Reptile Pricing Comission

[Classic]

Just a Sunday Morning thought. I've noticed some grumbling in the past while with regards to reptile prices; especially higher-end/morph animals.
I was thinking a discussion would be benificial to throw out some ideas.
Do you think a national "Suggested Price" could be a solution?

My thoughts were this: A stand alone alone web site or an addition to one of our great community forms with suggested prices for particular animals.

This would/may have to be an unbiased and average suggested price that is determined by average prices of a set number of breeders that are known.

For example and only for ease of explaination, i will use Mexican Milksnake.

As far as i know, there are a few people breeding Mexican milks in Canada, possibly 6-10 or maybe more. In this situation, all breeders would submit there suggested price and the average would be posted as the suggested asking price.

This is just a suggested price, not the set price. Everyone has the right to charge as they wish. I feel that people would conform to this especially if its to their benifit.

To keep this thread from being one big arguement, please only post your positive opinions for the time being. If you think its a good idea, vote on the thread and keep your "Hey , that's a great idea" comments out of this one.

After awhile, we can move over to the negetive comments, but negetive comments are unproductive this early in this discussion. Please keep your "this will never work" comments to yourself for now.

Ideas we should explore are endless but with everyone's constructive input, we could all benefit from this.

[peterm15]

i think the suggest price would be a great idea for more reason than one.. it may "limit" what is being charged as well as give people the peice of mind that they arent getting ripped off.. i know when getting an animal i feel "vaurinable" to being ripped.. this would offer a great reference to what is a round about price for certian animals..

rather than have a single set price it may be a better idea to have a range.. like 100-150 for exaple.. also with this kind of setup id be weary of buying a snake off someone who is way under suggested

my one concern is confusion with locality.. seeing as there arent as many ppl in say newfoundland the price for certian morph would be more expensive than here in ontaro.. id like to hear some ideas on how this would be managed..

[rrrrr]

When I want to find out what something is worth, I search the web for price lists etc. This site used to be great for that. Now with the ads getting deleted, there is no hostorical information on prices, and Canadian price lists are not always easy to find for some animals.

Sites like epinions.com have info on things like this. Rather than listing average asking prices, maybe people should be anonymously reporting the prices at which animals sell. A site could list the price range...high, low, average, and standard deviation. This would be a more honest evaluation of market prices than a suggested price.

Note that this would only benefit consumers. All producers would end up having to compete with the prices of the cheapest cut-rate hobbyist in the biz.

[Classic]

Some very good points. We are apart of a hobby that will always have people that are renagades and will always sell for rock bottem prices. Situations will always be different. This organization, if i may call it so, can have a membership and a seller can state verbally or with a website verified member crest of some sort to a prospective buyer that he belongs to a fair price commision.
With growing membership and participation of the majority of breeders is the only way to legitimatize such a pricing medium.

As a group, price fixing is not accepted as well as not allowed under the view of the law.

Monopoly: a market structure characterized by only one business supplying a product with no close substitutes and restricts entry to the industry.

We would be offering a suggested price, ot a fixed price agreed upon by breeders.

Monopolistic competition: a market structure characterized by many buyers and selers of slightly different products and it is easy to enter and leave the industry.

Oligopoly: a market structure characterized by only a few businesses offering standard or similar products and gives restricted entry to the industry.

Just a couple definitions to read through and maybe explore a little.

I think the potential is there for benifits for both buyers and sellers.

[robert regan]

I would strongly support any established pricing standard, I am a small breeder of pythons and boas, it is difficult to set a reasonable price when the references that I have avalible are retailers who are all over the map with thier pricing.

[Tim_Cranwill]

Maybe in a perfect world, but I highly doubt it would work well in real life. There are too many factors to make such a list useful to me. When I look at buying an animal, I look at a bunch of factors; who produced it, what line/stock it comes from, who is selling it (a huge factor), why and when they are selling it, how much it costs, how old and big it is, how well it feeds, where the seller is located and etc. I'm sure most people look at those factors and more.

Honestly, all anyone needs to do is browse a few breeder's web sites and couple classified forums to see what he going rates are anyway. The list might be of use to people newer in the hobby to save them from paying $300 for a normal male ball python, for example, but chances are, if the people have found your list on the net, they have been around a bit anyway.

For the most part, prices work themselves out. If things are priced on the lower side, they sell. If they are priced on the higher side, they don't... or they take longer to sell. Supply and demand have been setting prices for a long, long time and they usually work. Making a list of suggested prices would not only have to give too wide a range to be of much use, but it would also have to be updated on at least a bi-annual or quarterly rate to be of any use.

Too many factors, too much work, not enough use.

My two cents. :)

[emilsmee]

i agree, one factor that would make it so it doesn't really work is how the animal looks compares to others of it's species, or even in it's clutch. breeders often set prices based on quality of pattern one clutch can range from $150- 500 just based on how the breeder graded their pattern.
it would also be more complicated to list female prices and male prices. i mean het albino male ball $150, het albino female ball $1000. and different species it's the same for males and females, heck even within balls some morphs (as well as normals) are the same price. so if the people you're targeting are new people to the hobby they have to first understand why there are different prices for males and females of some and not other species/morphs. chances are while they research as anyone does now, they'll see the different grades and qualities and slowly understand why morphs and sexes matter in pricing. (heck, i still don't understand the pricing of some people's version of 'jungle' ball pythons)


emily

[clint545]

good topic, good points by everyone so far.
If I go to a breeder or expo with ,say for example ,$1000 to purchase one reptile, I'm expecting myself to have a fair good idea on what that $1000 animal is going to look like/bloodline/value etc. etc.
Like Tim said, if it's underpriced it will sell quickly, but make myself question, why it's so low, and what kind of care it's recieved if the seller is so anixious to sell it/them.
If the animal is WAY overpriced for what it is, then who's too blame the seller, or the person that buys it at that price?

[Classic]

I would think that posibilities could be endless when it comes to colours, morphs, sex, size, breeder/non-breeder, old/young.

I was figuring it would help with making almost any perspective buyer feel comfortable knowing that they are in the same ballpark as the "suggested price list".

I also thought that if breeders were apart of an organization and abide by current posted prices; it would be a great selling point to be if your a registered breeder and controled by the guidlines.

Hondurans and Ball Pythons would obviously need a huge list of morphs with suggested prices for each.

Just for the record; it is not my intention to build this site but just to spark some interest and gainful conversation for options that maybe needed in the future.

[emilsmee]

i also think that prices change way too often. every breeding season, supply meets demand as more breeders are breeding rarities hoping to get in on lucrative morphs that they paid top dollar for a couple seasons ago. as more are offered to the public they become easier to find and everone is forced to compete for sales, otherwise they're left with snakes that they have to feed and house until they're willing to drop the price.
that's what i've noticed anyway...