Morning Gripe: A thought on lowering prices too far

[WtGreg]

All these people who have ridiculously low prices I just want to yell at sometimes. Unfortunately I can't go into there ads and post this, but tell me if anyone else with a touch of business sense agrees with me here (or argue, whatever you like):

So I see ads where people are undercutting prices to try to sell off what they have, when it doesn't sell, they lower their own low price. Undercutting the competition is a business tactic, true, but I saw a person who did this lowering, and more lowering still the other day and was fine until I saw the same person post a complaint about the market dying and how unfair it is that they can't get their balls sold for what they want (gonna throw in another detail in a minute, so hold on)... Dumbass, YOU are responsible for this. Alot of factors come in like the power-breeders who breed a gene out like crazy to sell loads off and prices go down as the genes become more available, as one example, but you are one of the factors. Every time an idiot who doesn't know that is a sale price you posted sees your ad, he thinks suddenly this is the new price, then posts his at that price. When he can't sell he reduces it. The next idiot sees that and it continues. This goes on with every "lowest price you'll find" ad and over the course of the year things drop and drop. Next year you will make the same complaint without thinking "hey, maybe the prices dropped because everybody over did it last year and I was one of them."

Let me pause: I know there are many factors to prices, so don't give me a lecture over how many there are, this is just a gripe about one specific factor.

I have posted ads with sales on groups, or "reasonable offers accepted," but I don't post when I accept a reduced offer and I try to look at what's out there versus where I feel it should be and find a balance instead of trying to flat undercut in my ads. This is hard when people are expecting the next lowest price to be posted. I have talked to others who hate to put sales at risk, but try to do the same thing with the idea that maybe this decline can be help if people are seeing the higher prices versus the lowest prices, so the next person will post in between them, not at the bottom of them. Some depend on prices reducing gradually instead of dropping like they do when this scenario plays out. They aren't living at home with mom and dad, their job-made money goes to living and the snakes are a hobby that is hopefully paying for itself as you go and perhaps may make a little on the side too. Then there are breeders that this IS their job-made money... oh I could go on about that discussion alone for many more paragraphs, but back to John Doe above:

His complaint was that he can't make back what he spent on his balls and his parents are pissed.... hold up, what? I did some snooping (clicked on his FB page) and the kid was 14! He listed points that he couldn't believe about the market, but it comes down to him being too young to understand the business side of how things work. He relied on his parents and could afford to undercut his own undercut price. He didn't know how to ship and complained those who did were why he couldn't sell his snakes. He complained on and on about all the wrong things, but kept coming back to how bad it is he had to keep reducing his own undercut price. Well kiddo, you need to learn that it is this undercutting for quick sale that is one of MANY factors that affects the market, so you could be to blame for a little bit right there. If you don't understand how a market works, or how a business may rely on shipping, or....so on... don't complain about it being everybody else's fault. We are all a part of the market whether we do these things or not, so we can all be blamed if nothing else just by producing more genes and getting them out there. We all have to suffer when prices drop, but it is the market as a collective, it isn't the market attacking you as an individual (that's basically what his complaints came down to, it was unfair to him). People will lower prices and we can't control everybody, we all complain and hate to see it, and hate to have to compete with the reductions others give, but that is how it is. The best thing is to think are you in this for the money like this kid was, or the hobby of breeding the snakes. If you look at this as a money maker, you will end up sounding like this kid, but further need to figure out how what you do this year can affect your making money next year. Instead do this as a hobby and love what you do, and the market is a perk at that point, not the main factor (obviously if you are a breeder with a shop as your livelyhood, this is a little different). I just realized I did actually contradict myself above, but rather than fix it, I will leave it be as Babies are crying and I have to go have a life off the computer. I would love to go on, but instead, on the last point about hobby versus solely for the money, the final part to Doughy John's rant (and this is what set me off to post this gripe) was that he now wants to get out of balls because it isn't worth it to stay in them if he can't make "real good money" off them...REALLY?!?!