Possibly selling my garters

[sschind]

Decreasing sales over the last couple of years has forced me to close my shop. I am contemplating selling off my garters. This is a preliminary post to determine if anyone is interested. For now I will only sell them as a group and I will not ship them. I live in SE Wisconsin and you can pick them up or I can arrange to have them delivered to either Lee Watson's reptile Swap or the Grayslake Swap. or local delivery (up to 50 miles) can be arranged for a $25.00 fee. If I decide to split them up due to lack of interest in the group I will keep anyone in mind who expresses interest and let you know at that time. I will not split pairs unless you want to pay full price for one. Also, if I can not sell them locally, I will contemplate shipping in a month or two once things warm up a bit. Buyer will be responsible for shipping if I decide I need to go that route. I do have one possible claim on the Eastern Blacknecks from earlier correspondence so he will take precedence if he is still interested and if I decide to split and ship.

I will list the prices for the pairs but keep in mind that this is a group sale. These are the last of my personal collection so I am not giving them away. The only reason I am thinking of selling them is because once my store closes I will not be able to keep them in my apartment. If I can not get my asking price I will try to arrange with one of my employees to have her care for them. I am asking only what I paid for them when I bought them. If you think I paid too much then you won't be interested in them at these prices so you need not reply. I am not accepting offers at this time. I can try to get better pictures but I will tell you this much. The albino Checkereds are pretty much regular old albino checkereds. The Melanistic Easterns are Black snakes with a white chin and neck, also pretty standard. The Eastern Blacknecks on the other hand seem to be particularly bright. Their colors are not fading in the least. If you do a search you can find pictures I posted a few months ago compared to the ones now and they seem as bright to me. There are also pictures posted of the red sides under a post entitled Plains Garters (my mistake at the time)

I prefer email notification as I don't have the time to check back here very often now but I will try to make it back as often as I can.

Price for the group is $350.00 for local pickup or delivery to any of the swaps.


Here is what I have


1.1 Eastern Black Neck (Thamnophis cyrtopsis ocellatus) $150.00 Pair
Male was 14.51 grams on 2/1/07 female was 20.50 grams. Eating fish scented large pinkies.

1.1 Albino Checkered (Thamnophis marcianus marcianus) $50.00 pair
Male was 17.07 grams on 2/1/07 female was 17.47 grams. Eating unscented large pinkies.

1.1 Melanistic Eastern (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) $125.00 pair
Male was 18.92 grams on 2/1/07 female was 37.21 grams. Eating fish scented fuzzies and large pinkies.

2.0 Red Sided (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) 12.50 each
Male #1 weighed 5.95 grams on 2/1/07 male #2 weighed 6.53 grams. Eating rosies but take to them so well I doubt there will be a problem switching them over, at least to scented, pinkies soon.

0.0.1 Flame Eastern (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) freebie
This little guy will not eat on his own but will take rosies once you get them started. Currently I am getting about 3 rosies down him every 5 days. it is growing but ever so slowly.

Thanks for your consideration


Steve Schindler

[GarterGuy]

Hey Steve,
Sorry to hear about you having to shut down the pet store and sell off your garters. That is a real shame, I hope you have luck finding good homes for them, you've got a very nice collection there.
Roy

[Cazador]

Hi Steve,
Unfortunately, that's living proof that bad things happen to good people. I hate to hear of another pet shop going out of business. Your prices are more than fair, so I hope you find a buyer in your neighborhood very soon. Best wishes,
Rick

P.S. The weights seem really light unless they're all yearlings/newborns.

[sschind]

Thanks Roy, truth is, if I were a smart man I probably would have shut down two years ago. The only thing that kept me going was the idea of having to find a real job. Now that I am even further in debt the time has come to face reality.

Rick.

