Why We Are Idiots For Using Kingsnake.com To Price Our Animals

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Originally Posted by SPJ

Not for the majority of people buying nowadays. Lowest price is all they care about. They will want you to match the price of a "D" grade animal even though there is no comparison when it comes to quality.

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But at the end of the day is up to the seller to say yes or no to that offer. If you have an animal that is considered A grade and take an offer equal to a D grade animal well then... shame on you.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

That's when you ask - then why don't you buy from XYZ? If you like the animal that I'm offering better, because it's a NICER animal, then why would you be surprised it's priced accordingly?

If you like XYZ's prices more than the quality of the animal, then go buy from XYZ.

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And this dilemma is happening in ALL kinds of industries now. Not just ball python breeding.

I considered offering art commissions in certain fantasy art fields for about 0.02 milliseconds, until I realized that I would have to work for well below minimum wage to compete with all of the crap-ass artists who do $1 sketch commissions and have driven the price down for everybody else who doesn't have a name and a "known presence." So, this is not a unique problem, unfortunately.

Although I really agree with you on just about everything you said Collin, all I've got to say is good luck.

There will ALWAYS be someone out there trying to turn a quick buck, and who doesn't care for the animals. Its unfortunate but true, and will ruin it for the people who really care for thier animals, and use it for thier livelyhood.

I for one, am very angry that prices for many of the animals I wanted are now half of what they where when I got into ball pythons. Example: Female Bees in January where about 1200 give or take 100 depending on where you looked, now, I can grab one for 600, easily.

I'm a hobbist breeder for the time being, and it definately does suck to see how hard it'll be to get things up and running. What can be done realistically though? The whole basis of our economy is undercutting competition while still turning a profit. Like I said, there will always be someone who is willing to sell at a super low price in order to make a quick buck.

Hatching female spiders for 275, males for 150, pastel males for 50. I can't hardly express how it makes me feel to see the combos I was looking to producing going for half of what they were worth 6 months ago.

Personally anytime I hear people complain about Joe Schmoe producing second rate animals in their basement and lowballing prices, I want to go search out Joe Schmoe and buy an animal from him.

I, like probably half or more people with this crazy hobby, am in it to produce what I can for myself with what I can get. Many people make it sound like they want the market of Ball pythons to just be high end consumers who will pay any price for their nifty living art... while the actual ball python market seems to be hobby breeders/people without a million dollars who see the potential in what nature has invested in this species, either to focus their creative juices... or to make a profit on this potential.

And while selective breeding for the best examples of morphs is a skill, the expectation to make a fortune doing it degrades the hobby (while creating it at the same time of course.. lol). Because once you add such high profits you Invite the lowballers /profitseekers to undercut you. Without them, everyone in the hobby would be working on producing the best examples... because it wouldn't be the ball-python business... or ball-python industry.... but it would be a hobby who's players would be in it not for the money but for the love of the animals and trying to produce the best not the most profitable.

Any Joe schmoe in his basement has the potential to create animals as beautiful as the big guys, and if the big guys want to actually move their animals they are going to provide Joe with the tools to create what he wants at a price Joe wants to pay, or they can stop breeding as many animals as they do and only cater to the rich who can afford the insane prices complicated morphs reach.

Making a market and multi million dollar businesses out of the hobby turns it INTO an industry, and anyone seeking to profit off of that had better be ready for how industries work. Competition is brutal... it's the nature of nature itself

I for one someone fascinated by the potential in this species am very thankful for the hard work of those who both created the magnitude of the hobby as it stands (I mean creating this industry has lead to the development of reptile shows where I first got hooked on these animals) and are providing the toolset for those like me to breed and channel my creative energies with the variety of genetics brought into the hobby. But in the long run, the mutations we hunt down to put in our projects aren't Created by us, we don't own a patent and such and couldn't get one because they are Created by nature itself.

Putting a price on natures works means that price has to be one people are willing to pay for what they want to do with the animal. Make it a business and you get to deal with how businesses work. I for one couldn't and wouldn't pay the prices the higher end morphs go for until the market brings the prices into my range, and I'm expecting there's alot more of my type in the hobby than those who want to spend 5k or more on a single mutation... considering those who want to spend say 20k on that banana female are only going to do so so they can jump in the market and become your competition. You only get 2k for a pinstripe because people who buy it at that price know how much they can make off it in the future. End consumers aren't paying 2k for a one trick pony.

