Good Deal / Bad Deal: Ball Python Pricing

[cchardwick]

So I found this multi gene ball python morph on Morphmarket for sale at a really fantastic price, turns out the guy that bought it is not a snake guy and it was his first snake, had it as a baby for just about a month or two, then turned around and resold it on Morphmarket for half price. The twist was that he said local pick up only and luckily he was just a couple hours drive from my house, he bought it originally for $1,500 and was selling it for $800.

Your probably thinking that was a great deal, right? This was the perfect morph at the perfect price and it was local, sounds good... The only problem is that once he posted that discounted snake on Morphmarket the 'traditional' price of $1,500 is now gone. Right after he posted it several people posted similar snakes for $800 trying to match that price, even though he clearly stated in his ad that he was selling for half price and had to move it fast. Now it seems the price for that snake came down about 50% overnight just because of this one incident. That's good for the people buying them, not so good for the breeders. You may want to give this some thought before you price match Morphmarket based on one posting and try to match or undercut the competition. You may singlehandedly crash the market for your particular snake!

[LittleTreeGuy]

I can see where this could impact the market for one, or maybe 5 sales, but it won't crash the market on a good morph if all the sellers know what they have. If someone sells a coral glow pied on morph market for $100, MAYBE one person who has one may sell it for that just know knowing what they have... but for the breeders who have been working for 5 or 6 years to produce such a snake and know how rare they are, and who know and understand the market, are still going to ask a respectable price for their snakes. So yea, maybe a clutch or a few snakes will sell for cheap, but I highly doubt a truly high quality morph would drop in the market this way. If it does, maybe that morph shouldn't have been priced so high in the first place.


***This is totally my unprofessional opinion. I'm not a breeder, nor a long-term keeper. Just an opinion I have from things I've seen before for items I've purchased or services I've rendered or paid for.***

[cchardwick]

I have been watching the market for some time, and I know that most morphs start really high and drop as the supply matches the demand. But usually a snake that runs for $1500 will drop about $100 or $200 per year. I've never seen one drop so fast. Maybe it will jump back up for this particular morph? Although I'm not sure it will since there are several snakes on the market at that price right now. Most of the snakes that I've seen that stay really high are those that are very difficult to produce. It takes years to produce some of the pied morphs but if you get your hands on a couple pairs you can crank them out pretty fast. But if you have a snake that's one in 256 chances to make it I would imagine the price will stay high. Especially if you can't reduce the odds on that particular snake. Most dominant morphs start out really high and drop fairly fast, take a look at the bamboo morph, that's dropping pretty fast. If you bought some bamboo babies today in a couple years they would probably selling for $200-$300.

[JodanOrNoDan]

This is pretty much how retail works. The other sellers made a mistake by dropping their price. It probably does not apply to this case but it is also a tactic used to drive your competition out of business. You drop your price until the competition can't make money then you raise it again after your competition is gone.

This may sound stupid to some but I like to pay fair price for my snakes especially if it is a "public" deal. I believe in keeping the small guy in business as long as he is not gouging. It is better for the hobby to keep the small guys breeding. If we do not, we will pay the price in the long run. Little guys almost always provide better service than the big ones. I also believe that the more competition there is, the better the quality of the product will be. Shutting the little guy down benefits no one in the long run. Walmart type business practices are bad for the economy. I will not shop there no matter what. They shut down an entire town in Texas.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

If people are stupid enough to follow blindly, not do a little research when pricing their animal, and are desperate that's on them.

You got to know the market and take pride in your animals.

After that prices vary there is general public price, return customer price, friend price and wholesale price.



Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Hedonist]

Just a recent "activity" on a famous auction site --> 1.0 Banana Enchi het Clown (which some breeders sell for $ 1500) was available at an auction and ended up at 1300 $. One week later the same breeder put another 1.0 Banana Enchi het Clown online, so I tryed to get it for the same price as the first one (or even a bit more) but within the first 2 days (of 9) it raised up to 1800 $ with 7 more days to come. Always depends on what is for sale and who wants it/is looking for that exact thing/animal at that specific time. And sure, if more and more people breed and sell those "special/high end" snakes the price will fall very quick. I'm curious what a Sunset will cost in about 3 or 4 years (especially here in Europe, until now I didnt even see a het for sale here)

[bks2100]

No one is going to expect a price to plummet that much. The only time someone screws over the "market" is when they have a lot of something and constantly undercut, which even then the price isn't what's killing the market, it's the supply.

Banana males can be had around 200-250 right now, I got a banana spinner for that and it was a good deal. According to your theory they'll all drop down in price, but right now the cheapest 3 gene male that includes banana on morphmarket is 350 (300 if you count super pastel as 2 genes).

The market isn't going to be affected by a single person with a single animal cutting the price in half.

[HVani]

I dunno. I guess the way I look at it is, if there were selling well at $1500, then the prices would have never dropped as much as it did. If they start selling very fast at $800 then the price will go back up.

[Ba11er]

I keep my eye on the black pastel stuff especially the pieds. I almost pulled the trigger on one a month ago but now the price has dropped so much it's incredible. I'm pretty sure this is what your talking about because I notice several other breeders dropped their price down too. Either way there was a huge drop for the black pastel pied morph almost over night.

[stickyalvinroll]

Breeders aren't in it for the money.... 👀👀👀👀