Oversaturation Of Market

[Emilio]

Breed what you love be mindful of the market and you'll be ok. Every year we adjust to what was saturated the year before. Pay attention to what's out there already don't over produce babies you are not prepared to keep for yourself.

When it comes to prices if china opens up prices will go up. Til then prices will continue to go down every year.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Price will always go down anyone remembers price from 2005? Over-saturation, price going down it's inevitable.

Because the market constantly evolve so should you, if you want to keep selling you will need to keep upgrading your collection and invest back in it year after year, if you keep pairing low end single or double gene male to normal females you will lose money that's a guarantee.

If you want to make money you need to treat it like something that makes money.

Invest in quality animals, upgrade your collection, selectively breed, chose your project wisely, watch the market.

If this is accurate there are animals that you should move and replace so you can start to at least break even again, because those when it comes to pairing are not gonna yield the best return.

1.0 Albino (Inuyasha), 0.1 Albino Pewter (Daisy)
1.0 Fire (Zuko) 1.0 Lesser (Hershey)
0.1 Kingpin (Cocoa), 0.1 Pastel (Sango)
0.1 Pewter (Lily), 0.1 Pinstripe (Kagome)
1.0 Spider (Jacob AKA Jake)
1.0 Super Pastel (Koga)
0.1 YB Enchy,
0.1 100% Het Albino (Kikiyo)
1.0 100% Het Pied (Taiyo)
0.9 Normals-females (Chloe, Sammy, Ziva, Ayame, Kirara, Rin, Blaire, Natalie, & Charlotte)

[C.A.Goalie]

Accdentally posted on wife's account.

[MasonC2K]

For the record, I am not talking about price drops of new animals. That is just the nature of the beast with new morphs. I am referring to already established morphs that had established market value that only fluctuate about 10-20%.

Even 2 and 3 genes animals are selling only a couple hundred bucks. I supposed it's good for the buyer in me. Seeing a high white pied for $200 seems a steal for me. They've run $500-800 for years.

[bad-one]

Heck, I never thought I'd see a pied for sale at my petsmart but sure enough its happened. It's great to see more affordable animals but it makes me a little sad inside lol

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Everything is linked over saturation is linked to priced dropped

Price drop = people being able to afford certain animals = more people producing said animal

This is why as the market evolve you need to learn to evolve as well.

[Pickenprod]

I would think that it's now, more than ever, going to be important to consider the other qualities of the snakes we are buying besides their visual morph potential. The genes that cause BP's to exhibit morphs are only the few out of the very, VERY many genes that combine to create the animal... With so many of the fancy morphs being produced left and right, it's prudent to consider the other genetic traits of the snake.

I'd rather have a line of one-gene BP's that had genetic tendencies toward stable temperaments, reliable feeding, and overall health, than a whole rack full of cool morphs produced just for the sake of being morphs.

[auhsojnacnud]

Welcome to economics

[sorraia]

I think I can offer one possible scenario, since it is mine. I have always loved snakes and so the first time my daughter and I visited Repticon, we saw all of these wonderful looking ball pythons. Unfortunately many were priced completely out of our reach, or at least more than I could justify paying for a snake. (I believe this may be true for many ordinary folks.) Then as you walk around you start talking to the various breeders and one explains that a "Yellowbelly isn't vary expensive, but if you breed two together, you can produce an Ivory." At that time Ivories were going for about $800 or more. Yellowbellies were running around $125 to $200. So it was the idea that we could get two affordable snakes, grow them up, and breed for the snake we hoped to obtain, but couldn't justify buying at the current price. Not only that but it was a project my daughter and I could share, so that was cool too. Now the kicker, my daughter will actually be breeding the pair for an Ivory this year because she bought the male the first year and the female the second year and it has taken almost four years to get them to this point. Ivories are pretty inexpensive now but she still wants to produce one because that was the initial goal. As for me, I am just hooked into it because of the possibility of producing something I want to make. It's never been about the sales. All I ever hoped for is that the production would support the hobby eventually. I'm not sure that's the case anymore, but it isn't discouraging me yet.

