Hi,
Well people like to know they are buying from someone they can trust.
You could try and build that trust just through participating in online forums in a helpful manner. Basically have a relationship with your possible clients before you produce any animals at all. Local herp societies and pet shops can also help in this.
I am a member of three local (ish) reptile forums here in the U.K. and definately feel happier buying from someone who has been there for years than someone who joined last week and has posted nothing but adverts since. I like to be able to search the posts made to get an idea, not only about them, but also to see if I can find pictures of their animals ( to see what the offspring might end up looking like ) and if they have posted any worrying threads about disease etc recently.
I still sell all my normals to local petshops - I get less money per animal than I would in a private sale but they will usually buy all that I have ready for sale at one time. This helps keep the shop going which, in turn, means I have somewhere I can pick up supplies locally in an emergency.
I also get to meet their ( and possibly my) customers and have had the shops pass along my details when someone asked them for morphs they knew I had.
I would definately try and have visually identifiable animals for your first clutch if possible - appearing out of nowhere and trying to sell hets might make people nervous if they don't know you.
That's possibly a bit extreme but reputation is a fragile thing sometimes.
I'd rather avoid someone who didn't understand the odds complaining unfairly about false hets if I could.
But then I am really only just starting to sell animals in the grand scheme of things so hopefully some of the big dogs have better advice.
dr del
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