I got the eastern blacknecks and albino checkereds in late August and they couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks old at the time. The male Melanistic eastern was a problem feeder for the first couple of months I had him (got them in September) but I am not sure when they were born. The tiny flame that isn't eating on its own is a litter mate to them so I think they were probably early spring babies. They were CBB as were the checkereds. The EBs were cb from a WC female so they might have been later. I don't know when they usually pop in the wild. The red sides I got in December and they were very small. Another pet store had them before I got them and I think they were only getting a few guppies a week.

[abcat1993]

Too bad Petco and Petsmart are kind of taking over all small pet stores. I personally think that Petco should be the one going out of business because of it's bad care for pets. But maybe that's just me.

[sschind]

Personally, I don't see the problem being the big box stores. As much as they are lacking, from my perspective they bring more people into the hobby in a month than I could ever hope to in a year. Once these newbies get tired of not getting the answers they need at those stores they will search out the advice of those who do know what they are talking about (and I would like to think I am one of those) Once these people see that they are not getting the help they need from the box stores, and the prices at the small stores are just as competitive the serious ones will gravitate to the small specialty stores. In fact, to a well run store, having a petco or petsmart nearby can actually help. If the small store is struggling though, and a big box opens up nearby, the slowdown for the first 6-12 months could be enough to put them under.

In my opinion without a doubt, what has hurt the small stores most is the internet. There is no way that a small independent store can compete with the prices offered by place like LLL reptile, Big Apple Herp, Foster & Smith or Big Als. When an aquarium filter costs me $50.00 and F&S sells them to the public for $52.00 there is no way I can compete. Now with the ability to buy animals on line that area has taken a hit also. To make things worse, people can't get any help from these places so they come to the small store and get all the info they need then they go to the internet and buy everything that was suggested to them. Then, when something is wrong with what they bought on line they come back to the small store to have us fix the problem.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with people buying on line to save money. Things are tough for everybody and we all have to make ends meet. Its another form of competition and the way it is, if you can't compete you go under. That's business and I am not bitter about it. What gets me is the way a lot of people will piss and moan that there are no good pet shops around any more when they didn't support them when they were around. I saw a thread on one of the other groups about a year ago complaining about this very thing. One woman complained that the only good shop within a few hours of her had closed up and now she doesn't have anyone (other than on line) with any knowledge to help her out. After a few more posts it turned out that even though she spent a lot of time in the store she very rarely bought anything because she could get everything online much cheaper.

I guess the moral to my story is, if there is a shop that you like, support it as much as you can.

[Snaky]

I totally agree with you. I don't buy my animals in the pet store, but I try to buy all the decoration ( plastic plants, rocks, ..) and food (mice, fish). It would be a pitty if the shop disappeared . But with the Internet and exhibition... it's tough competition and everybody wants to reduce costs.

[Tori]

Hi Steve,
I am very sorry to hear about your store closing. I've thought quite a few times about opening one myself, but the outlook doesn't sound good for small pet stores. I live in Holland, Michigan. How long a drive would it be from here to where you are?

[sschind]

Snaky: I know that I will reward loyalty, Maybe I can't meet prices but I will do what I can when I can for my loyal customers. Like I said, I don't mind that you don't support me, just don't expect me to bend over backwards for you when you have a problem. I will help but I am not going to go out of my way just so you can go back to buying from someone else as soon as the problem is over.

true story, a guy called one time saying that his light fixture on his snake tank melted. He ordered a new one online but he was wondering if I had one he could BORROW until the new one arrived. I knew who the guy was, He came into the store occasionally just to look around, he never bought anything though. I told him he could buy another el cheapo fixture from the Hardware store and that's probably what he did.


Tori:

I did a map quest search for the address of the

Holland Convention & Visitor's Bureau

and I came up with 3 hours 43 minutes.

I live almost straight west of Holland (on the other side of the lake) about 25 miles from lake Michigan.

My address and zip code are

24730 75th St
Salem WI 53168

If you want to check it out yourself.

[Snaky]

My words about the reduce costs where more said in general. I know this is not possible. It's like asking a retailer to be as competitive as a wholesale bussines. But from a retailer you just know they will do whatever they can to help you.