Market "crashing"- your take on the future

See I don't mind selling animals at a very low price, but not to an individual buyer. I understand how that "crashes" the market, and in the long run any breeder that is selling dirt cheap to the public is only harming his/her own business. Along with everyone else's. If people want to sell dirt cheap (and I plan to sell all my single gene and hets for dirt cheap) why not do it to one of the big breeders? I know they are going to turn around and sell those animals for retail price and make a huge profit, but you've still sold your animals, and by them jacking up the price to make their own profit it keeps prices high so that when you can afford to hold out for the right price on your animals you won't have so much of a loss. That's my plan anyway. I already contacted several of the large breeders/sellers and told them about all the snakes I'm going to try to breed this season and asked what prices they'll pay me for them. No, the prices aren't great, and most of them weren't even half of what I could advertise them for, but that's not the important thing for me. The important thing for me is that I can sell all my hets and single genes after a few feeds and not have to worry about feeding them for the months it might take me to move them on my own for a higher price. And even better, many of the breeders said they would trade me for my babies for some of the higher end morphs I want. And while I'll make a small, very small, profit off of them I'll do it without damaging the prices of other small time breeders because the big breeders/sellers I sold to are going to turn around and jack the prices up to retail value and make a nice profit. I, personally, don't see anything wrong with that. So to me selling cheap isn't the problem. It's selling cheap to the public and not your fellow breeders that is the problem. And I'll probably get a lot of flack for that, but that's my two cents.

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Originally Posted by TexanLady

If people want to sell dirt cheap (and I plan to sell all my single gene and hets for dirt cheap) why not do it to one of the big breeders?

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I don't think the discussion is about wholesaling your animals to a big breeder or a local shop. I think we're talking about people who wholesale their snakes at shows or online which diminishes prices for other breeders selling the same morph.

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Originally Posted by Dragonviper

There has been ALOT of talk in the bp world of market crashing- either by auctions/closet breeders/saturation etc. (depending on who you ask).

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No there has NOT been a LOT of talk about market crashing. There has been the inevitable grumbling and griping of a relatively small number of very vocal butthurt individuals who feel a need to whine about the inevitable price drop of a very common and easily bred pet snake that happens to come in a wide variety of paint jobs all because they don't feel that they are making the kind of profits that they feel they deserve. This kind of grumbling has been going on for DECADES in the ball python world, and yet there still seems to be a market for these animals. Go figure.

Well I think another problem is people dont really understand the history of somewhat free freemarkets. In general those markets decline down to about 3% profit on sales when they mature. I think alot of people are used to seeing double their returns on investment but as this market matures they will see profits sink. This is just natural because everyone has an incentive to undercut other business owners, its not the end of the world but it is the end of the idea that you can get rich quick off these animals, that time is gone.

Meh I'm to busy cleaning snake poop and trying to keep snake bellies full to really track the market as a whole. I will say this I sold out in 2012, 2013 and plan to do the same in 2014. My personal opinion when the "Market" get's you down go find yourself one of your favorite snakes and rememeber they are still awesome animals reguardless what (catchy business name with the word Balls or reptiles in it goes here) in Underarm, New Mexico is getting for their animals. If you're a business then you adjust to offset overhead and move on, if you're a hobbiest enjoy your snakes and when you sell some buy me a beer at the next Repticon we're at.. The end

P.S. Tonight is cleaning a feeding night. :D

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Originally Posted by OctagonGecko729

Well I think another problem is people dont really understand the history of somewhat free freemarkets. In general those markets decline down to about 3% profit on sales when they mature. I think alot of people are used to seeing double their returns on investment but as this market matures they will see profits sink. This is just natural because everyone has an incentive to undercut other business owners, its not the end of the world but it is the end of the idea that you can get rich quick off these animals, that time is gone.

