Would you register your breeders?

[wRobio]

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?

[wRobio]

Forgot to mention one thing.

Each profile would have an easy to use way of posting what you have available, which breeders of yours are the parents and asking price, which would automatically be tied into a classifieds section which anyone could browse.

So, say you are using the "free edition" of this website, you would be able to post one clutch/snake as available. If you wanted to post more ads than one, you would pay based on how many ads you wanted to be able to post.

[Patrick Long]

I dont really like this idea.


Most breeders who have their own site, already do....pretty much all the things you have listed.

Info, comment space, contact info.

Why have to go through ANOTHER middleman, when you can go directly to the source?..ie: THEIR WEBSITE.


You have been to Kingsnake.com yes?

[nixer]

for some reason i just dont see this taking off

[Kesslers Kreatures]

So like Kingsnake, Fauna, BP.Net and iHerp all rolled into one?

[iCandiBallPythons]

I dont really see the point?

[BPelizabeth]

taking a look at this from a buyers point of view ....I do kind of like it. When your new to all of this there is not a whole lot of places to go to find out about breeders. For me...it was word of mouth and talking to other breeders at the show, as well as the display and speaking with the breeder. So from that perspective....I would really like it.

But then again...I have been doing this for all of 2 months...so what the heck do I know.....

[Blue Apple Herps]

They have one for cornsnakes: American Cornsnake Registry. It's only been midly successful, but the idea is neat.

[mikels]

Sorry nothing personal, but it sounds crazzzy insane and not worth the trouble..

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Nope

1# The more parties involved the more trouble. Seller and buyer should communicate with each other not through a 3rd party if there is a problem.

2# I do not really care about having a system out there where someone (who ever the someone is) knows about everything I own, produce, sell and to whom.

If someone wants to track their animals history they can with me already all my animals comes with a certificate of origin (among other things), should a buyer require more info such as pictures of the dam and sire all they have to do is ask (soon it will be available directly online from my own website).

Sorry nothing personal I just like being in control and not have someone else involved with what I do.