The Competition is Insane!

[MarkieJ]

I made it to the Anaheim NARBC show on Sunday, and the amount of Ball Pythons for sale was insane! Everyone and their brother had high-end double and triple gene morphs in the thousand dollar and up range. Sadly, it didn't look like much was moving. I felt bad for Lori from BHB. She had an amazing spread of snakes on her huge table, with absolutely no one around her.

The crowd was pretty sparse. I overheard one dealer mention that the crowds were bigger on Sunday than Saturday, and I thought the crowd while I was there was pretty pathetic... Saturday must've been a ghost town. I'm wondering if it was because they just had a Super Show in Pomona a month prior.

I'm very curious to see how the market will shift in the next few months, and if the prices will hold stable. I actually wanted to take home a female pied, but found the $900-$950 prices for a 2011 a little too steep for me. How do you all feel about the BP market? Are we headed the way of the Cornsnake?

[JulieInNJ]

I actually experienced the exact opposite - maybe because of where I live. I went to a small show last month which, for it's size, had a pretty good representation of herps. Snakes, frogs, toads, lizards - lots of stuff. But I went for the BP's, and there were only 3 bigger breeders and maybe 1 or 2 smaller breeders. The BP tables were PACKED with people and I couldn't find much of anything in my price range. Supply and demand sucks.

Edit: I actually posted a question about the upcoming Hamburg, PA show in another forum wondering about prices at that show. I've found much better deals online than I did at the show last month so I wasn't sure if it was actually worth it to travel 2 hours to the show.

[KatStoverReptiles]

I went to a show in St. Louis last month. It was held in the banquet room of a hotel (to give you a approximate room size) and had 30-40 vendors. IT. WAS. PACKED! Me, being a slight agoraphobe, I had to overcome to see all the snakies they had all sorts of snakes, lizards, and rodents. I would say the prices were pretty fair, but I didn't even look at the prices of some of the higher end morphs as I had set in my head what I was going to get.

I'm sure it's not uncommon to find better deals online as you have a larger selection.

I haven't yet gone to the AAE in Wheaton (mostly because of the 3-hr drive each way), but I would assume since it's held every other weekend it would have a slightly smaller crowd.


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[Slashmaster]

I've gone to a smaller reptile expo around here that happens twice a month and it's always packed. Strange that the Anaheim show would be so poorly attended - I've heard it's one of the biggest and best!

[reptile_jake]

Yea Anahiem was pretty slow... not alot of people and not a lot of sales but there was some decent prices and IMO most vendors will hagle a little so there is some good deals out there with some nogotiating... I think a big reason is 1) of course the economy and 2) it seemed alot of breeding and clutches hatching happened really late.

[Rorschach]

Of course everyone is breeding and selling ball pythons, thats where the $$$$ is. The term "barely breaking even" is a term used by people who don't want to feel like they sold out lol