It's been ten months and a few hours since I got my first pet snake in close to 3 decades. Today I have 79. Fifteen of them are not corns. In the interum I've had the Internet/mail-order rare plant nursery, and done some antiques/collectibles/hardware sales online, done a few flea markets, and an assortment of other venues.
A friend of mine who's passed away (GRHS) once said to me "Loose lips sink ships". Bearing his words in mind, and finding websites like this, are sharp contrast. I suppose when a new morph appears from a particuliar breeding, and one has the opportunity to brag (human nature), that is a good thing to do from a business perspective, to generate interest in the "new thing"; to create fervor; to create interest in it from persons with wallets.
All the same, the persons whom develop these new morphs should know when to quiet themselves. But they cannot. They feel compelled to respond to every online question; and give away the information regarding how the new morph was developed, FREELY. Even though they spent years, decades, time, money, personal investment to develop a new thing, somehow it is suddenly all worthless information, to be given away for the asking, to gain some instantaneous "feedback", or "rep points". Perhaps if they were able to ask themselves first "Is this a question I should respond to?", then so many of these new morph varieties would not plumet in realized profits so rapidly. Perhaps by typing words that stay online forever, some breeders have enabled many newbies on the block (thank you very much, by the way) to get into the breeding biz. So now they have more competition than ever before. There are many pro-breeders whose names I do not see here, giving away priceless information for free. Maybe they like their feet without gunshot holes in them. I really do not understand the rush towards "diffused" or "washed out colors". But then I'm not as cultured in cornsnake madness as my mentors. Perhaps 'dull' is fashionable for the moment?
Is it in my best business interest to sell hatchlings, or should I raise them awhile and let their colors develop? A few dozen 12-14 cent pinkies might pay off better, and provide some reassurance to potential customers that the baby snake is indeed feeding, especially if they've had a bad experience in the past of their own, or their human child had an unfortunate occurance.
I've seen on other threads that some persons feel that purchasing a bulk load of snakelets from RichZ, and reselling them on this site would be "wrong". It is a statement of consideration, and that is a commendable thing. It is also presumptious. Has anyone corresponded with him, you know...actually "asked him"? Yes, I bought 2 snakes from RichZ at the Daytona show. I also bought 10 others from 7 other breeders/dealers. Not counting the 3 prepaid "pickups in daytona" from 3 other equally swell peeps. Just because someone has something for sale at a live event for WAYless than the advertised online price is-- does not mean I necessarily want it.
I understand how retail works. So if this person bought up his stock and then came on his site and sold them for hundreds of dollars more that would be the definition of tacky.
Are you absolutely certain?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tacky
you certainly cannot expect Tesseras to sell at $1200 per male forever...
One might fit into my breeding plans, but I am not interested in producing copies of what another breeder is producing.
Walter, one snakes value to you will be completely different to someone else. People will only pay what they think a snake is worth.
But in all honesty, who is the one to set the bench mark and publicly dictate what the worth of one particular animal/morph is?
Should breeders not be setting the prices based on the buyers and what they can and can't afford. After all... it's just snakes.
For example I think CB candoia are worth hundreds for the time and effort put into establishing babies and considering the difficulty in keeping them alive. But I know buyers don't want to pay hundreds when they can get WC for pennies.... Taking this into consideration I would be one of these people to shoot myself in the foot and hold my ground and accept nothing less than my original asking price. Whether I sell those babies or not is another question. I just know know that whoever has the money to buy them knows what they are, feels they are worth the same as me and will enjoy them as much as me...
All buyers are different. They do not all think alike. They are all individual morphs, in their own individual specialized ways. I've often wondered why so many wild caught snakes are still imported, when there are sufficient numbers of them in captivity, successfully breeding. Perhaps the breeders want the imoprts to continue to come in, to help to keep the prices down on the captive bred ones. Frankly, it is my personal opinion that if importation was severely regulated, with regards to thousands of
kinds of animals being bred in captivity, then there would be more demand (vs supply) for those kinds, and higher prices could be realized. However, cornsnake morphs are not wild collected; merely produced until the market is flooded and the bottom falls out for a particuliar morph variety. Well said, btw.
I am shocked that a sunkissed lav is going for $150. To me that animal is worth sooooo much more. Heck, lavender stripes are tripple that price (from some sellers) in the UK nevermind sunkissed combos...
As I staggered thru the Daytona show, experiencing visual orgasms, I looked at words written on deli cups, and then compared the words on the cups to the actual item in the cups. It seems to me that many persons never learned the correct names of colors. If that lavender snake actually is Lavender, sure, it's worth every penny of 350 or whatever. But so many of them are some other color; however "SwampMuckBrown" ain't a good retailable name and'll never be a good seller. Perhaps "Burnt Mauve" or "Petrified Turd" would be a better color description for what's actually in that bucket. But if they mis-spelled Lavenrer, then it was no more than a Guci Style Knockoff. Some remedial English, and a visit to the Crayola Factory may be in order here, but far be it for me to say who should be on that Denure Tours bus.
But then I'm the newbie, so much yet to learn about this new biz-adventure.
Thanks for sharing, and warm regards. dave
