MorphMarket Launches Today

I LOVE the site, browse all the time. One thing that I dont Like is ads without pictures. The point of morphs is visual appeal. If I can't see it, I'm not hunting down a picture. If your selling, don't be lazy, post a picture.

Question: does a website such as this serve to drive down prices?

I don't breed, but I do like seeing what's available and for what it's selling for. In a site such as this, when two or three breeders are selling essentially the same/similar snake, wouldn't the logical thing for the breeder to do be to offer theirs for less than the competition, driving down prices ultimately?

Case in point: there is a beautiful little vanilla on there; it's selling for less than normals. Seems to me that vanilla could sell for more. If I was selling a vanilla, I think I'd be a little ticked that I am selling it for whatever the price should be (certainly at least more than a normal), but it's unlikely mine will sell when the one out there already is less (maybe a lot less).

I love free market, but the benefit is for the buyer, not the seller. I would think the largest breeder would just step in, undercut the market for pastels or cinnamons or mojaves or whatever. I can't see how something like this helps sellers.

I don't know, maybe the profit margins are made up on the shipping charges, which practically no one publishes?

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Originally Posted by hanzo_baseball

Question: does a website such as this serve to drive down prices?

I don't breed, but I do like seeing what's available and for what it's selling for. In a site such as this, when two or three breeders are selling essentially the same/similar snake, wouldn't the logical thing for the breeder to do be to offer theirs for less than the competition, driving down prices ultimately?

Case in point: there is a beautiful little vanilla on there; it's selling for less than normals. Seems to me that vanilla could sell for more. If I was selling a vanilla, I think I'd be a little ticked that I am selling it for whatever the price should be (certainly at least more than a normal), but it's unlikely mine will sell when the one out there already is less (maybe a lot less).

I love free market, but the benefit is for the buyer, not the seller. I would think the largest breeder would just step in, undercut the market for pastels or cinnamons or mojaves or whatever. I can't see how something like this helps sellers.

I don't know, maybe the profit margins are made up on the shipping charges, which practically no one publishes?

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This could be discussed to quite lengths, but undercutting does not maximize profits in this hobby. These animals are not iPads, they aren't all the same and they can also reproduce themselves, you can't compare a typical market to this one. In the case of most markets, I get the same item no matter what I pay so of course I shop the price. Sure there will be people who shop the lowest price, but this hobby thrives more on shopping the animal and not the price. Then factor in animals can also reproduce themselves, so supply grows without regulation, so naturally prices will drop. Simple supply and demand.

but a simpler answer would be, classified sites have been around for years, this one in a nut shell just makes you spend less time looking for what you want and less time posting. This is game changing tech wise, same snakes are still for sale, just on a different site.

http://www.kingsnake.com/
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/index.php
http://www.thereptilereportmarketplace.com/

I can click on one button and see every pastel everyone is selling, along with price, age and sex. There's not really a shopping of the animal going on here, it's, say, 4 breeders all offering male pastels, all born in 2015. Aside from a picture and maybe weight, what besides price separates what the 4 breeders are selling? I don't think any of the websites mentioned allow for such a direct comparison between breeders, pitting breeders head to head for the lowest price.

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Originally Posted by hanzo_baseball

I can click on one button and see every pastel everyone is selling, along with price, age and sex. There's not really a shopping of the animal going on here, it's, say, 4 breeders all offering male pastels, all born in 2015. Aside from a picture and maybe weight, what besides price separates what the 4 breeders are selling? I don't think any of the websites mentioned allow for such a direct comparison between breeders, pitting breeders head to head for the lowest price.

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Every snake is as different as a snow flake. Some pastels are lighter, some are darker. Some have more pattern then others. Nobody is pitting breeders head to head for the lowest price. Sure price plays a factor in the decision, but ultimately each snake is different and that's what you're buying. I could go on kingsnake and search 2015 male pastel and do the same thing. I have never bought a snake just because it was the cheapest. In fact, I've never bought the cheapest. I find what I want, figure out if I can afford it, then buy it or save up for it.

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Originally Posted by Yodawagon

I LOVE the site, browse all the time. One thing that I dont Like is ads without pictures. The point of morphs is visual appeal. If I can't see it, I'm not hunting down a picture. If your selling, don't be lazy, post a picture.

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@Yoda, Re: Picture-less Ad Hate =), I've posted a response here. Thanks!