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i dont think this comparison works. what you say applies to a market that is similar to, lets say, the market for tungsten. or rice. one product that is quite uniform. where you have one market price for one product and it doesnt really matter who produces it. there are different qualities of it, but thats it when it comes to complexity.

the BP market is more like the market for cellphones. highly complex. if you want a cellphone that works and has good durability and good battery life, that costs 5 dollars. one of the old indestructible nokia bones off ebay. good audio quality, needs charging only once a week, and when you drop it you just puzzle it back together and it still works. but people pay more for a brand new branded smartphone. and when you look at the best smartphones from 3 years ago, prices are way down, and you can pick them up on ebay maybe for 20-50 dollars. and profit margins never go to 3%, because there is new and better stuff coming all the time. every new model starts at a high price, and then keeps falling and falling in price.

that also give clues on what to do if you want to stay in business. you need to constantly improve the quality of your collection, and of the hatchlings you produce. manage to constantly improve, and stay in business. try to stay in market by continuing to produce the same, and you go down like nokia did. and the people that manage to stay in the market for 30 years are the ones that stay cutting-edge all the time. either by line-breeding double and triple combos to exquisite beauty, or by getting into new genes as soon as they can get them, or by diving deep into the 7-gene megacombos. or all of it combined.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

No there has NOT been a LOT of talk about market crashing. There has been the inevitable grumbling and griping of a relatively small number of very vocal butthurt individuals who feel a need to whine about the inevitable price drop of a very common and easily bred pet snake that happens to come in a wide variety of paint jobs all because they don't feel that they are making the kind of profits that they feel they deserve. This kind of grumbling has been going on for DECADES in the ball python world, and yet there still seems to be a market for these animals. Go figure.

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i also agree a lot with this post.

the market crashing / undercutting happens with the stuff that was brand new and hot 10 years ago. like when someone wants to sell his iphone1 or xbox360 on ebay, and realizes that the prices are not just down, but outright broken. yes that can be depressing when you look back at what you paid for it originally. but price undercutting wont happen like that to a beautiful super enchi super fire, or a GHI, or a nice super dream bee. at least not for the next few years. same with the auctions, they auction off quite nice stuff. but really, its stuff you could have gotten your hands on many years ago, theoretically, except that many years ago it may have been much too expensive for you.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

No there has NOT been a LOT of talk about market crashing. There has been the inevitable grumbling and griping of a relatively small number of very vocal butthurt individuals who feel a need to whine about the inevitable price drop of a very common and easily bred pet snake that happens to come in a wide variety of paint jobs all because they don't feel that they are making the kind of profits that they feel they deserve. This kind of grumbling has been going on for DECADES in the ball python world, and yet there still seems to be a market for these animals. Go figure.

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People are also very one dimensional. They either expect to go to shows and sell out, or they expect to post a single ad and sell out, or they expect the snake to sell itself.

The people making these grumblings are also trying to make a living off of it. And unless you've been doing it a while and people know your name, you won't make a living; you'll loose your arse.

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As with anything in the economy the cost that it takes to produce the good and the price of the good will converge over time. Remember when builders could sell houses for twice what it cost them to build them? What did they do? They over produced. Of course they did; that is what the going price incentivized them to do. That is where we are/have been with ball python morphs. Breeders can/have been able to sell baby snakes for much more than it costs to produce them. As other people have seen that they have said "we can do that to" the rate of production has increased. As supply has increased prices have naturally dropped. At some point the price will fall enough that it will not economically be "worth it" to produce more and the rate of production will decrease and prices will stabilize. I just think they will stabilize lower than most people think. Also there isn't one market. Each morph is kinda its own market. Different morph are farther along that path than others. This is seen as newer morphs come onto the scene and the pattern repeats. There are also a thousand and one other market forces at play, but that is my big picture take on the market spoken as a businessman that has an MBA from a top 20 school and considers himself to be a hobby breeder.

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Originally Posted by Kodieh

People are also very one dimensional. They either expect to go to shows and sell out, or they expect to post a single ad and sell out, or they expect the snake to sell itself.

The people making these grumblings are also trying to make a living off of it. And unless you've been doing it a while and people know your name, you won't make a living; you'll loose your arse.

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True