Price Check?

So, I've had a snake on the market for about three weeks now 4 different venues. So far, hardly any nibbles!

So my question is this, what do yall (breeders specifically) do to price and move animals? I don't want to feel like I'm advertising, so PM me if you are serious about helping me with my issue. I want to figure out A. what I'm doing wrong and B. how can I price her better but not be out of market value and C. what's the best way to market yourself as a brand new seller.

Again, I want serious people to PM me so I can follow the rules here on ball-pythons.net ;)

Don't sell the sausage sell the sizzle.

Plenty of good clear pics of the exact animal for sale. If you can't be bothered getting a good picture of it I can't be bothered paying for it.

Say why you think your snake is worth the price.

If it makes great combo's help people know that - link to the page on wobp or whatever.

Give all the info they need - sex and weight are the bare minimum - if you have a feeding record show it.

If you can get a video of it feeding and the place you advertise allows you to link that then by all means do so. It's probably the only time people have a reason to make a feeding video. :rofl:

Make it easy for people to trust you - and be nice to people who ask even if you suspect they are just picture hunting or lowballing. Good customer service wins in the end. The guy window shopping this year may be a serious buyer next year and he will remember people who blew him off.

Make it easy for people to give you money. Offer multiple ways to pay you if you can - and stick to the rules of each method.

Don't ask people to send money as a "gift" to save you charges if it is against the rules. If you will try and cheat them for a few bucks why should I trust you with a purchase worth hundreds?

That's all I can think of for now but I'm sure others will have more advice.


dr del

Doc covered it pretty well^... :gj:

what sites are you using to sell the snakes? That makes a big difference!! All of my sales last year where from here !! and facebook

Again pictures, pictures and more pictures!! Cell phone pics do not count :P

And I provided cell phone video of eating when the customer asked.

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Originally Posted by Wapadi

what sites are you using to sell the snakes? That makes a big difference!! All of my sales last year where from here !! and facebook

Again pictures, pictures and more pictures!! Cell phone pics do not count :P

And I provided cell phone video of eating when the customer asked.

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You mean- Crappy cell phone pics don't count* :p

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Originally Posted by dr del

Make it easy for people to trust you - and be nice to people who ask even if you suspect they are just picture hunting or lowballing. Good customer service wins in the end. The guy window shopping this year may be a serious buyer next year and he will remember people who blew him off.

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this especially. won't name any names, but i started looking around for a female orange dream a little while back. contacted a breeder that i knew worked with them to ask if he still had any available. he emailed me back saying he still had a couple males for sale, but no females. i emailed him back wanting to know one other miniscule thing (don't even remember what it was now), and i never heard back from him. i know people get busy and these things can fall through the cracks occasionally, but i couldn't help but feel as if i had been blown off as soon as he knew i wasn't an immediate potential customer. i'm not the type to resend an email or email again because i don't like to "bug" people.. but because of this, i'll be looking elsewhere for OD's when they start hatching out this year.

I don't purchase from people without clear pictures, clean enclosure (if visible in the picture), proper grammar and reasonable response time. There are too many people that meet these requirements to bother with people that do not.

A lot of it depends on what you're selling...nice animals are your biggest selling point. But, the climate changes year to year. People with the money to spend are buying into higher end projects. Those who don't fit into that category are scooping up the mid-range stuff. As the "old" mid-range stuff falls into the lower end category, they are being bought up. The dime-a-dozen stuff is a hard sale only because there are so many of them around, and that's where resellers and lowballers are waiting to offer you 30-40% of your asking price.

Stick to your guns, make adjustments when necessary, and your animals will move...some take a bit longer than others to go.

Most of those things I've got covered. I just recently got some good shots of the snake in question (at least to my non-photographic mind they were good) with my mother's FANCY camera (until I can afford my own). I have pretty much posted everywhere except Kingsnake simply because I can't afford the membership I need in order to post on their classified section. I have a video, but not a feeding video. Maybe I'll get one on feeding day (Wednesday). As for the info I include, I include a lot! Plus I link to my iHerp page where buyers can see her feeding first hand. Maybe next add I'll do a link specifically to her feeding data. I like to think I'm a nice person xD I've really only had one trade offer and I entertained the trade despite it not being what I wanted. I've sent additional pictures, etc. Maybe I'll just have to wait it out and see if things don't just work out on their own.

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Originally Posted by creepin

this especially. won't name any names, but i started looking around for a female orange dream a little while back. contacted a breeder that i knew worked with them to ask if he still had any available. he emailed me back saying he still had a couple males for sale, but no females. i emailed him back wanting to know one other miniscule thing (don't even remember what it was now), and i never heard back from him. i know people get busy and these things can fall through the cracks occasionally, but i couldn't help but feel as if i had been blown off as soon as he knew i wasn't an immediate potential customer. i'm not the type to resend an email or email again because i don't like to "bug" people.. but because of this, i'll be looking elsewhere for OD's when they start hatching out this year.

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This for sure!!!!! I had the same thing happen to me in the past month with 2 separate breeders who I have now blacklisted in my breeder book...over 2 small $$ snakes..but the breeders apparently couldn't be bothered to answer my Qs and did nothing then respond with a nasty "if you want info look at my website" response...well the info I wanted wasn't on their websites...-_-...Every ounce of customer service counts!!

I have no experience with selling but I just checked your FB page. I don't see an album for available animals. I really like looking through breeders FB pages and seeing what genes they work with, upcoming clutches, hatchlings, etc. I always look through their available section. It makes it really convenient when they have an updated available album. I can browse through their animals with ease. If I was shopping this would be an easy way to get me interested for more photos and details on an animal that caught my eye.

