What the Heck is Market Price?

[piedplus]

Aw, I wasn't even yelling at you, just at the imaginary straw man of the people who were telling you not to lower your prices. And yeah: Goal #1 is find them good homes. But I also agree that if they don't sell after a month or two, it's probably time to lower the price.

(But you can still take an economics course! Everyone should take an economics course if they get a chance and can afford the time and/or money. Especially in this, uh, economy. Which of course makes it harder to take an economics course.)

Thanks for the support. And I agree, everyone should take an economics course, if their personal economics allow it.

[brock lesser]

Another example would be morph z's "market value " is $200 dollars
but at shows and over the phone people are buying them at $150,
I hold steady at $200 because that's "market value " .
Next year morph z is advertised at $150, and sell for $125,
so after a year of shows, feeding and care, I sell for $110.
holding to "market value " just cost me about $100 dollars.
loyalty or foolishness I'll let others decide .

[piedplus]

Another example would be morph z's "market value " is $200 dollars
but at shows and over the phone people are buying them at $150,
I hold steady at $200 because that's "market value " .
Next year morph z is advertised at $150, and sell for $125,
so after a year of shows, feeding and care, I sell for $110.
holding to "market value " just cost me about $100 dollars.
loyalty or foolishness I'll let others decide .

Exactly! Holding out for too long can be expensive. Great example.

[bcr229]

As you pointed out, you're a seller with no rep trying to peddle high-end morphs online. That alone will raise a big red flag with many buyers, as there are just way too many scam artists and craptastic sellers in the herp world. People might take a chance on you if you were selling single-gene morphs since they're not shelling out thousands (I'm assuming) to buy your animal versus one from a well-known seller with awesome feedback and a stellar rating for customer service. Given that, I would focus on local sales where buyers can put their eyes and hands onto a snake before they risk any money.

There are tons of BP discussion/classifieds groups and reptile classifieds groups on facebook, and many are oriented toward local areas. I'm sure you can find one for San Diego.

[piedplus]

As you pointed out, you're a seller with no rep trying to peddle high-end morphs online. That alone will raise a big red flag with many buyers, as there are just way too many scam artists and craptastic sellers in the herp world. People might take a chance on you if you were selling single-gene morphs since they're not shelling out thousands (I'm assuming) to buy your animal versus one from a well-known seller with awesome feedback and a stellar rating for customer service. Given that, I would focus on local sales where buyers can put their eyes and hands onto a snake before they risk any money.

There are tons of BP discussion/classifieds groups and reptile classifieds groups on facebook, and many are oriented toward local areas. I'm sure you can find one for San Diego.

That makes sense. BHReptiles was kind enough to send me a list of facebook sites, and I know of a couple of local sites. I've already listed there. I'm afraid I'm going to have to discount pretty deeply, since I'm unknown. Can't wait until I have a reputation. Thanks for the info!

[mvptext1]

I went to your website and saw you have some pied het clowns for sale. In my opinion, a snake over $1,000 is a big ticket item. So I can understand that without reputation it would be hard to move those snakes. I looked at your collection and you certainly have a lot of pieds. If you focused on just pieds, and offered at our just below "market value" I think you could gain selling experience while also moving snakes and thus building your reputation. I'd imagine selling a pied for $450 is a lot easier than a pied het clown. You may have already sold your regular pieds for the year, so you may already be practicing this business model, but if not, I'd try that next breeding season and see if it helps you get business flowing. Repeat customers and positive word of mouth (or text) will really help.

[bcr229]

I didn't realize that the OP was trying to sell hets as I didn't see his ads. No rep + het anything is going to be a tough sell. Not bashing you OP btw, it's just the nature of the business and it's why I'm in no hurry to get into recessives.

Going forward for the next few seasons, I would stick to pairings that would produce only visual recessives. If you do decide to cross a het with a visual, either be prepared to hang onto any het babies or sell them at a steep discount.

