Big time breeders vs. Small time Breeders

[mikedahitman87]

After buying my second BP I know I may not be the authority on this but this is a free country so I have the right to voice my opinion (within reason). I think I prefer dealing with small time breeder more than big time breeders. It has been my experience that they seem to do a much better job of answering the phone, returning emails, and they seem to be less strict about prices and will work with you.

This stems from my most recent experience looking for a nice female pastel. I tried contacting a certain big time breeder in SE michigan area multiple times and found it extremely difficult to get a hold of him. I called his business once a day for about a week straight and not a single time did someone answer the phone. I left several voicemail messages and no one called me back. I had to message him on myspace before I ever heard anything from him. He said they had one female pastel left and I asked him to send me a picture to my email address and he never sent it. When I finally did an email from him it was a response to something I filled out on his contact me page the first time I every visited his website. By then he said they were out of female pastels.

I continued my search and was able to get what I was looking for from a small time breeder in cali. Would have preffered to have purchased locally in michigan but we will see how delivery goes later this week. My communication with this breeder was excellent and she sent me several picture of the snake along with a pic of the mother.

Here are definitions of Small time and Big time:

Small time= Breeding snake is not their main source of income or it is part of another business that they own. They take care of all of their snake or at most have one other person helping them. They usually have a snake room in their house and not huge facility.

Big time= breeding snakes are there only source of income (not including those who have retired from other jobs). Have a staff of 4 or more people. Have Huge breeding facilities the size of a small department store.

So what type of breeder do you prefer to deal with?

[Freakie_frog]

I deal with both I have bought from both big BIG breeders and some that are like me working out of their home.

The biggest turn off for me was also the not getting back with me on animals that I was looking for. I can say that I have never had a problem getting 8Ball, EbN, NERD, Jasballs, Bailey&Bailey, or VPI to return my emails or calls and they are always helpful. I do understand the busy schedules and am very patient because of this. But I can say that the breeders I have named above have some of if not the best quality animals I have seen and also are top notch at getting back with customers.

[littleindiangirl]

Doesn't matter to me, but customer service is key. I won't even give someone the time of day if they give me the phone/email tag run around. I shouldn't have to work to buy something when I'm waving a wad of cash around.

I'll give a feel in my emails and if I don't hear back within a few days (less than a week) I won't even bother. So far, it's been pretty good!

[starmom]

It's my opinion that you are generalizing and stereotyping a great deal based on your one experience.

I have done business with NERD, a huge facility and huge and renowned breeders and creators of crazy ball python morphs (among others species). Even though they are very large breeders, I have found them to be nothing less than excellent in their customer communication, customer care, and quality of snakes. I have also dealt with medium breeders (8Ball) with the same quality care that I received from big breeder NERD and with the same quality snakes and with comparable pricing. I have also dealt with a smaller breeder and again, excellent care and excellent product.

I am sorry that you received no response for an entire week and that the lack of customer service went downhill from there.

However, I think each customer has a different definition of service. For me, I understand that I am not the only person in the world who is contacting the breeder and if I don't receive an email or phone call back, I will try again. If I get tired of waiting for a response, I chalk it up to the breeder being out of town, really busy, or something outside of what they can control. I find it very dysfunctional thinking to believe that they are bad breeders or uncaring breeders or breeders who wish to go out of business. I prefer to regard the situation as something that is just not working out this time and so I turn to someone else. It's really no big deal and certainly not deserving of any big drama!

So, obviously, I am unable to mark a box in your poll. I feel that any breeder worth their salt tends to the snakes first and then the customer. I understand that emails get lost and servers crash. I understand that phone calls are missed. I understand that there might be family to care for. For me, dealing with this species of snake, the size of the breeding facility matters not.

Just my two cents

[Brimstone111888]

I'm all about customer service, big time or small time. I have attempted to deal with NERD at one point only to have phone calls not returned and emails not responsed too. I have heard this story numerous times about NERD as well. I gave up and went else where. Smaller breeders to me usually have better prices and better customer service, so that is who I've dealt with.

All my snakes are healthy eating well and too me my spider looks just as good if not better than something I would have gotten from a big breeder and I paid probably half the price of a big breeder. Support the small guys.

[snakelady]

Big or small...I really hate it when they don't answer their emails.
If they have a website they should answer emails. There are several bigs that have never answered my emails. Or answered the first one and then when I ask for a picture of said snake I never hear from them again. Even after several reminder "would like picture" emails from me.

Piss me off!

Customer service really matters to me.

[FL0OD]

Doesn't matter to me, but customer service is key. I won't even give someone the time of day if they give me the phone/email tag run around. I shouldn't have to work to buy something when I'm waving a wad of cash around.

I'll give a feel in my emails and if I don't hear back within a few days (less than a week) I won't even bother. So far, it's been pretty good!

I totally agree. I should not have to chase any one around to give them my money. I have had that happen with both kinds of breeders and I think the more animals you buy from different people you will run into all kinds of craziness. Great animals, bad shipping. okay animals, great customer service. There are a lot of variables and I have only come across two people that I would ever buy from again out of the five I have dealt with. This market is growing far to fast and there is so much stuff out there that a missed phone call or email could cost you business from that person for ever. Bad news travels fast in this business.

[mikedahitman87]

It's my opinion that you are generalizing and stereotyping a great deal based on your one experience.

I agree that I may be making some generalizations which is which created this thread so I could get a sense if I am the only one who feels this way.

I would never question the quality of the snakes that these breeders have without actually seeing them. To me this thread is more focused on the customer service aspect of things. When you are trying to sell a product you should keeping your customers waiting especially when the product ( pastel bp) is not exclusive to your business. For example if I wanted a super phantom from Ralph Davis, he could give me all the run around he wants to, because he is pretty much the only person who sells them.

[elevatethis]

Either is ok when all goes well but in the event that something goes wrong with the transaction, you are probably better off with the "big" breeder because they have much more to lose as far as their reputation goes, whereas a small-time breeder may be less able to make special concessions if something goes wrong outside of their control.

I like to hear stories about breeders going above and beyond to replace animals that have died or send snakes to people that are down on their luck, but a small-time breeder probably wouldn't even have the stock to be able to rectify a situation like that.

If I'm buying Hets or spending more than $1000, I'm definitely going to buy from a legitimate professional breeder. In dealing with live animals, there's just too many things that can go wrong, too many scammers, and too many fly-by-nighters in this hobby for me to trust a no-name with any substancial sum of money.

[dsirkle]

In my opinion it comes down to the holy trinity- quality, customer service and price. A small or big time breeder could either fit the bill or fall short as far as getting my money is concerned but I would have to feel right about the combination of those factors.