Pricing - Ball Python Market

[Freakie_frog]

Not only that you can't pick a normal baby up at Petco for 25.00 so you will never see any mutation under the normal priceing..At least if your buying from me.

[elevatethis]

My take on the relationship between the prices of combos and single gene mutations is that the higher prices of the combos encourage buyers to purchase the ingredients to them instead of the combo itself. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it depends who you ask...a professional breeder or a hobbyist on a budget looking to simply own a beautiful animal.

On one hand it encourages buyers to purchase stock to begin producing snakes themselves, and on the other hand you now have a situation where everyone and their brother are shooting for crosses like, for example, pastels and spiders to create bumblebees...and now you have a flood of animals on the market the drives the price of the single co-doms way down, as we've seen in the past few years. I'm sure other mutations will follow the same course.

Moreover, the fact of the matter is that the buyers that will support the ball market in its maturity phase don't care that it took 1 in 16 odds (it doesn't add any value in their minds) to produce a certain animal, they only care that they themselves aren't willing to spend thousands of dollars for a pet snake. Until then, the combo market will remain a breeder-to-breeder type of thing until the prices of them drop low enough to be obtained by the average hobbyist, at which point they'll stabilize. That point will likely fall in the <$1000 range.

[FL0OD]

My take on the relationship between the prices of combos and single gene mutations is that the higher prices of the combos encourage buyers to purchase the ingredients to them instead of the combo itself. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I guess it depends who you ask...a professional breeder or a hobbyist on a budget looking to simply own a beautiful animal.

On one hand it encourages buyers to purchase stock to begin producing snakes themselves, and on the other hand you now have a situation where everyone and their brother are shooting for crosses like, for example, pastels and spiders to create bumblebees...and now you have a flood of animals on the market the drives the price of the single co-doms way down, as we've seen in the past few years. I'm sure other mutations will follow the same course.

Moreover, the fact of the matter is that the buyers that will support the ball market in its maturity phase don't care that it took 1 in 16 odds (it doesn't add any value in their minds) to produce a certain animal, they only care that they themselves aren't willing to spend thousands of dollars for a pet snake. Until then, the combo market will remain a breeder-to-breeder type of thing until the prices of them drop low enough to be obtained by the average hobbyist, at which point they'll stabilize. That point will likely fall in the <$1000 range.

very well said and I totally agree

[ctrlfreq]

My take on the relationship between the prices of combos and single gene mutations is that the higher prices of the combos encourage buyers to purchase the ingredients to them instead of the combo itself.

This can only be within reason though. I can very easily justify buying say, a creamsicle (pied x lav albino) instead of producing it, because even if I started with a visual morph of each, it would take a minimum of 2-3 years, to produce one with double-het offspring. Even then, my chances of popping one out on the first try are fairly slim mathematically speaking, and I have to house, feed, and otherwise care for all the offspring during this time.

On one hand it encourages buyers to purchase stock to begin producing snakes themselves, and on the other hand you now have a situation where everyone and their brother are shooting for crosses

Yes, but this is where the business sense comes into the equation. People who are making dominant crosses are obviously looking for short-term gains, and are comparable to day-traders. Those who are planning for the long term will be investing more in recessive genetics, which will hold their prices much better due to supply.

Moreover, the fact of the matter is that the buyers that will support the ball market in its maturity phase don't care that it took 1 in 16 odds

This point I disagree with completely. The 1 in 16, 32, or 2048 odds are exactly what will keep the market up in it's "mature" phase, just like it's kept the price of Ferraris well above their Ford counterparts.

If anything, one only needs to look into the markets for purebreed dogs, cats, horses, or any other animal for which the market would be considered mature to see that rare animals will continue to bring in the big bucks well after the markets drop for the common breeds.

[FL0OD]

There are still way too many things to be done with ball pythons to make that kind of prediction.

It is not a prediction just my thoughts. I also agree with you that we have only scratched the surface of what is to come. That being said as more animals and morphs are produced it will only make todays "it" snake less valuable. Mr. Bailey I respect you for the business person that you are and I was not wanting to argue with anyone over resessive and co-dom pricing. We both know, as others do, that resessive animals hold there value more than co-dom or dominate animals and I should have made myself more clear but I did not have a page to go over all the variables. My comment was just an overall view of what I thought was to come.

Not only that you can't pick a normal baby up at Petco for 25.00 so you will never see any mutation under the normal priceing.

