I have been thinking of starting a website. With all the talk of the ball python market, this seems to be a good time to throw this idea out there.

Would you as a breeder, use a site where you could register your breeding snakes? This would be, for the most part, a trust based site, where you go and put in your information, and get say, 5 free registries. After the first five, you pay an annual or semi-annual fee to have more than five snakes registered.

A registered snake would have as much or as little information as you want, with a the minimum amount of info being species, explanation of genetics, and a photo.

Each user would have a profile, where all their registered snakes come up. In these profiles, people could do things such as complement you on a job well done, and a snake well made, or complain that you sold them an albino male, but they received a yellowbelly female, and you have not returned their calls.

So, by doing this you would be able to show your breeding stock in an online environment set up specifically for people who are shopping for reptiles, and want background. People could browse by morph, species, size of collection, and any other number of other catagories.

If you would be interested in this, would you be interested in paying a larger premium for a sort of insurance through the website? Such a service would work as follows;

1. Seller pays $XX for $X,XXX worth of coverage per year from Company Z.
2. Buyer buys 1.2 albinos from seller.
3. Seller sends pictures of the snakes sold to Company Z, and sends snakes to buyer, along with instructions to contact company Z, should any problems arise.
4. Buyer receives snakes only to find that they have received 2.1 albinos, which is not what they wanted at all.
5. At this point instead of the buyer contacting the seller and requesting a refund or a replacement snake, buyer contacts Company Z, and reports the problem.
6. Buyer sends their own picture of the mis-sexed snake to Company Z
7. Company matches the picture sent by buyer to the record of snakes sold to buyer from seller.
8. Company Z has buyer send in the snake(at no charge to the buyer), which Company Z confirms as mis-sexed
9. Company Z then sends buyer a replacement snake* of the same variety.
10. Company Z informs seller that a claim had been maid against them, and has been settled, and they have $XXX of coverage left for that year.
11. Company Z quarantines the animal received from buyer, and then has it for use as a later replacement or whatever they see fit.

*Company Z would find replacement snakes in one of the following ways.
1. Upon initial contact from buyer, company Z informs seller that there is a problem, and finds out if they have an acceptable replacement, if they do, company Z purchases the replacement from seller.
2. Company Z has their own large breeding stock, and is able to replace most animals with that of their own production.
3. Company Z works with several well known and respectable breeders and acquires a replacement from them
4. Company Z allows buyer to seek out a replacement snake from an outside source (i.e. someone on kingsnake, another breeder from Company Z's snake registry, etc...) and pays for buyers replacement animal(s), up to the purchase price of the original animal.

This is a general thought I have been kicking around for a few months. If you think it is a crazy idea and that you would never participate, let me know, if you think it is great and you want to sign up tomorrow... well we are not that far yet. Any feedback is appreciated.

Also, if saw Company Z took it upon them selves to go out and establish guidelines for what makes a certain animal a perfect example of it's phenotype, and started having shows/competitions at events such as reptile expos, and there were prizes (lets say cash, and being recognized as the owner as a winning animal) would you be likely to participate?