Observations Of A Closed Society

demand for reptiles was much greater then than it is today

Jerry do you have numbers on this or is it a judgement based on experience. Nothing wrong with judgement as many things can't be measured just curious if you had a source for numbers. I've been looking for numbers to base market share and potential martket analysis on. The last thing I read was out of Pet Product News that stated the reptile/amphibian market was the only sector to grow in the last 3 years. Now this could have been due to an increase in popularity in reptiles or in a decline in the other areas (who wants a noisy bird ?).

One thing about the Internet that has turned the reptile industry for the worse is Take for example KS. There are a few individuals on there (They are members of this site as well) that advertise their animals to the public at the same price as they offer them to their wholesale clients. I personally feel this is not good for anyone as all it does it make people think that is the normal price on certain animals. I am of the mindset that if I am going to advertise my animals on KS I don't undercut the competition to drastically.

Honestly if I wanted to I could get on KS or Fauna and sell animals at alot less than what I have on my wholesale price list but what good does that do? It makes the customers expect everything that much cheaper and prevents the people that rely on their online retail sales to make their living. I believe that competition is good to a degree but the ones that try and ruin it and basically make themselves have no competition is not good. These sellers only care about the quick sale and not about anything else. I personally would rather treat, care for, and acclimate an animal a little while and be able to sell it direct to a customer at a little higher price and not only make a little more money but make one of my customers that much happier that they are getting a quality animal and not just one animal that just arrived and has not been cared for at all but lower in price.

Another thing is specially here in Florida it seems that every week there is 1 or 2 NEW people selling reptiles. They go into Strictly or some of the other wholesalers that will sell to pretty much anyone at their wholesale prices, mark the price up a very small amount and then resell it online. And alot of these NEW sellers turn out to be nothing more than a rip off anyway. I have worked hard for my business, paid all needed for my licenses and do everything that is required by both the Federal, State and Local Government to conduct my business but so many of these NEW sellers are not licensed in the least and have no responsibility of a business.

Ok OK Ok I know I probably sound like a complaining old man now so I will stop my Rant

I would dearly love to expand my little basement-dwelling operation into a full-fledged business, but I find the limitations on shipping in my area to be too much of a hinderance toward my goals, so I stay small intentionally.

Even so, it seems to me that the types of changes about which you all are discussing are not at all unique to the reptile trade industry. In fact, I would imagine that Ford felt the same way toward those "upstarts" over at Oldsmobile!

Not to be too unoriginal, but the old maxim is true: The only constant in business is change! I suppose that's how saying get to be old maxims ... by their veracity.

LMAO. I actually had an importer call me (ordered some supplies). In talking he asked about us carrying his animals so I told him to email me over his current list and I'd take a look. Got his list and happened to be looking through KS's classifieds. There he was offering the same animal for a $1 more at 1 ea than he was offering me in 10 lots. Told him I wasn't interested.

This industry does not have a clear definition of the term "wholesale" (probably Jerry's rant from the beginning). I had a person come up to me at a show wanting to buy dragons wholesale. No problem, how many do you want (so I can figure out which bracket to put him in). "1 only, thanks". Whipping out my Websters I couldn't find "wholesale" defined as 1

Dan,

I agree! OUTLAW all the Noisey Birds

I get that exact thing all the time when I have bearded (and other reptiles as well). They e-mail to find out what my prices are in quantities then they say ok I will take 2 at the price I am quoting them in a 20 lot. Just like not that long ago, I had a 20 lot of beardeds on KS being sold only in the 20 lot for price X. Well this customer basically demanded that I sell to them at the same price that I normally sell them in 50 or greater size lots. Sometimes it makes me laugh and sometimes it burrs my rear

Rob,

You posted while I was still typing, so I didn't address what you said, but I agree 100%!!!

One of the things I hate to see is wholesalers trying to be retailers, without taking a price differentiation into account. This summer, I saw an ad for some higher end animals, being sold for about half their retail value (not as part of some short term sale, either!). Well, I did not really have the money to get them all, but I went ahead and did, simply because I did not want that guy ruining the market for the rest of us!

If you (this is the generic, indescriminate "you" here!) have animals that you want to sell quickly, go to a wholesaler, or known breeders, and offer them the deal in private. Why make the market price suffer just because you need a quick fix? Not only does it hinder the efforts of others, but even if you don't care what happens to your friends/competitors, such an action is short-sighted for the needs that you may well be having when YOU want to sell that morph/snake again someday. I just don't understand the logic of some among us.

