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Surcharge on lone or extra females

Rich Z

Rich Z

Administrator
Staff member
Well, it seems to be pretty obvious that you all are telling me you would rather pay extra for those females rather than have me just tell you I'm not going to sell them to you. So I will go along with the public sentiment here.

Effective immediately, there will be a 25 percent surcharge for all lone females or extra females added to a pair. For instance, if you order 1.2 (a male and 2 females), one male and one female will be charged at the regular price, and one female will have 25 percent of the price added to the total.

Getting a lone female of one cultivar and a lone male of another does not exempt the female from this surcharge. In this sort of instance, I would still be in jeopardy of having a shortage of females in the cultivar and this would not be offset by a surplus in another. If someone wants a pair of Butter Corns, but I only have males left, my having extra Hypo Okeetee females will do me absolutely no good.

This is not being mercenary, and has been given a lot of thought lately. I agree with the consensus that since females are in higher demand, then it is logical that people should expect to pay more for them. Of course, I have no idea how I am going to manage this at the shows we attend. I hate to have to just put a higher price on the females, but at some of the shows it is just too busy to expect to have to explain this 25 percent surcharge thing to everyone wanting to buy just a female.

Thanks for all of the input.
 
Totally understandable....
I would say that extra female should be charged at a higher price. Once people get used to this, then you wont have to scrach your head everytime you try to explain to people why extra females costs 25% higher....
don't worry this time will come!
 
I can see where it would be hard to explain at shows. I would put the higher price on the females and then deduct the xtra on the sales ticket if they bought a pair. I sure would dislike having to explain the surcharge when I was really busy:D There is always drawbacks to everything it seems!!
 
I knew I should have ordered yesterday...LOL
So, what does this mean to those that have already placed this years order? Are you definately going to hold the same true for shows? I mean, I want an opal or hypo lavender possibly, but I don't think I have the extra money to buy a pair.... so now the female will cost me $250? Woah! What if I intended to purchase the male next year or one was purchased later in the season? So, you definately can not mix morphs into a pair? Thanks a lot.... I'm just curious and would like some clarifications...Thanks Rich!
 
I just wanted to say that I think Alicia has an excecellent suggestion. Mark the price on all your show stock as if they were buying single females, then give them a *special discount* for buying pairs or single males.

I think discounts are a lot easier to explain than surcharges. Everyone wants one and hates the other.

^CB
 
reply

I understand why you have to do what you have to do. But I must admit I am a little taken back by the fact that you cant mix cultivars. Not to mention 25% can be quite a large surcharge on say a 200.00 dollar Butter Motley. Will I pay it? Probably :) Just wanted to share my concerns! Please dont take them the wrong way. Like I said, I do understand. With things going the way they are here at home anyway, I will most likely have to wait till next year to start my collection. I just hope the prices dont go up even more by then! Goodluck with the new policy and I hope you figure out a way to incorporate the policy at your shows. Take care, Lindsay
 
You have to do what the industry is doing and what your comfortable with. One suggestion I would add is that another breeder will allow a pair from different morphs, if the chioce of which one is female is hers. That way the buyer who wants say a Butter and a Lav. can still get the discounted price for the pair, and you can choose which is female according to your stock or the higher priced morph.

Just my 2 cents!

Colleen
 
Scene I, Act III:

(A crowd has gathered over at the corn snake vendor's table. Deli dishes with baby snakes inside them cover the table in two groups, males and females. It is obvious that the females are more expensive than the males by the price tags on each.)

A man in the crowd speaks: "Hey, Why are the females more expensive than the males?"

The vendor answers: "Females are more intelligent...and they produce babies...see one you like?"
 
Re: Scene I, Act III:

Gregg said:
"Females are more intelligent"
Click to expand...

OMG they (the men) finaly admitted it!? :p

your wife must be proud of you Gregg,... :)

(no offence intended to anyone, I am just joking around so y'all know)
 
Well just Gregg can admit this because he is special But I bet the rest of the *cough* guys will never admit it!! :p

Hehe J/K Gregg :D
 
Extra female pricing

I think once other breeders see that this price structure is acceptable and logical, it may become the industry norm, esp. for corns, anyway. The people who are buying extra females mostly want to get into breeding, so if they think about it, this policy will benefit them in future years when they might get stuck with too many males.