If you have all the bases mentioned above covered (and you're priced in line with the market), then sometimes it just comes down to patience. I still have one hatchling available from last year. I've gotten a few nibbles, but am not willing to lower my price drastically just to move (what I consider) a very nice snake, so I'm just waiting until the right buyer comes along.

Aside from pricing and proper representation of animal the other important thing is PATIENCE.

You need to be willing to sit on your animal for months if you have to.

If you do not have the patience and want animals to move fast especially lower end animals, then wholesale is you best bet.

I wholesale normal and single gene lower end males, single gene female I sell (price being firm on some females and getting higher as they grow) or or keep to breed myself if they did not sale.

Again PATIENCE is key.

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Originally Posted by Marrissa

I have no experience with selling but I just checked your FB page. I don't see an album for available animals. I really like looking through breeders FB pages and seeing what genes they work with, upcoming clutches, hatchlings, etc. I always look through their available section. It makes it really convenient when they have an updated available album. I can browse through their animals with ease. If I was shopping this would be an easy way to get me interested for more photos and details on an animal that caught my eye.

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I do plan on adding an available list that links to the snake's actual "album" if they have one. However, with only 8 likes, Facebook isn't a huge customer base for me so I haven't done that yet. When I get babies, that's when I was going to make the album. However, it sounds like more people are viewing my Facebook page, just not "liking" it. So I'll work on adding that this afternoon. Maybe you'll take a look for me and let me know if that's what you like to see? I could use the insight from the "general public". I'm also in the process of getting a website up and running so hopefully that will be up and running in a few months so I can link that to my facebook page and blog and vice versa.

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Originally Posted by Annarose15

If you have all the bases mentioned above covered (and you're priced in line with the market), then sometimes it just comes down to patience. I still have one hatchling available from last year. I've gotten a few nibbles, but am not willing to lower my price drastically just to move (what I consider) a very nice snake, so I'm just waiting until the right buyer comes along.

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He's a gorgeous hatcling! Very nice, indeed!

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Aside from pricing and proper representation of animal the other important thing is PATIENCE.

You need to be willing to sit on your animal for months if you have to.

If you do not have the patience and want animals to move fast especially lower end animals, then wholesale is you best bet.

I wholesale normal and single gene lower end males, single gene female I sell (price being firm on some females and getting higher as they grow) or or keep to breed myself if they did not sale.

Again PATIENCE is key.

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Patience is something I did not have coming into this hobby. However, I'm learning patience and it's coming. I'm not worried so much about moving the snake like tomorrow, but I guess more reassurance that I'm trying to do everything in my power in order to eventually move them. Being a first time seller with babies on the way (hopefully.....) I want to get my kinks worked out now so when I'm trying to sell hatchlings I don't look like a complete noob who's doing it all wrong!

My goal is to provide my potential customers with a snake that A. is healthy and exactly what they want and B. that I can provide the best customer service that I can to anyone who may be interested in my animals. To me, a lot of that customer service extends not just from the interactions with the possible buying but even to those just browsing an ad of mine. I want them to be able to look at the ad and get the information they need (hopefully more!) to make a decision on whether or not that animal is something they are interested in and I am someone they might want to do business with.

Patience is definitely key. Sometimes it seems like we get no inquiries for a while, then a bunch of people interested all at once. Not sure if it has to do with when people get paid or what. The other thing that made a huge difference for us was getting a website. We pay about $20 a month for ours (includes hosting and the software to edit) and it was really easy to use (if you figured out how to post on this forum, you can figure out the editor). It includes the shopping cart and everything. It has more than paid for itself...even if I don't have ads posted I still get inquires. I consider it to be one of our best investments so far. Here's the company we used:
PageBuzz Web Hosting
The link to our site, is in my signature, if you want to check it out.

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Originally Posted by FireStorm

Patience is definitely key. Sometimes it seems like we get no inquiries for a while, then a bunch of people interested all at once. Not sure if it has to do with when people get paid or what. The other thing that made a huge difference for us was getting a website. We pay about $20 a month for ours (includes hosting and the software to edit) and it was really easy to use (if you figured out how to post on this forum, you can figure out the editor). It includes the shopping cart and everything. It has more than paid for itself...even if I don't have ads posted I still get inquires. I consider it to be one of our best investments so far. Here's the company we used:
PageBuzz Web Hosting
The link to our site, is in my signature, if you want to check it out.

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I'll definitely check it out! I have a good friend who works in web-design. She builds websites for professional companies all over the US and Canada. She's offered to build my website this summer at no cost to me so long as she can put my website in her portfolio. I agreed. We've been discussing the website for awhile now. We've got the logo done (clearly as I use it in my signature and my facebook page) and now all we need is the actual website. I'm REALLY excited to have a website going. She's going to add some cool functions that she claims are a surprise so I'm eager to see what she's been designing.

If I really want to move the snake I drop the price by 10-25% the going rate. If I'm in no hurry I keep it at the average price and wait for people so find my ads.

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Originally Posted by SlitherinSisters

If I really want to move the snake I drop the price by 10-25% the going rate. If I'm in no hurry I keep it at the average price and wait for people so find my ads.

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Keeping this snake would not be a bad thing since she's halfway to breeding size. However, I was hoping to use the sale of her to aid in the purchase of something I've been wanting since I started keeping ball pythons.