Will be following morphmarket, it's the only place I have been able to find a decent amount of axanthics, I'm preferring a younger one so maybe next breeding period I can find some of the kinds I'm looking for, but Deffinally good site. Little things here and there can be done to improve but very useful and wide variety of selections

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hanzo_baseball

I can click on one button and see every pastel everyone is selling, along with price, age and sex. There's not really a shopping of the animal going on here, it's, say, 4 breeders all offering male pastels, all born in 2015. Aside from a picture and maybe weight, what besides price separates what the 4 breeders are selling? I don't think any of the websites mentioned allow for such a direct comparison between breeders, pitting breeders head to head for the lowest price.

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Aside from a picture? That is the shopping the animal part, that is the biggest variable of all, come on now. Also I would find it highly unlikely to have 4 breeders with similar reputation, similar advertising outreach, producing 4 similar looking pastels, and all feel they need to race to the bottom price. It hasn't happen yet on a scale that matters.

And all those website have the same snakes on them, therefore I can compare in exactly the same way. Search the morph, start opening tabs of all the search results, filter through the ads you have no interest in. Again this site just saves time.

Just a few years ago I was looking for double het hypo clown females, or females that were at least double het hypo clown. Do you have any idea how many hours were spent on looking for them? searching "hypo clown" "ghost clown" "clown ghost" "clown hypo" "double het" "dbl het" and going through tons of ads I had no interest in, tons of animals I couldn't afford lol. So many lists of snakes for sale. If everyone used this site I could of saved a lot of time

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hanzo_baseball

Question: does a website such as this serve to drive down prices?

I don't breed, but I do like seeing what's available and for what it's selling for. In a site such as this, when two or three breeders are selling essentially the same/similar snake, wouldn't the logical thing for the breeder to do be to offer theirs for less than the competition, driving down prices ultimately?

Case in point: there is a beautiful little vanilla on there; it's selling for less than normals. Seems to me that vanilla could sell for more. If I was selling a vanilla, I think I'd be a little ticked that I am selling it for whatever the price should be (certainly at least more than a normal), but it's unlikely mine will sell when the one out there already is less (maybe a lot less).

I love free market, but the benefit is for the buyer, not the seller. I would think the largest breeder would just step in, undercut the market for pastels or cinnamons or mojaves or whatever. I can't see how something like this helps sellers.

I don't know, maybe the profit margins are made up on the shipping charges, which practically no one publishes?

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@hanzo, it's an interesting question. I agree with the guys said and I'd add: Our belief is that a smart search engine for snakes does not dumb down the process [to price only comparison]. On the contrary, we believe it saves buyers time by quickly locating their options within certain parameters, which allows them to spend more time to be more discriminating about their purchase based on a variety of factors.
Rest of response here: https://www.facebook.com/morphmarket...=share_comment

thanks,
John

As a point of clarification, I never said it would "crash the market," that's hyperbole on your part. The point I was making is that, while it's clearly beneficial for buyers, does this really benefit sellers? What's the difference between this and what goes on at a show, when someone says "hey, the table next to you has a cinnamon for $20 less than you, do you want drop yours by $20 or want me to buy at the other table?" other than the obvious: now instead of competing with the next table for that sale, you're competing with tables all across the country, with the ability to put all the BPs of the same morph side by side.

Further, I simply do not see how sellers distinguish themselves from one another on morphmarket. Interesting you quote Raphael Martinez, when what he's talking about is marketing yourself and how you are different from other sellers, but morphmarket only minimally allows for that individualism: click the pic, then there's only a minimal blurb on the seller. The one thing that bugs me personally is that it's so hard to find out where the breeder is located: all things being equal (or close to equal), I'd find benefit in finding a breeder closer to me (I know it's easy to ship overnight from coast-to-coast, it's just a personal thing). I wish the breeder had the opportunity to provide a way to set himself or herself apart; I just don't see it here other than the opportunity to click to an external link to the breeder's facebook site.

Don't get me wrong, I love the site, I visit it every day; but as I mentioned before, I'm not a seller. If breeders think it's a good thing to compete this head-to-head in a craigslist-style market, then everyone is a winner. Generally, increased competition decreases prices. If morphmarket increases sales, perhaps it offsets even the possibility of prices decreasing. It's not my business, I was just raising a question for those whose business is ball pythons. For me, I just enjoy ball pythons.