The last couple of shows, I priced the sexes equally, but on the females I wrote "in pairs". That raised a few questions, but the "stuck with too many males" explanation seemed to satisfy everyone. After a couple of years, I won't have to explain as often.

I do feel I can give the pair price on two different morphs IF the customer allows me to choose which is male and which is female. Then I can still "even out" my sex ratio. I always have more males in some types than others. But if the customer needs to choose the female, then I have to charge the higher lone female price.

I am hoping that most people will see these policies as fair and logical.

Thanks for providing a place to discuss all of this, Rich.
 
Kathy, I do commend you for being understandable with the "you pick the female" deal. I like that idea and I hope Rich chooses to follow it as well.

Does anyone else feel that 25 percent can be too much on a really high priced morph such as hypo lavenders or something else? I'm gonna have to resort to saving more than I have been...
 
That is pretty steep, but it is not like I am gonna pay shipping for for just one snake anyways. I have no problem with getting a pair or even a mixed pair.
 
About the 25 percent surcharge.....

What needs to be understood here is what actually happens when a breeder gets stuck with a large number of extra males. Generally speaking, it is a rare event when someone comes looking to buy a lone male. So much so, that when someone says that to me, I have to ask them to repeat their request. More likely than not, someone will be looking for a sexual pair of perhaps a lone female to add to their breeding group.

Nine times out of ten, if I am at a show or take a phone call about an order and tell someone that all I have left are males, they will say something like "Gee, that's too bad, because I really wanted a pair of them and don't need another male." So basically by taking that sale of a lone female earlier in the season, I could have recovered it later on and sold a male as well at the same time. So the COST of me selling that lone female was the price of a male. Normally a breeder can partially recoup this loss by bulking out those lone males to a wholesaler. But the wholesalers will NEVER buy those animals at the list prices. Normally you can expect they will only want to pay 50 percent of the list price, or less if they think they can get away with it. As such, I very nearly listed the surcharge as being 50 percent in order to recoup this money I will be losing on those lone males. But I figured certainly I will be able to sell off some males at retail here and there, so compromised with the 25 percent figure I decided on.

As for the 'breeder choose the cultivar' question in order to avoid the surcharge, I have NEVER found it a drawback to have extra females in any of the cultivars. So no matter which one I will be pulling a lone female from, it reduces my available stock of a more desirable animal (considering that females are more desirable as a purchase than males). Even if I had ALL females of a particular cultivar, this would not be a bad thing at all as I know for certain that I will be able to sell every last one of them at my list prices with no problems.

What this means, by implication, is if I am without males of a particular cultivar, of course I would not apply the surcharge for the female. However, since I am never able to sex all of my babies until very late in the season, I may not even know the true sex ratio until it is far too late to do anything about it. So I cannot reasonably be able to judge which cultivars I may be heavier on females than of another cultivar. I believe it would be best to just assume that ANY female is a more valuable animal than ANY male. and treat them as such. From the number of requests I have gotten so far this season, I believe this is a correct and accurate assessment on my part.

What this boils down to is that the buying public has shown us that females are more desirable and are apparently worth more to them. I was at first reluctant to even sell lone females at all, but the majority have prodded me to reconsider my position. I have done so. And yes, I do believe a lone female Opal is worth more and much more in demand than a lone female Okeetee. People just would not pay $50 additional for a female Okeetee where as they likely would for a lone female Opal. If the price of a cultivar is proportionally higher in one that is in more demand than another, then it logically follows that the surcharge should also be equivalent.
 
Ok but in a matched pair you will still price them the same right???

BTW I did order 2.1 from ya :) And wouldnt mind adding a few extra males to the list if it doesnt increese my shipping charge....I am cheap like that. Let me know what you have excess of and if it is not too insainly expensive I will buy a few from you ok :)
 
Just for the record, my policy change is NOT retroactive. If you placed your order before I changed my policy to put a surcharge on lone or extra females, then it does not apply to you.
 
Heh, heh, heh.

There goes the "I'll just wait to see what he has at the show in Daytona" theory.

As CornSnakeKeeper said, "Darn, darn, DARN!"

LOL. (I KNEW I should have placed an order early, but dog gone it, I was so excited to be going to the show that I wanted to actually get something AT the show. You know, peruse, hmm and ha, peruse some more, select...Darn.)

Oh well.

I still think it is a fair policy to invoke.
(I just wish I would have gotten an order in sooner.)

As they say, timing is everything, and my timing stinks.

:rolleyes: :p
 
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