Ball Python's not selling?

If you want to sell your snakes, price them right, breed what others are not, and breed what people want. I sell out every year. I only produce around 50 Balls, but 40 plus were morphs. Stay small, and it might be a good idea to find a couple morphs you like, and specialize in Morph A and Morph B and combos using them.

Dave

Originally Posted by David Reid

If you want to sell your snakes, price them right, breed what others are not, and breed what people want. I sell out every year. I only produce around 50 Balls, but 40 plus were morphs. Stay small, and it might be a good idea to find a couple morphs you like, and specialize in Morph A and Morph B and combos using them.

Dave

Nice to hear someone with a business plan that is being well executed.

in response to the comment about there being to many shows, I'm not getting into breeding but i have a small collection of snakes that i enjoy and that i think stand out on some way or another. The amount of shows i believe is helping the hobby although it makes it harder on the individual sellers. I have a friend for example who was on the fence about buying a snake but wasn't sure. We had gone to several of the shows in Florida but he couldn't make up his mind. Longer story short we ended up buying a hognose at an Orlando show and gladly payed more for a snake that came from a reputable dealer that we both had seen before and after a check by me had received immaculate reviews on the BOI. At the same time though there were several tables where the sellers couldn't tell me what snake they were selling or the snakes were in sub-par condition. The shows bring out the best and the worst and as somebody had said earlier you just have to try to set yourself apart from the pack.

Originally Posted by David Reid

If you want to sell your snakes, price them right, breed what others are not, and breed what people want. I sell out every year. I only produce around 50 Balls, but 40 plus were morphs. Stay small, and it might be a good idea to find a couple morphs you like, and specialize in Morph A and Morph B and combos using them.

Dave

Agreed. That's what I'm already doing myself. I have produced nothing like 50 balls a year (I usually have one or two clutches), but I have narrowed down my morphs, mainly for space issues. I'm not a huge fan of racks--I prefer stackables, so obviously, not as many of those will fit in the same space that a rack would. But it has limited me to keeping and working with the morphs that I prefer myself.

And the animals I now have (less one--still planning to get a high-quality butter) are the morphs and the combos I want to work with. I don't have a mojave because everyone else has them and I prefer the lessers/butters anyway. Yeah, mystic potions are kinda cool and all, but overall I like more of the the butter/lesser combos--I much prefer a lesserbee to a mojave spider. I also belive in quality animals--when I bought my pastel this year (very late in the morph game for me), I knew I wanted an adult so that I could see how it held its color as an adult. And I believe I found one that is rather exceptional. But since everyone has a pastel, there is only one normal female in my collection that I will breed him to, because she is lighter than average and will hopefully produce some quality pastels rather than the dirty, browned-out pastels that have flooded the market (especially in my own area). Of course, those who buy the cheapest pastels just to say they have them, and then turn around and breed them only to produce dirty, cheap offspring, only drive the prices down for those who are trying to breed quality. Why pay higher for a nice morph when you can get this ugly one for cheap? Then you too can breed it, produce more ugly ones, and sell those for cheap. This hobby used to be about selective breeding, but it's becoming more and more "popular" breeding from people just trying to make a quick buck. They breed as many as they can as fast as they can and don't care about quality anymore.

Originally Posted by David Reid

If you want to sell your snakes, price them right, breed what others are not, and breed what people want. I sell out every year. I only produce around 50 Balls, but 40 plus were morphs. Stay small, and it might be a good idea to find a couple morphs you like, and specialize in Morph A and Morph B and combos using them.

Dave

We are the same way, we sell out every year with 200+ babies. Ranging from $25-$8000. Usually the higher dollar animals will go first!! We didn't have a problem selling anything this year, except Normals!

I know this is an older post, but I will put in my 2 cents. I am new to ball python breeding, but I still have purchased the best ball morphs that I could find. As for the price, I really dont base my purchase on that as much as the quality of the animal (as long as they are willing to do a payment plan). And I can tell you that if you have good customer service and actually care to talk, and answer your costumers questions, you will sell. I have bought from some of the bigger breeders and have gone back because of the great communication they had. As for breeding goes, (like any beginner) I have to start out with the lower morphs before I get into the higher morphs. But I am mostly doing this so that I can produce the snakes I want, I am keeping my collection low, and may end up selling a good portion of it whenever I can get the bigger morphs I want and specialize in a certain area. Thats just me though

Originally Posted by David Reid

If you want to sell your snakes, price them right, breed what others are not, and breed what people want. I sell out every year. I only produce around 50 Balls, but 40 plus were morphs. Stay small, and it might be a good idea to find a couple morphs you like, and specialize in Morph A and Morph B and combos using them.

Dave

Couldn't have said it better, quality snakes and good customer service and selectively breeding stuff that 10,000 other people aren't producing will put you in a good position to sell what you make.

here at Medusa Reptiles (Cristie and Marc) marc has been breeding reptiles for 22 yrs and has seen the market have its ups and downs. We breed the reptiles we like and go from there if your out to breed for $$$$$ you could be disappointed couse the time you buy a 1500.00 animal and take the time to grow it up to breeder age the price COULD drop pretty quick. We do the old stand by as in corn,kings,milks,beardeds,leopards and a few monitors but we have a few high end animals aswell that we do becouse we like them.

Medusa Reptiles
Winfield, Ks

Good customer service and good feed back from customers is the most important thing in selling anything. Word of mouth works!!!!!!!