Lowballers dragging the prices down do benefit the hobby breeder immensely though, and help spread the hobby opening the market to more consumers. Eventually the market will stabilize and while your investment won't be paying off over 100% a year.... as long as americans are so spoiled to have enough disposable income to spend on such things as designer pets there will be a market. There will be niches such as wal-mart quality base morphs, high grade base morphs, triple recessive designer morphs for the rockstars, and so on.

What makes the pet industry different than most is that your product can reproduce itself.. and with Ball-pythons your customer base is MOST likely planning on doing just that.

Sorry to ramble but as much as I hate to see people who invest their passion and savings trying to make a good living doing something they enjoy have it spoiled... posts like this for some reason just bother me in some indescribable way. No offense to the OP I just hate business.

And being so passionate myself about a hobby of which the biggest excitements stem from new morphs being introduced into the population by ripping helpless animals out of their homes and forcing them into a lifetime of prostitution so we can sell off their babies for profit makes me feel strange on the inside. Too much talk about protecting the prices we can demand for such acts just makes me feel :rolleye2:... as I hunt down new genetics for my own experiments. But I guess that's life.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

First, check my signature link about cheap vs. quality for a more in depth explanation. I will ask what I feel my animals are worth to ME. If they don't sell because I believe my animals are better than average, then it's no skin off my teeth to hang onto them, because I don't produce more than I can comfortably keep.

I don't shop the price, I shop the animal and the looks of the animal and THEN I ask about price. I EXPECT a primo looking animal to be priced higher than your average animal.

My average babies will be offered at what the market is asking for average animals, but my primo animals will be priced accordingly.

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Would you not buy the least expensive snake tho if they were of the exact same quality?

When I shop I dont sacrifice quality, but I look for the grade A for the C grade price.

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Low Cost * High Quality = inexpensive = a great value

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I agree with 99% of the original post. I also see most of the points made by the members. (yes ive read every single post)

What really gets me about this... Why is it that most of the other "exotics" being bred & sold, which have been on the market for years as well, have not really gone down in price?

Ball pythons, corn snakes, geckos... These are the ones that are the biggest craze. The ones that tons of people have started breeding. These prices have dropped. But look at chameleons. Monitors. Basilisks. Frilled's. Many other python and boa species are also holding price as well. Especially the pure blood "locality" type boas etc..

One things for sure.. Supplies for all these animals does not seem to have dropped in price. Unless you buy frozen rodents online. There are very few wholesale supply companies with truly competitive prices for things like caging, bedding food, heat, therms, rheo's etc...

All these things are still quite expensive. Especially if you buy whats actually recommended & top of the line for the care of your animals.

My point is.. There are still plenty of people out there willing to pay big bucks for other animals. Even dogs and cats. Try to find a breed like a doberman or shepard for less than $1000.00

If you are looking for one that is guaranteeed, comes with a pedigree, paperwork on the parents & grandparents with true german blood lines, you wont find one for less than that..

Even cats. Ive always wanted an oriental shorthair. Also over a thousand dollars from a breeder. Do you have any idea how long the waiting list is for the breeders ive contacted in my area?

The prices do not have to fall this badly for ball pythons. The scenario story about "larry the liar" makes total sense. For a long time now we have known scammers are taking advantage of fauna and kingsnake. We can only hope those people who are "desperate" for the money & sell off their snakes for low low prices will stop convincing everyone else that their own prices must also fall..

Also keep in mind.. This is the time of year when prices fall the worst. Breeding season. Keep your new hatchlings til spring. Feed them up and sell them for what they are worth as well established youngsters when the speed of the market (as it is right now) slows up a little.

Just my :twocents:

.... whoops!

First of all thanks for the great post, I'm glad to see your passion here. Secondly, all the dog talk is interesting to me, it's a very cool comparison. I wish the Ball Python market was a lot more like the Dog market is now. You could go online and find, lets say a Husky, for $300-$400 from a smaller breeder with average or okay looking parents. In fact, you could find a lot of them for this price, and almost all will be from a small breeder whose dogs are not quite up to snuff (breed standard-wise I mean). On the other hand, you can't get a puppy with great breeding and champion bloodlines for anything less than 3 or 4 times that price; anywhere from the $1000-$1500 range would be completely standard and acceptable. People will and DO pay this price for a good dog. I think it's very odd that people can easily understand that you pay for quality in the dog world, but not in the snake world. It would be ludicrous for a prospective dog buyer to bring up the fact that they saw a Husky for sale from Joe Blow for $300, and expect that to bring down the price of the champion-line $1500 pup. Likewise, the breeder of that $1500 dog doesn't feel insecure about charging that price, as they are confident that they are producing only the best. It's tough for me to swallow that the Ball Python industry could be so drastically different from the Dog business--but it is! I don't understand why small scale breeders can't sell their spotty Spiders and drab Pastels for <$200, while bigger, more respectable breeders sell theirs for >$500. In a way the market is set up perfectly for a change, the variability in the quality of various morphs is astounding right now. As breeders we should all have a realistic perspective on the quality of our animals, and price accordingly. It could be done, and people would fork out the cash for better looking animals. Besides the novelty of simply breeding two animals (not to say it isn't COMPLETELY exciting to breed even normals, as I know it is), we are left to take pride in the quality of our animals. For those who just want to breed for fun, buy $100 animals. For those who want to take pride in having top quality, unique animals, and producing the same kind of offspring, pay >$1000. After all, aren't those two completely different goals...almost two completely different hobbies? Anywho, this was long winded to say the least--much longer that I had intended, haha. I hope this isn't out of line and/or offensive to anyone, and I hope that it makes sense to someone other than myself, as I've sometimes been known to rant nonsense.

