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

oh,and Wallace,,ball's wont be the only species i do,i will also be doing bloods,brown and black bloods to be xact,as well as some boas and anacondas,but just starting with balls

Almost every pet is a 'pyramid scheme' if you buy them early to breed.
A new morph comes out, and the initial breeders of it get TOP dollar. Then the second tier buys some to breed, and they get GOOD money. Eventually the market is flooded with the morph, and everyone that was willing to pay the TOP dollar, already has them, and the price goes down.
If you look, almost EVERY market is the same way. Fruit that is new and unusual is high priced, until more farms can get plants to produce it, and it becomes more widely available, and the price goes down.
New technology? Remember how much a iPod was? And when other companies came out with cheaper lookalikes that work just as good, the price was lower. ALL markets pretty much work the same. Supply and demand. The ball market is no different.

And how is this new site supposed to be any different than checking Kingsnake? Looking at prices on Kingsnake is really no different than calling around to a ton of different breeders to ask "How much for a pied?" You get a bunch of replies from different sellers... which is what you see on Kingsnake. A bunch of sellers with the prices.

Kingsnake is just a online reptile show. It's always open, and you can find good deals, and high prices.. depending on where you look.

If you get into morphs thinking you'll make tons of money right away, you'll probably be disappointed. Price fixing is no answer. Each breeder is able to set the price they are happy with. Wes prices high, someone else prices low. Wes gets more money for less hatchlings, while the other gets less money for the same amount of hatchlings. Assuming that both take similar care of their animals... Wes gets a high amount of money.. but he puts in more work, because he has to care for the animals until they sell. The other doesn't have to work as hard, but he reaps less reward.

Every meal your snake eats is less profit when sold. It's the same as rats. Feeder rats sold at a young age make more money than Jumbos. You have to put out money to feed, and time to care for.. until they sell. The longer it takes to sell, the less profit you'll see. So some people price low, to sell fast. That's not really an issue to me.
Some people value the animals more, and so hold to a higher price. There's nothing wrong with waiting until the "cheap" animals are sold, and selling your animals at the higher price. You run a risk of the buyers all getting cheaper snakes, and now there's no one to buy your higher priced snakes. Most of the time, that's not going to be any real issue.

I price my hatchlings as to what *I* want to get for them. I tend to be at typical price or slightly higher. I have had to sell morphs for under market price due to emergencies, and regretted having to do so. Each time it was morphs that were breeder stock, not panic selling of hatchlings. I kept normals for quite some time before they finally sold.
My $0.02.

I've bought a pastel every year since '06 for the combo potential, and I would have been happier to pay more for them, and probably would have a few more if they weren't so cheap. That's the same reason I don't have more spiders and yellow bellies. I need the space for animals that won't end up costing me to give them away.

To say it again, the demand is there at the higher prices, and prices in this market are being lowered needlessly. Neil said it best when he said that he sells out every year with higher than market prices, as do plenty of breeders. That wouldn't be the case if the supply was too great for the demand. If 75% of breeders realized this fact, we could all raise the prices to what WE value them at, instead of what we are worried we need to price them at, keep the prices as steady as any other market, and still sell out every year. Period. I'm on board, and I really hope Collin's website helps other people realize that the products of their investments are worth a lot more than they are giving them credit for.

i am completely on board as well,,maybe we should start this up on here,before the eggs atart hatching,atleast a discussion on what SHOULD be the value of these animals,insttead of lowering them even more?

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Originally Posted by RebelYell83

i am completely on board as well,,maybe we should start this up on here,before the eggs atart hatching,atleast a discussion on what SHOULD be the value of these animals,insttead of lowering them even more?

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Just do it. Price your animals at what you want for them after your investments and your work, and wait for them to sell. I don't think there is going to be a public federation here, although it would be cool if there was.

it would.actually be very cool,but then the people who need to pay attention to this,,,wont

Instead of trying to figure out how to enforce a price level(price fixing), breeders should endevour to price their animals at a fair to high price.
You can't make people sell at any certain price. I don't think anyone SHOULD be able to. That's why it's a 'free market'.

By the same coin... people are always bragging about what a great deal they got... "I got this bubble python for $40!!" instead of saying "That price is too low, and I'm not buying from that person."

Wait a second.... are you guys saying I can make money breeding ball pythons?!

Please keep in mind that this group is a very, very small segment of the world. Most people don't see the value in a morph that you do. They also have no idea of the cost involved in breeding. Most people have no intention of breeding.

The larger portion of the pet snake buying public wants a pretty snake for a certain price. You go above their set price and they walk.

And experience and reputation does matter. I would be willing to spend more if it's an established breeder vs. little Joey who just started.

I have spoken to a few breeders that sell their snakes at less than the market price. Their reasoning is that they have to move out what they will not use in their breeding program and charging a few dollars less allows them to move their inventory quickly. They said they make it up over the long run.

YMMV

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Originally Posted by JohnNJ

Please keep in mind that this group is a very, very small segment of the world. Most people don't see the value in a morph that you do. They also have no idea of the cost involved in breeding. Most people have no intention of breeding.

The larger portion of the pet snake buying public wants a pretty snake for a certain price. You go above their set price and they walk.

And experience and reputation does matter. I would be willing to spend more if it's an established breeder vs. little Joey who just started.

I have spoken to a few breeders that sell their snakes at less than the market price. Their reasoning is that they have to move out what they will not use in their breeding program and charging a few dollars less allows them to move their inventory quickly. They said they make it up over the long run.

YMMV

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Your post doesn't hold water. If the people you are talking about just wanting a pretty snake, and they don't know what kind of financial risk and hard work go into producing some of these morphs, that means we should drop the prices down for them? I don't know what goes into making a plasma t.v., and I just want a pretty picture to look at for cheap. But I don't see Sony dropping their prices down to $400 for me. But there are plenty of t.v.s out there I could get for the small busget I want to spend. And if this was truly that large of a percentage of the market place, yellow bellies, fires, sables, cinnies, axanthics, etc. wouldn't have been sold out every year to date at the higher prices. If they want a pretty morph from me, but only have $100 I'll send them to Wes for one of his cal kings. There are plenty of pretty snakes out there for the lower budget pet market.

And how do your breeder friends makeup the thousands of dollars they are throwing away by reducing their prices to below the already deflated market prices? By never buying rodents that are small enough for hatchlings, and not having enough rack space to keep them for longer than a few weeks after they hatch? Those are the only things I can think of that would make some of that lost money back, and it seems like a pretty crappy business plan when they are dealing with live animals.