PLEASE LOOK** Analysis of snake sales

Attention all breeders...

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but I need the help of all who breed ball pythons in order to get the data and start this project. I'd like to put together a comprehensive analysis of ball python sales based on morph/price/age/quality and anything else that people would want looked into.

I'm planning on creating a pivot table and pivot charts for everything. The best way for me to put this together is to get as much data as possible, which means I need YOU!! Most people keep detailed records of the snakes and if you're willing(I know many people don't want to release some of this data), I'm asking you send me your figures for the following so I can start this project:

Hatch date/Sale date/Asking price/Actual price paid/Morph/Weight at time of sale/(And I realize this is extremely subjective but I'd still like to include this) Quality on a scale of A,B,C,D,F with A being the best.

This is more to analyze the demand of hatchling morphs. Don't include adult morphs as of yet since I think that data would most definitely be an outlier. I'm really only looking for snakes that are listed for sale as baby ball pythons.

Thanks!

Ahh! Also list how you sell your snakes.. Ie: Local Ads, website, bp.net, kingsnake, fauna, kijiji/ebay, etc.

No one wants to figure out sales trends???

Well if anyone is willing, send your 2009 and 2010 data as well. Also include gender-- I forgot to mention that above.

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Originally Posted by Mitch21

No one wants to figure out sales trends???

Well if anyone is willing, send your 2009 and 2010 data as well. Also include gender-- I forgot to mention that above.

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It would be great to see but it ain't gonna happen. People don't give out information like that... In any business.

Ditto on what mike said.

Very small timers might be interested in the project, but any real snake 'businessmen' consider their information on sales, pricing, and marketing to be private, and necessarily so. In fact, releasing that kind of information might hurt their business and allow others to be more competitive.

the price on snakes is so elastic that by the time you analyze it as this price its gonna be that price already and then when you get that price its gonna be different at the next table over. there are too many factors that go into pricing a snake also... you have not only the tangable aspects but also intangable such as.. you have two bees from the same clutch.. both male but one is brighter than the other and a much more clean example of the morph.. do you sell them for the same price? vendor "A" says yes while vendor "B" says no the nicer snake (while it has the exact same physical qualities) is worth more because it looks nicer compared to the darker example. you cant put a number on something like that when it varies not only vendor to vendor but also clutch to clutch and even down to the individual snake.. its just not possible. :colbert:

.. and what they said.. its private :colbert: haha. good luck though..

Agreed that most will not want to share it. It is a cool idea but the market seems to be so fickle that capturing a snapshot would be futile.

The only way you could get a ballpark market analysis would be to do a survey on asking price over the years and uses places like Fauna Classifieds because they archive all the old classifieds ads. Just a thought?

And obviously "asking price" doesn't mean anything accurate.....but it is something.

How much money is made is usually between one individual and the IRS ;)

Also I doubt anyone is gonna put out there how much they really sell their animal for, a private deal between friends for example is very different than something sold publicly.

I can tell you that I get my asking price in most cases.

It might be easier to get numbers by asking what people PAID for hatchlings, without disclosing who they bought from. Without revealing any of the actual data to the public, that should be impersonal enough.

But your date would be skewed by people who get great deals from friends.

Good point, but without any verifiable data it could easily go the other way, too. What's to stop people from saying they purchased an '11 Spider for $1,500 just to bump up the average, or others from saying they bought a Spider for $20 in the hopes that people will lower their prices?

I think it's a good idea in that everyone wants to price their snakes according to market and buyers want to get a good deal, but I just don't see this project getting off the ground.

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

It might be easier to get numbers by asking what people PAID for hatchlings, without disclosing who they bought from. Without revealing any of the actual data to the public, that should be impersonal enough.

But your date would be skewed by people who get great deals from friends.

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A GREAT idea in theory, but as others have said, isn't going to happen. What you see advertised often isn't what is paid. Or lots of times people work out package deals on multiple animals, etc.

I guess I'm not surprised by the responses.... I definitely figured getting people on board with this idea would be the biggest challenge.

I don't think some of you fully understand what I was setting out to do. I'm not just looking to find average prices as that seems to be the general concern voiced in the previous posts. I was more looking to find things a bit deeper which would allow some sort of forecasting for future prices. You could easily find where prices depreciate quickest and stall longest. You could also easily tell which price points have the highest demand which could also tell you which morphs have the shortest turnaround. You can find any type of trendline you are looking for as long as your have a complete data set. If you treat this as a business and do some basic analysis on a significant industry level, you can easily create a primitive benchmark.

To the individual stating that elasticity is far too great to complete this type of project-- I disagree. I think you're drastically overstating the elasticity of demand of ball pythons. Yes there are going to be huge fluctuations in price in your upper echelon morphs, but that's a much smaller market than your sub $1500 snakes, or sub $500 snakes for that matter! Prices will change, people will sell snakes under the table for far less than what they say, but that's what a good analyst figures out. Cutting the garbage data from the good data is a necessity in any analysis.
And to the person saying that no business gives data out on their previous perfomance (which is exactly what I was asking for), EVERY publicly traded company gives EVERY aspect of their sales numbers out.

Please don't get offended by me thinking most comments have been wrong, it's just my opinion. Analysis is my profession. I'm a senior analyst of one of the top three most powerful financial institutions on this blue planet. I'm not bragging-- simply stating that don't tell me what I envision is not possible. I wouldn't tell an architect that he can't design a particular building style. I truly believe an in-depth analysis would be an easy, however time consuming, project to complete and show some very cool trends.

No worries though. Like I said, I figured actually getting the data would be the hardest part of this process.

I would suggest setting up a private SOMETHING (forum, website, form, etc) where people can anonymously send in the numbers without disclosing what breeder they are.

I think I learned you are more likely to get people to participate if it's anonymous, but then you have to account for the "fake" numbers you may get due to it being anonymous.

I've just slightly touched on Analysis in my schooling.

But I think you are MUCH more likely to get participation if you are able to create something to make responses anonymous and make it so the user doesn't have to go out of their way to give you the data (IE make a new email address to be anonymous).

I think a website with a form is probably a good idea. That way, no registration, no making a new email address, they just go to your link, fill out the form, and send.

Or make a survey with questions like "what was your approx number of sales this year" and list a few ranges, same for price, etc. It won't be as accurate, but again, you will get SOME level of support rather than none.

Anyway, just my 2c :)

I think its a pretty neat idea and I would participate if I had bred any ball-pythons yet. I do agree with reptilegirl....if it were anonymous you may get some level of participation.