Cheers,
-Matt

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Originally Posted by Draigess

I agree with 99% of the original post. I also see most of the points made by the members. (yes ive read every single post)...

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I should have done the same, haha, you beat me to my dog argument. I have to disagree with you though on other herps holding their value well. Chameleons are going for fractions of the prices they were, even as early as three years ago, and fewer and fewer species seem to be commonly available. Also, many geckos have dropped significantly in price (think Uroplatus sp., Lygodactylus sp., etc). I think right now there's a downward trend in the reptile market as a whole. This is all just my opinion though--I'm not trying to be contentious!

Cheers,
-Matt

I got into ball pythons because mainly because A) I love the animals, and really want some of those multi-gene morphs. Even more than that, I want to hatch those morphs myself. And B) because the money I had for college in the stock market was turning from dollars to pennies, and C) I get free rats from work (that was more of a determining factor in quantity I can handle).

I was really selective when I first picked the higher end animals I wanted to buy and I payed pretty high, but their offspring make it totally worth it, and now I certainly do stick with a few select breeders, even if I pay a little more, and I do not fill my racks as fast as some others, I do feel like my snakes are prettier and healthier.

My big problem, and IMO this is what causes the prices to plumet, is when you see someone who posts say... a 87gram male lesser platinum for $700(that would be last years prices), the snake does not sell, and four-eight months later that snake is still for sale, still around $700(maybe a little less), and now it weighs in at 300-800grams. Through those 4-8 months, people come to post their new hatchlings and see these animals that are way bigger than theirs, but priced where a hatchling should be. I think there are a lot of good quality BPs out there, and they sell for way less than they could, because their owners forget to add price to size.

I also notice that the price of proven females is a lot more stable than hatchlings, obviously proven morph females are not available a ton, but I think the price of each should reflect the other well. For instance, if a proven co-dom female is $2500, than it seems like a hatchling should cost closer to 1/3 of what that female is worth, not 1/10. Right now a hatchling female mojave seems to be worth about 1/10-1/8 of what a proven female is, that seems wrong.

It seems pretty obvious that people want good quality morphs to be worth a higher dollar that low quality morphs. Why do dogs get to be priced based on quality and snakes don't? well... dogs have standards, and registrations, and pedigrees, and all things other people have mentioned before me, and... this is the big one, they have shows where people go to let judges decide how high quality their animals are... they have this with rabbits, guinea pigs, horses, pigs, llamas, ferrets and god knows what else... so, maybe we should all start voting on what the think are the most important features of each morph, develop some guidelines, appoint a panel of well experienced judges, and start actually showing off the reptiles we love so much in.

Am I crazy, or would it be a lot easier to get high dollar for a snake that you can say "These albinos' sire was Zoo Med's Albino of the year at the American Reptile Competition three years in a row, and the mother was the number 2 pick for prettiest albino female at Daytona this year.", than "well I got the mother off craigslist as a het-albino, so I got the male off kingsnake from Dude McDuderson and made some albino babies."

I for one think it would be really fun to actually have reptile competitions, I wanna see what everyone thinks is the perfect example of a lemonblast and whatnot. And until there are some standards, registrations, pedigrees and all that for snake, basically until we all become a lot more snooty about the snakes we breed, and letting people we respect determine the value of our animals, we are all free to sell our animals for what ever we want.

If some "clubs" were developed for reptiles that act similar to the AKC and such, then there really would be separate markets for really serious breeders/hobbyists, and hobbyists who just like to watch snakes hatch.

I may have gone on too long here, but I hope I got some osrt of a point across.