Expensive garters

[Mix]

For what it's worth, were I across the pond, I would absolutely want one. With a $100 price tag.
If my lottery numbers ever come up, I'll be there!

[drache]

"if I were a rich man, ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum . . . "
all day long I'd diddle with my snakes, if I were a wealthy man
I'd build a reptile room with cages by the dozens, and I'd fill my yard with monitor lizards and tortoises instead of geese and ducks
what I really need is more real estate, so I can house all the garters my covetous heart desires

[gregmonsta]

For what it's worth, were I across the pond, I would absolutely want one. With a $100 price tag.
If my lottery numbers ever come up, I'll be there!

That $100 translates as £62 which is cheaper than a normal over here. I paid £70-80 for my 'normals'/potential hets (not including travel). If I do produce anery offspring in 2012/13 I'd be looking at charging around the £150 mark.

[Chondro788]

Aside from everything else said, I think the blue concinnus are awesome and will gladly pay $100 or more for the right animal. But then I think you know that Richard.

[ConcinusMan]

I highly doubt I will be charging $100. That sounds like a fair price for exceptionally blue snakes that are at least subadult size. I can already tell you that the neonates will either not show how blue they can become, or that most of them won't become "super" blue as adults. The very blue ones I have been showing you are exceptional. They don't represent the majority.

Still, they are a very desireable color morph and certainly, most will at least color up enough to look like this guy:

[Jeff B]

I just read this whole post Richard.
Richard this was YOUR project, YOUR snakes, nobody else in the whole wide world had snakes like this, the beautiful rare and unique blue concinous, or whatever YOU call them now. This was YOUR project, YOUR project, YOU had the opportunity to call them what YOU wanted, market them how YOU saw fit, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY YOU HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO DESIDE WHAT THEY ARE WORTH. However in order to do that you had to place value you on them yourself, obviously if you were giving them away and then you come on a forum and tell everybody that you gave them away and that they aren't worth $20, WELL THEN RICHARD YOU ONLY HAVE TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR TO SEE WHY THEY ARE COMPLETELY WORTHLESS AND HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY DEVALUED. Then you come on here crying about how it's not fair how all the big breeders this and that crap.
The only difference is that we do value our snakes, we do value the hard work and time that goes into producing them, and we stick to our guns to their value (that doesn't mean I won't cut deals with people, but I won't give them away and then publisize that they are now worthless), and we don't expect them to sell the day we produce them, instead we expect that raising babies is THE MOST WORK of the whole seasonal process. It's work, work, and more work. Marketing and advirtising is a lot of work, maintaining a web site is a ton of work, placing ads, ect. tons of work. Feeding, cleaning, breeding=work, raising babies=tons of work. If you devalue the animal after all that work, well then thats on YOU pal.

[infernalis]

Very well stated Jeff.

And no disrespect intended Richard, many of us know you well enough by now that your "people skills" (More to the point, lack thereof) no longer grate on our nerves, however most of your potential customers are not the same folks you spend all day interacting with, so when you "rub them the wrong way" they would rather go without the snakes, if you get what I mean.

There is an old saying "He could sell snowballs to Eskimos" translated, he is one smooth talker....

You have to get past the "first date" if you want to make it to the wedding.

Again, I want to make sure, I am not trying to be insulting, I mean nothing malicious, It's advice, nothing more.

[ConcinusMan]

I think you misunderstood Jeff, I have never given away any of the anery's. It was normals I was talking about. I didn't have any effect on the price of those last year. The year before, they were selling just fine at $35 each. Then I had over 50 of them last season and couldn't hardly give them away. It was either be stuck with them, or sell them for what people were willing to pay for them, which wasn't much. Certainly not $35 each like the year before. The market determined the price, not me. It does me no good whatsoever to demand $35 each for normals if nobody is going to buy them at that price. The only way was able to get them moving was to sell them much cheaper than that.

Now I will have CB litters of the anery's for the first time available, and so will Shannon. It's hard to say how much people are going to be willing to pay for them, but I'm certainly not going to value them so high that it takes me 3 years to sell the litters. The general concensus that I get, is that people are willing to buy them at about 1.5 to 2 times the value of normals, which as I said, I do not quote the value of those. It's determined by the market, not me. I need to sell even the anerys at a price that will get them sold by the end of the year.

Anyway, that is still up in the air. Shannon and I need to see how many offspring we have, and go from there. We'll talk and work out a value for them then and both charge around the same amount, but from what I am hearing from people is that unless they are stunning blue, I'm probably not going to be able to move them for much more than $60 each, in spite of being "new" and "first time available". People are willing to pay you or other breeders hundreds of dollars for say, flames, albino flames, and a few other morphs but there's no way in hello that anyone is going to pay that for the new anery concinnus morph no matter how new it is, or how few are available. That's all I'm saying. Like I said, I am not undervaluing them. I price them where they will sell so it is not I that is determining their value, it's the market that determines that and the market tells me what they are willing to pay by buying, or not buying at the price set by me.

I started this thread (quite some time ago, look at the dates) just to better understand the market and how these values we put on certain animals are determined. I have a better understanding of it now and so I have no more issues. I got a lot of good feedback that helped me to better understand and that's good enough for me.

[Chondro788]

Great points Jeff. These snakes are the most work of any reptile I have bred, and I believe for those who work hard to produce the best looking babies, get them feeding well, and do their advertising, deserve the price they are asking, or close to it

[ConcinusMan]

I'll get whatever people are willing to pay. Simple as that. Like you said, they are a lot of work and that is one of the reasons I want them sold hopefully by the end of the year, sooner is better. If I price them high and they don't move, what else would you suggest I do about it besides lower the price until they start moving?

I would be doing this anyway, even if I didn't get a dime for them. Heck I used to do this and release them. So, if I get as much as people are willing to pay, even if that turns out to not be much, then so beit. At least I'm getting something to help offset the costs associated with my hobby. That's more than I used to get, especially in the days before the internet, and before I joined the forum.