Buying online vs Show

[Crowfingers]

Long story, but applicable I think

I found that my city was going to be having a reptile show in the fall, so a few weeks prior I started researching the vendors on the vendors list using morph market, google searches, and fauna classifieds. Through all these sites managed to find one vendor that had minimal complaints and mostly fantastic reviews.

From there I went to their site and started looking at all the morphs they had (I was honestly looking for just a normal, but the site didn't show any) so I emailed them to find out if they had any and just weren't advertising them at like 9:00pm figuring they would respond in a day or two...they responded in less that 30 min. The breeder said that they did have some and would be at the reptile show and would be happy to bring a selection of them for me to see, asked if I was looking to breed or had gender preference. We emailed back and forth for a few days, then I started seeing two different snakes on his site that were just amazing looking and not really that high in price (a butter and a pewter)...so I emailed and said that I really liked those two snakes but was it possible to see in person at the show before making a decision - the breeder said as long as they did not sell online first he would be happy to bring them...

turns out I didn't get either because one of his other snakes caught my eye first (what seemed pain and dull online was actually very cool in person), this snake had a great personality when the breeder was holding him, looked healthy, etc. So I got him. This saved me the shipping cost and I got a snake that I was actually more drawn to than the ones I was originally looking at.

Unfortunately it was very busy and I did not have long to talk with the breeder in person, and later that night received an email apologizing for the short amount of time he had to talk along with my new snoots' complete feeding / weight / shed history as well as pics of the parents and his and his parents genetic make up. Throughout the entire process I was amazed that someone would take this kind of time to help a potential customer even before there was any discussion of money, and it speaks to the kind of business being run as well.

Now that I am in the market for a pied, I am hesitant to buy from anyone else.