One thing that I can say with some certainty is that the $100 python at Petco now will not be $100 in five years. In my opinion for this business to grow it will have to enter the retail market at some point. There will have to be more than one morph at the retail level to pull people in to buy the more expensive animals that we are now currently enjoying. That means multiple animals at price points below $150 so that the normal Joe can get in and have some thing more than just a Royal Ball and create a "buzz". Most people I show ball python morphs to have never seen animals like this before nor knew they existed. In that same breath they are not going to go out and spend $500 on a cinnamon because they can make pewters with it. People need to have animals that are "pet" prices. There has to be several entry level animals to get people interested. I took your comment as meaning that normal royal balls will always, in your opinion, be over a certain dollar amount.


Thanks for all the input so far. I thought that it would be interesting to get other views than my own.

[ctrlfreq]

People need to have animals that are "pet" prices. There has to be several entry level animals to get people interested.

Before the market can fracture into "breeder" and "pet" prices, we need a method of distinguishing between the two types of animal. I see this coming about in the form of an organization that publishes specifications as to the desirable traits of particular morphs, and then tracks bloodlines through registration and, optionally, competition (al la AKC).

[FL0OD]

I did not know that, thank you.

[JoshJP7]

Something I didnt see come up... The market prices are dropping because quantities are rising which is simple economics. The one thing people seem to be leaving out is that just bc there are mass quantities of some morphs doesnt mean they are top quality. Those breeders who produce the best looking snakes will be able to keep their prices more level. One breeder might sell a pastel for 300$ and a person looking to buy could say thats a ridiculous price I can get one for 150$. That breeder selling theirs for 300$ could have top notch grade A pastels. Ya you can go ahead and buy the cheaper one but if your trying to sell babies down the road your going to have a much tougher time selling unattractive looking babies. If your just looking for a pet then the 150$ pastel makes sense. Good looking parents make good looking babies... for the most part. I think prices will start(already have) varying based on how good they look. I already see it today where someones selling say mojaves and the price range is 500-700... the OK looking ones are 500 and then the top knotch ones are 700. Still pretty high for a pet but it seems to be heading that way.

[FL0OD]

agreed. because there are more and more breeders there is a lot more stuff on the market. I recently ran into this when looking for pastels. I saw a female for $200 and then one for $350. I am looking for what I considered the best so I went with the better looking, better quality animal at the higher price point. I believe, like you do, that higher quality animals will always demand more money.

[elevatethis]

This can only be within reason though. I can very easily justify buying say, a creamsicle (pied x lav albino) instead of producing it, because even if I started with a visual morph of each, it would take a minimum of 2-3 years, to produce one with double-het offspring. Even then, my chances of popping one out on the first try are fairly slim mathematically speaking, and I have to house, feed, and otherwise care for all the offspring during this time.



Yes, but this is where the business sense comes into the equation. People who are making dominant crosses are obviously looking for short-term gains, and are comparable to day-traders. Those who are planning for the long term will be investing more in recessive genetics, which will hold their prices much better due to supply.



This point I disagree with completely. The 1 in 16, 32, or 2048 odds are exactly what will keep the market up in it's "mature" phase, just like it's kept the price of Ferraris well above their Ford counterparts.

If anything, one only needs to look into the markets for purebreed dogs, cats, horses, or any other animal for which the market would be considered mature to see that rare animals will continue to bring in the big bucks well after the markets drop for the common breeds.

All of these are valid points, but you are missing one thing: you are looking at this from a breeder's perspective. Not every buyer cares about setting up racks and rodent colonies, etc just to own a morph. They want to put a morph in a display cage in their living room and the whole notion of an animal being worth more because of 1 in 16 odds versus 1 in 8 odds is completely irrelevent. It is the look of the animal and the demand for it that will set the price, not the specific genetics. Look at albinos: one recessive gene, 15 years later it is still above $800 on average.

If this whole notion of a "I breed, sell to you, and you breed" thing could sustain itself, the prices of a lot of the morphs would have stayed the same. They didn't. They dropped. Simple economics tells you that anytime the supply of something increases without a proportionate increase in demand, the price drops.

Talk to "everyday" type people at shows. They are very impressed with ball pythons but can't justify setting up shop in their garage just to own morphs. They've seen the dropping and prices are shrug it off, saying they'll wait until they are within reach. The ball python market is going to be HOT when the combos and such are under $1000....and it should stay there for a while.