Albino pricing

[cinderbird]

First off, I think this is totally accurate, especially for some morphs, like the pastel. I think that those people producing top quality morphs will continue to be profitable in the long run.

In the case of recessive morphs, such as a piebald, they will hold there price longer than say the pastel has, for obvious reasons (harder to produce). But, its simple supply demand, as more and more casual breeders get into the industry, the supply will increase, and unless there is anything breeders can do to increase the demand, at a faster rate, the price is going to drop. The excess profits attracts new entrants into the markets, increasing supply further, until the point to where profits have been driven to 0 (excess profits at least). At this point we will be in equilibrium, and the price will hold. Who knows what that equilibrium price is. The way top quality breeders are attempting to produce profits is through new morphs. What they want is monopolistic competition. If they have a distinguishable product, that they can convince is similar, but higher quality, they will be able to charge that premium and afford themselves excess profits. However, casuals will be purchasing these, and once again more entrants into the market, driving price down in the long run. Essentially it becomes a game of short run versus long run. In the short run breeders will make profits on new morphs, but in the long run, they will be driven away. Unless we can find some sort of collusionary tactics, prices will continue to move downward. Unfortunately, if everyone colludes together to keep prices high, there will be opportunistic people who will undercut. It stinks, but it is the nature of people.

Thank you, i was totally afraid I went off on a tangent with this (as i sometimes do).

the "fly by night" breeders will always come and go. They're in every hobby; model stuffs, dog breeding, machine repairs, etc. Once someone figures out what they're up to then they go poof.

Perhaps this needs to begin with the buyers. I know that with my animals, i have definately hopped on a deal or two, but I try not to haggle with sellers over their listing price (maybe with the odd $25 on a multi-hundred dollar morph). I wont say stop looking for the deal of the century, but maybe using KS as our price guide is hurting us (and this has been discussed at length in another thread so i wont go any farther into it here).

I think i had another point here and i completely lost it.. dang nabbit.