Now that may not be everybody else's reason for being a Hobby Breeder, but that's how we started. And I still see the breeders at the show out their pitching the wares and explaining how someone can breed X to Y and get Z. Let's face it, that is how they make a sale and that is what they are there to do. However, every sale they make using that tactic and results in another person being a hobby breeder, almost ensures that their product will be worth less in the future.

This, a thousand times and more.

There are so many morphs I love, that I will NEVER buy because of the price. Once those prices drop, it opens up the market for people like me who really are not interested in making a business out of it, but simply want cool looking pets that are easy to care for. Really... there's no way on this good earth i can justify spending $5,000 or more on a SNAKE when my mortgage costs just over $600, when I can buy 5 horses for that same cost, or feed my two horses for 2 years for that same cost. For people who just want a pet, that is not a reasonable price. Keeping morphs, any morph, at that price, your primary market is going to be to other breeders, and what are other breeders doing? Producing more animals. When you have a very very limited market, and everyone buying those animals are breeding them (at any volume), who long can you keep the price high before YOUR market is over saturated? But once you start dropping those prices, you are opening up a whole new market, a market that isn't restricted just to business breeders in it for making money, but to simple keepers who just like the look of the animal and want a cool looking pet.

I buy the animals I like, whether they are a single gene morph, or heck even a normal, or a 10 gene morph, as long as it is within my affordable price range. I would consider myself a "hobby breeder", and by that I'm not in it to make money, I'm not in it to pump out as many animals as I possible can to make back my investment, I am basically in it for the reason stated in the above quote: To make the cool morphs I like that I cannot justify paying the cost for. Yeah, I'm spending more money feeding the animals I bought to make that morph, and then gambling with the odds to even get the morph I want, but there's more enjoyment for me doing that, and using the animals for education purposes while I wait to breed them, than there is in dropping $5K or more on a single animal. And the rest of the babies in the clutch that I decide not to keep, if I can sell them and pay to feed my snakes, that's great, I'm happy. It isn't about making money, it is about enjoying the animals in my possession.

Now that being said, I'm also looking at more than just looks. I want friendly, easy to handle animals that DO make good education pets. That's my personal justification for keeping what is, basically, a wild animal. (Not starting a discussion about domestic vs wild pets... totally different topic and not the point here.) And to be a good education pet, the animal needs to be calm, tame, easy to manage, not skittish, and feeds well. I bought a couple snakes with the intent of later breeding them to make certain morphs I liked. Now, 2 years down the line, I'm probably NOT going to breed them because their temperaments are not what I want or their colors aren't as nice as I had hoped. I may be a "hobby breeder" breeding for fun, but that doesn't mean I'm breeding indiscriminately. For example, I bought a pair of axanthics a couple years back, as well as a pair of hypos, hoping to be able to produce hypo axanthic ("true ghost") later on. Now I'm thinking about selling one of the axanthics, because she just doesn't have as nice a temperament as I would like, and her coloring has turned dark and muddy - not what I want to breed more of. I'm questioning using one of the hypos too (unfortunately also a female...), but time will tell. In the mean time, I bred one clutch this year, a specter x citrus yellowbelly cross, hoping for some super stripes (or ideally pastel super stripe). Didn't get my super stripe. I DID get a VERY nice citrus pastel yellowbelly, and though I hadn't planned to keep that morph if I produced it, I might just keep this one because she is so beautifully colored (I mean really, superb, even in my novice opinion - she was so nicely colored I almost wasn't sure she was what I thought she was and had to get confirmation from some more knowledgeable hobbyists), and so far she's an EXCELLENT feeder. Hasn't skipped a meal yet, just pounds them down like there's no tomorrow. And she's got a pretty good temperament so far, hasn't threatened to nip once, not defensive, just a tad shy, but nothing unusual for a new baby. I might also keep her specter sister - although I'm not a fan of specter, this one I think is beautiful, and she too is a good eater, though on the smaller side compared to her sister. She's a little more shy and defensive, but not overly so, and hasn't yet threatened to nip. I suspect handling and age will change that around.

So all that said, I don't see the price drops as a bad thing. If I were one of the big time breeders spending tens of thousands of dollars on single animals, then I might. My perspective is very different. I see the lower prices as opening the market to a whole new set of people - those people who just want to keep pets and not breed.