Expensive garters

[RedSidedSPR]

Oh, I believed you, I just didn't know what albinos you were talking about. And $45,000 for a ball python isn't even close to high end. I've seen some for $250,000 before. Don't even get me started on retics.

$250,000?!? Who would pay that much? You could buy a freaking Ferrari with that!! Not to mention it's probably hardly any different from the normal ball python. jeez.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Oh, I believed you, I just didn't know what albinos you were talking about. And $45,000 for a ball python isn't even close to high end. I've seen some for $250,000 before. Don't even get me started on retics.

having many personal friends that are off the deep end into the python morphs... $45,000 is definitely high end! Not too many pythons actually sell cash value for that you know. The majority of snakes that are priced that high, are traded for other extremely rare and valuable morphs or expensive items such as a whole new room full of caging... a car... etc! A lot of morph people use their own self-proved out rare morphs to gain leverage to get other things they don't have or can't afford to outright buy. they don't usually start selling for actual outright cash until they hit like, $7k. There are ALWAYS exceptions... and I personally watched a guy lay out $12k in CASH on a table for a snake at a show... but a lot of outrageously priced snakes are not actually exchanged for real money.... and if they are, generally, it's a payment plan or a partial cash partial trade.

[RedSidedSPR]

I kinda figured that. But really I don't think they're worth that much.

[ConcinusMan]

Definitely not.

[Sonya610]

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 am new, and especially new to Garter Snakes so I think I may offer a different perspective with regard to marketing.

For the last couple of weeks I have been window shopping for a new display snake. I looked into various types, and want something high color and very outgoing hence the decision to go with a Garter.

In my internet travels I found VERY VERY few websites offering Garters for sale with photos (outside of the big herp dealers that have one generic photo up to represent their stock). I am likely NOT the only one that had this problem. A website with great key words that will show up on search with various attractive photos advertising available animals OR pictures of the parents advertising upcoming babies would be a big plus for you.

I have had a Ball Python for three years and let me tell you if you search for BP's online the sites are great, lots of pictures, easy to find, and very very appealing for potential buyers that show the actual animal for sale. There is a market beyond the Garter fans that hang out on these forums, many herp people may not be all that familiar with Garters or part of this inner circle but WILL search and shop online for an attractive animal. The people that have a variety of reptiles and are not interested in breeding the Garter will care more about visual appeal and less about "market value".

Make sure to have lots of clear photos and include various names so if they see something they like and google it your animals come up.

[infernalis]

In my internet travels I found VERY VERY few websites offering Garters for sale with photos (outside of the big herp dealers that have one generic photo up to represent their stock). I am likely NOT the only one that had this problem. A website with great key words that will show up on search with various attractive photos advertising available animals OR pictures of the parents advertising upcoming babies would be a big plus for you.

Working on ways to change that

What keywords come to mind for you?

[Sonya610]

Working on ways to change that

What keywords come to mind for you?

The obvious terms such as "buy garter snake online, garter snake breeder, etc..." along with latin names and also common colors "albino, fire, flame, etc..." You can also throw in terms like "aboreal" and "best display snake" if you want, doesn't have to be accurate only limitation is using copyrighted names of other companies or breeders. One easy trick is to do quick google searches and then look at the page source code for non-paid websites that come up first. Also use the name garter in your file folders so all the links have that term in them (ranks higher). The top page coming up for "buy garter snakes online" in google doesn't even use garter in the meta tags but it has several links onthe page with the name garter in them.

Make the site user friendly for regular people by posting pictures of the snakes NEXT to the listings and prices, not on a separate gallery page! Not everyone is a breeder nor an expert! The biggest frustration I had when searching online for garters is the lack of pictures, I do not know what the various descriptions mean and without pictures it is frustrating. I see an ad for an animal without a photo and try to google the name and no photos come up. Example from Scott's page, I have no frickin idea what these terms mean! At the very least have "generic" photos that represent the various colors.

There are people seeking pets that would easily spend $100 or even $200 for a nice looking animal -- I wonder if the mindset is only breeders or collectors would buy therefore don't dumb down the site for pet buyers.

100% Het flame albinos (normal looking) $100
Flames 66% Het albino flame $175 - $225
50% Piebald hets - Inquire
Albino flame/erythristic combined ?
Flames $100 - $150
Leucistics - (From Paradox bloodline) $450
Flames 66% Het leucistic $375 - $425 pair
66% Het leucistic $250 pair

[Jeff B]

hmmmm, good tips there. I thought my site is very picture rich with lots of pictures of morph examples and discriptions, and that it google queries fairly well, but of course there is always room for improvement. Thanks for the input.

[Sonya610]

Working on ways to change that

What keywords come to mind for you?

You have a very nice image gallery on your site. Add "alt" tags to all your images with the FULL name of the snake so that name displays when the mouse moves over hte image and also registers on search engines.

Put your mouse over the Thamnophis image at the top of this page to see what I mean, the name "Garter Snake Forum" appears. Right now your images do not have alt tags to name them so the file name shows (albsnake.jpg). Add alt="Albino Red Sided Garter" in the img tag after the albsnake.jpg file name and that name will display on rollover plus be picked up by search engines. Actually looking at your site again the html editor you used is using the file name as the "title" by default so put the name of the animal in the quotes after the title tag.

It's an easy way to add the searchable terms to your site and label your photos without having to do a lot of redesign work.

[ConcinusMan]

That's rather strange. I definitely don't experience a shortage of photos when I search online. Maybe it comes down to the terms you are searching for. I have no problem at all getting my own photos and posts to show up in a google search.

I see what you're saying about not "dumbing it down" and the answer to that is simple. It looks like you copied that from Scott Felzer's website and I must say that his garter snakes sell out fast and all of his customers know what that stuff means so there's no need to "dummy it down" to reach more people since they all sell out anyway, sometimes before they are even born. Those details written there (percentages, "het", etc.) are very important to those who are paying that much for garter snakes. The rest of those words are morph names. And yes, most of the buyers are breeders. If you're not planning on breeding there's really no point in paying extra money for a 100% het, or a little less for a 66% het, and no point in even buying any kind of "het" (A normal looking snake carrying genes for say, albino for example) when you could just buy a normal a lot cheaper. So if you're not breeding, that stuff is meaningless to you anyway. If you are breeding, you know what it means already.