If it's too good to be true....

[JulieInNJ]

If you want to be "just a hobby breeder" and want to sell your animals fast and cheap, just wholesale them. You'll have them all gone in one or two batches, you'll get paid and only have to make a couple shipments and be done with hatchling season. Then you can concentrate on your holdbacks and any new animals you've purchased. You will ALSO build a reputation with sellers that you produce nice quality animals without any stigma as to pricing at all. AND you won't have to field 500 emails all whining that the price isn't low enough, you should take 20 more pictures and can you do payments for the next 5 years and can they have the snake for free because they "reely reely want 1 reely bad!!!!" (actual email, I swear)

That's a great angle, and I really appreciated the advice.

Please excuse the hijack, but I have a question. If a person were to sell at about 20% below market, would that be considered too low for a newcomer? How about if the 20% discount were tied to the buyer providing feedback after the sale? Would a 10% discount be more appropriate?
I followed the market this last season, and I noticed that newcomers selling a little under the market did well, where as those selling at market seemed to have trouble. At 20% off, newcomers sold out quickly.
I thought this would be a good strategy for me in my first year of selling, but I don't want to upset other breeders or have a negative affect on the market.

And those are great questions - not a hijack at all. Goes right along with what I'm asking about.

So what I gather from most posts, is that it's okay to slightly discount as a new breeder, as long as it isn't something so ridiculous that I would find myself among the 'sleazy', LOL. And moving for a quick sale to purchase a new animal is completely understandable.

I value my animals as pets, not just as breeding stock. I plan to keep my hets, even after I've produced the morphs, just because the were part of my original crew.