping for every morph out there. It may not be noticeable today or tomorrow for all morphs but give it 2-3 years when you'll want to be producing. I see a lot of people on here giving their opinions/answers and read each one of them. For me, it will be breeding quality animals for a hobby and experience and fun. Yeah, maybe I won't sell them and get my invested money back, but it's not going to be a business for me. I will not rely on it to feed my children and so forth. Everything in this world drops the price eventually. Especially when people invent something/produce a new morph, don't you see the items that were in it's place before that the prices have dropped? Things you can only buy at certain stores, but then when it's replaced with something newer, all the department/chain stores have them?? This is all just in my opinion, but pretty much the breeding game will be like anything else. There will be your small breeders who do it for the love of the hobby to produce pets/quality animals who won't care if they loose a buck here or there (and may even go big time), your small breeders who get into it thinking they're going to make a quick buck (and most of the time fail quickly or become what we call "flippers"), then you have your large breeders who can afford every single new morph that comes out or even can afford to import animals to produce new morphs. That's the way that I see it and now saying that, I want to start collecting to get my breeding collection going, but won't pay overpriced prices nor for poor quality animals. I will go straight to reputable breeders and pay that extra money if needed to know that I will be getting what I'm paying for and that the animals were taken care of before I buy them. Everyone has their own opinion, that's mine. Good luck with your future endeavors ;)

How many people expect prices to be lower the new year?

I bet most of the folks here and online or at shows are guilty of it.

It's the commonality of this hobby and online forums across america, we expect prices to drop.

I say, don't drop the prices. They will come!

Proof you ask? What did they pay the year before? Yea, that's what I mean, they paid that much last year, why not pay it again this year. ;)

Only you can prevent market drops. :gj:

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

How many people expect prices to be lower the new year?

I bet most of the folks here and online or at shows are guilty of it.

It's the commonality of this hobby and online forums across america, we expect prices to drop.

I say, don't drop the prices. They will come!

Proof you ask? What did they pay the year before? Yea, that's what I mean, they paid that much last year, why not pay it again this year. ;)

Only you can prevent market drops. :gj:

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This is quite true. Unfortunately there will always be some breeder out there selling for less to make a buck and then some poor soul buying it and so on..

Prices of morphs will change as more people produce them. For some people they need money so they sell it for to low a price, when it's seen by others they think that this is the price they should market theirs for. The absolute best way to keep prices steady is to talk to breeders about prices instead of asuming the price yourself.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

Only you can prevent market drops. :gj:

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Littleindiangirl is completely right. It will happen with any market such as coffee, the more produced, you would expect a lower price tag. If you sell it for what you want the price others may follow. Talk to other breeders before pricing so you make money and other breeders dont end up selling for less than they want.
Sloan Reptiles

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Originally Posted by Sloanreptiles

Prices of morphs will change as more people produce them. For some people they need money so they sell it for to low a price, when it's seen by others they think that this is the price they should market theirs for. The absolute best way to keep prices steady is to talk to breeders about prices instead of asuming the price yourself.
Littleindiangirl is completely right. It will happen with any market such as coffee, the more produced, you would expect a lower price tag. If you sell it for what you want the price others may follow. Talk to other breeders before pricing so you make money and other breeders dont end up selling for less than they want.
Sloan Reptiles

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That's what I'm saying. The goal in most open markets is to keep prices as high as possible while still making sales. As the supply increases, the prices drop accordingly if demand doesn't increase. With ball pythons, for a lot of breeders, it seems like the goal is to drop the prices as low as needed to sell out in two weeks, and if they don't all sell for ridiculously cheap in those two weeks, have a "I'm hurting for money because I can't afford to feed all these snakes I produced sale". Then a ton of other small breeders see these ridiculous prices and automatically drop their prices to stay cheaper than the majority of others, because they underestimate the actual demand that exists, and it snowballs from there. Then, after all the prices have been unreasonably dropped to 20% of what they would be with a true supply and demand market, everyone and their moms are buying these "cheap" morphs to breed with their ugly $15 craigslist rescues, which actially does blow up the supply and completely crashes the market with mediocre looking morphs for $50-$100. Everyone forgets this important part of the equation when they mention how flooded the market is. The market is never flooded with a supply of snakes that stay up in price, because you don't have every person with $300 looking for a way to get rich in the breeding game actually spending the money these animals are really worth. It doesn't really bother me too much, as long as there are still people out there who can tell the difference between a breeder who breeds for quality and A+ customer service, and a guy who buys a bunch of the cheapest stock possible just to pop out as many snakes as possible and not care about service.

I recently sold jungle boas on KS for double the price others had them advertised for, and they sold before the cheap ones. Why? Mine looked way nicer. There will always be people willing to pay for quality. People find a way to buy what they want even in this economy. Yeah, prices naturally go down as morphs become more common, but please don't produce more animals than you can sell for the normal market price. Don't drop your prices drastically just to make a quick sale. If you produce nice animals, people will want them and they will sell. If you produce ugly ones, not so much.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I say, don't drop the prices. They will come!

Proof you ask? What did they pay the year before? Yea, that's what I mean, they paid that much last year, why not pay it again this year. ;)

Only you can prevent market drops. :gj:

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Dead on. Well said.:gj:

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Originally Posted by herpenthusiast

I recently sold jungle boas on KS for double the price others had them advertised for, and they sold before the cheap ones. Why? Mine looked way nicer. There will always be people willing to pay for quality. People find a way to buy what they want even in this economy. Yeah, prices naturally go down as morphs become more common, but please don't produce more animals than you can sell for the normal market price. Don't drop your prices drastically just to make a quick sale. If you produce nice animals, people will want them and they will sell. If you produce ugly ones, not so much.

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Right on. I recently bought a 1000g normal for $200 plus shipping because It will throw some killer mojaves for me in a year, if any of her pattern or color carries over. I could have got 2 or 3 cbb females of that size for around that price, and used them to hatch out 2-3x more mediocre mojaves to dump into the market, but she was a gorgeous snake so I was happy to pay more for her. I also paid $400 for my male pastel when they were going for about $200-$250, because he was a smoking example of a pastel. It was $400 because it was a package deal with a 2100g female. I didn't care for the female's color or pattern so I brought her to the local reptile show and gave her away to a mother and son who were about to buy a w.c adult. The list goes on, and the rewards are the killer hatchlings that they produce. It's all about quality.