[sorraia]

I can't speak as a seller, because I haven't sold any snakes and am probably a ways off to being there, but speaking as a buyer:

I want to see pictures. If the ad doesn't have pictures, I will probably pass it up. They need to be quality pictures too, nothing too blurry or in the wrong lighting. If it's an ad with a number of animals listed, the pictures don't have to be of the specific animal I am interested in, but there need to be pictures of some of those animals in the ad, and the seller has to have pictures of the actual animal I'm interested in available to send me.

The price needs to be competitive. When I've added animals to my collection, I've searched through dozens (or more!) ads looking for the best deal. "Best deal" doesn't necessarily mean the cheapest. I might pass up a cheaper snake if the morph quality isn't good enough (i.e. a browned out pastel vs. a bright yellow one) or if something about the ad doesn't look right. But considering all factors, I want competitive prices. When it comes to hets, I'm looking for a really good deal. Can't really speak for anyone else, but I personally tend to buy visual over het because it gets me to my end goal that much faster. If/When I buy a het, I'm not going to shell out hundreds for it. Others might disagree with me, and that's fine, that's their opinion, and this is mine. I would probably pay a little more for a het than a normal (depending on what it was het for and how common that was and what the visual is normally priced at), but I'm not going to pay hundreds. Again, just my personal opinion.

Shipping being included in the price can be a factor, as can group discounts. For the most part I've picked up locally or paid shipping, but a few times I have gotten a discount on an animal for paying shipping (basically shipping was included in the animal's price, even though that was not listed in the original ad), or discounts for buying multiple animals at a single time. This isn't going to make me buy a particular animal, but it may encourage me to buy from that seller.

Key words are big. I don't browse ads one at a time, I search for key words, i.e. specific morphs I'm interested in. Now most of the time that morph should be named within in the ad, but think of variations in that morph's name too. For example, "yellow belly" vs. "yellowbelly" vs. "yb". I generally don't search for abbreviations, so if you are using them in your ad, consider making sure the morph name is spelled out at least once so the search function can find it. If there are variations in how the morph name is spelled, or other names for the morph, consider incorporating those into your ad, or if allowed, include a "key words" section at the end of the ad where you can list all of them out.

I'm very cautious about buying animals off craislist, but I do search there just to see what locals have. If you haven't already, consider listing your ad there, just be cautious of who may contact you, and beware that potential buyers may be cautious of you as well (and they should be!). I also casually search the ads on this forum, as well as fauna and kingsnake. I haven't bought any snakes from kingsnake, only fauna, but I do search there. I have liked several facebook pages for snakes, but I don't really search there too much when I'm actually considering buying something. Other people may do it differently, this is just me.

That's all I can think off at the moment... hope it helps!

[MootWorm]

Great points, sorraia! Totally agree on the quality pics part. I've seen wayyy too many ads with poor lighting, or animals that are curled up so bad that you can't even tell what you're looking at. Sometimes that can't be helped, but always use the best possible photos.

As for hets, I think pics of the parents and locks can go a long way (granted, those can be faked by unscrupulous sellers, but what can you do?).

[piedplus]

I went to your website and saw you have some pied het clowns for sale. In my opinion, a snake over $1,000 is a big ticket item. So I can understand that without reputation it would be hard to move those snakes. I looked at your collection and you certainly have a lot of pieds. If you focused on just pieds, and offered at our just below "market value" I think you could gain selling experience while also moving snakes and thus building your reputation. I'd imagine selling a pied for $450 is a lot easier than a pied het clown. You may have already sold your regular pieds for the year, so you may already be practicing this business model, but if not, I'd try that next breeding season and see if it helps you get business flowing. Repeat customers and positive word of mouth (or text) will really help.

Thinking back, maybe I should have gotten a straight Pied male to go with my Pied females, but I wasn't thinking about sales at the time. I was thinking how quickly I could produce a Pied Clown which I think are awesome. When I saw the Clown het Pied for sale, I couldn't resist! Too late to change now. I'll just have to sell my Pied het Clowns at whatever the market will bear for a newbie. Someone's going to get a very good deal I guess. Thanks for the info. If I had it to do over, I'd sure follow your advice.