Expensive garters

[snakeman]

Unless you have concinnus with cherry red heads they just don't sell.Its always been like that in my experience.The three stripe ones don't sell either.Probally the same reason fitchi don't sell.

[infernalis]

About the only thing I have to say is Yes it matters very much who is selling and what they are selling and how they market it.

If you started selling pet rocks tomorrow. But your pet rocks were better than my pet rocks but I had a web site with a well known URL, I was on 20 forums and had export deals already in place then your pet rocks are going to be harder for you to sell regardless of pricing.

Networking is important, advertising is paramount and history is unalterable.

So Get those web sites up, do tables at expos, shake a lot of hands, spend a fortune and endure a lot of losses, keep at it, please your customers, and in several years of hard work, you can sell anything left and right and maybe one day turn a profit.

a couple classified ads is not going to do a whole lot.

[drache]

first of all - I love that atratus, and if I had that kind of cash, I'd happily fork it over
and if I had more space I'd happily pay you more than sixty bucks for that concinnus also, but not much more
beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I myself care for the blue snakes more in theory than in practice. I like concinnus better than infernalis, and I like the normal concinnus just fine, so while I see that your concinnus is beautiful, I myself would prefer a dull melanogaster

As to the breeding and reputation part
I do believe that breeding a variety on a largish scale like Scott (for example) takes space, and recordkeeping, and swallowing losses, just like many other businesses.

I also don't agree that anyone is "the best" breeder. He's simply the richest, been at it longer, and has some rare morphs. That doesn't make anyone "the best" breeder.

That's plain silly. As far as I know, Scott still has a day job.
The breeding part is creating good conditions and wishing for the best - there are no guarantees. How you interact with your customers - that's a whole other realm. Scott has done right by me many times, and I've not heard any complaints about him, have you? There aren't many people selling garters that inspire this kind of confidence

of course there is also the other publicity model - the one whereby complaints apparently get you google notoriety http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/bu...blicity&st=cse
please don't go for that model, even if it seems easier than the other kind

[infernalis]

I'll back Rhea on that.

I know for a fact that Scott still has a day job.

Call him up and ask him yourself, the number is everywhere including his site.

And please don't take this personally Richard, I don't mean this as malicious in any way.

But Scott has people skills.

[gregmonsta]

To be honest - the joys of business and fashion are beyond me. Wether it's a snake or clothes or cars or anything.
There's a certain amount of profiteering to be had with just about everything and it doesn't necessarily reflect on the quality of the item either.

The best, most overblown example is the royal python market - the most common excuse is - "think of the time it took to develop that morph"
That statement banks on the fact that, even though it took 5 years to develop, you don't think about all the other snakes hatched and sold in the process (ie, already covering itself). The greedy breeder then tries to pay his mortage with his 'one off'.

I'm so glad this isn't a regularity with garter snakes. You'll find that there is a distinct price difference between America, the UK and the European mainland. You would probably be very surprised by the comparisons and, to be honest, Scotts prices definately aren't overly excessive by any means.

At any rate, anyone can ask a price and you can choose to pay. I refuse to pay more than £100 for any snake out of principle just like I choose to stay away from branded goods and will never buy designer clothes, etc.

[ConcinusMan]

Unless you have concinnus with cherry red heads they just don't sell.Its always been like that in my experience.The three stripe ones don't sell either.Probally the same reason fitchi don't sell.

Yeah, lesson learned. I'm not breeding any of my normals next spring. Heck, I don't even have a normal male adult. Just two females and a hypoery male. I'm only going to breed my bluest anery trio since I can be relatively sure the babies will sell. They've been brumating since mid Nov. and I'm bringing them out in late Feb.

My normals (3 stripe and black headed) are typical in the extreme northern willamette valley and SW WA. I know now where to find the brightest spectacular looking ones. They are found from Salem southward and around Eugene. The northern one's just aren't all that spectacular I admit.

Oh, and day job or not, I don't even have to add up the prices of the snakes Scott sold in the past couple of months to know it comes to way more money than many of us have in the bank, and then there's the assets (the apparently valuable snakes he has) and that's what I was getting at. Maybe "richest" wasn't the right word for it.

Thanks everyone for the input and insight, and thanks for not "jumping down my throat". I'm really just trying to understand the market a bit since I'm new to this. I've never sold a snake in my life until this year. The input from all of you has been helpful.

[gregmonsta]

The price you quoted me is about 50-90 US dollars. I would only get that if I had a teleporter. No offense, but by the time you consider the cost of getting them there, the snakes that would not make it there alive, and cost of converting currency, I would probably net less than I can get right here in the USA.

really? ... If you sell the snakes .... at your price .... and the buyer is liable for transport costs .... then you don't lose a single penny surely?
I'm sure that possible losses from transport for such a long journey would not be your concern either considering the buyer is requesting the snake-marathon (24hr guarrantee might not apply in this situation). Buyers that choose to import are aware of the risks. As long as the condition and packing of the snakes is top .... you've done your job.

[ConcinusMan]

I'm just saying if I got that price for them from someone wanting to export them, that kills it right there since it wouldn't be profitable at all for the exporter. I just got a PM from someone wanting to export some next year. They want to pay "wholesale" prices. Well, if it's anything like this year, that would be about $5-$10 each. I honestly believe that the only reason there's any garters at all over there is because people have rounded up hundreds of WC snakes, and sold them to an exporter dirt cheap.

I sent some normal babies and one adult to an exporter this year. They only had to go from me to Florida. They made it just fine. From there, they went to Canada. NONE of the babies made it there alive.

[gregmonsta]

Well .... the power is yours to set the price you deem fit and stick to it. If you believe in the quality of your snakes set yourself some baselines.
Get an average shop value or breeder value and work from there
Eg - private sale to enthusiats - half shop price/average breeder rate
wholesale at a third of shop price
But then again I have no idea of the American market and won't consider wholesale in the future (considering that a lot of wholesalers aren't terribly well known for care provision).

[ConcinusMan]

Well .... the power is yours to set the price you deem fit and stick to it.

And end up keeping them all because they don't sell? No thanks. I was forced to drop the price down to almost nothing because I need to move them and nobody was buying otherwise.