As to "new" sellers, I don't have a problem with them, so long as they identify themselves as such. We all started somewhere, but those who want to say they have 10 years experience when they are but 18 years old are a real danger to the industry!

We have the same problem...always have. We call them "station wagon dealers". (Showing my age there to...how many station wagons do you see these days!!!LOL's!) They do not have a state permit, county occupational, no overhead(They do not keep any specimens or have cages for them if they did want to hold them!)Plus many do not have a clue as to the care of what they sell or do they care. They go down to a dealer on a weekend and buy 100 iguanas for 1.75 and sell them for 2.75. I can't do this... By the time I pay for fuel and tolls-40.00 Pay shipping and Brokers. Bring them back to the shop and hydrate/feed them. Hold them for two-three days to weed out any weak or sick ones. Deliver them to a pet shop...more gas and time. Plus figure in my phone calls, electricity etc. etc. No way I can compete. The only good thing is that my customers have dealt with these morons and are willing to pay more for high quality specimens that have someone that will back them up and can tell them how to get out of trouble if they have any!!! I always put single and 3 lot prices on my wholesale list. The prices are high enough that the real wholesale purchasers can get the deals they need. My wholesale prices are often rather high... This reflects the time I put into making sure that the specimens are healthy and most of the time treated for parasites and feeding. Just as with the reatil market, if you supply a better product people will pay. I still get those that have the out of the shipping box mentality though! The big problem lies in two areas. 1) The dealers that sell to these guys for the same price they do to "Real" wholesale dealers. 2) These weekend warrior wanna be's that sell directly to the pet shops' customers for the same price that they sell to the pet shop themselves! They just don't understand that they are cutting their own throats. We had a guy in our area recently that was doing exactly the same thing. He sold to many shops in my area for barely over what I paid. Within three weeks the shops were calling me to find out what was wrong with the sick animals they purchased. Many of them called him and told him to come back and pick up his sick animals. Who did he call for help...me of course! I helped him out anyway because I didn't want to see the animals die. I took a considerable amount of time explaining the care and treatment of the animals he had sold. What did I get out of it? Nothing. But, the people who purchased from him knew that I was the one who helped. They will remember that in the future. These upstarts don't concern me much. Irritating yes. The other thing is that the dealer that sold to him took advantage of his lack of experience and sold him junk or animals that they couldn't sell. Great ethics with both parties. I agree with Rob I could sell wholesale on the net to retail customers as well. However, there's a reason that all types of business's have importers. wholesalers, jobbers and retailers.

and it may sound terrible, but we had no concern for the de -populating an area or country for that matter of fact when I was importing. It would not be feasable to bring in the quantites of herps that I brought in as it would surpass all the importers of today. Imagine over 200 boxes per month. between 3 countries in Africa, and this went on for years. If I would mention this, no one would believe me, or worse , would think that I lost my mind posting this way, but it is a fact. I cannot tell you other than my experience as a reference. But to give you an example, over 20 thousand Jackson chameleons per year just on that item. Our facility was 20,000 sq ft. and we had the business run like a well tuned swiss watch.

But I would like to put that aside for a moment to address some of the other difficulties that I have observed in this fascinating business. We were a self- regulatory operation. Nothing illegal, and strictly above board in our operation. My philosophy was a simple one. I offered to make money for other people, if they purchased from me. Not only that , but I offered protection. Everyone made out well. Week in and week out dealers would line up outside of our premise at 4 or 5 in the morning, and the doors would open, and you had your pick of whatever you wanted like a candy store. If you were not a recognized dealer, we would approach it differently, but thats how we ran our business. No one had permits, their was no problems with fish and wildlife, and we all knew each other. Even if you were short financially, the monies were made up at a later date.

This is exactly the way Chris from LA Reptiles runs her business today. Patterned right after the way we did it 40 years ago. Although the times may have changed, the philosophy has not. Chris makes money for her clients, and her clients know better than to test the waters by not screwing around with her.

Todays market is drastically different, and the flood gates have opened so wide its impossible to differentiate who is whom. If I were Jeff from Kingsnake, I would only allow wholesalers to advertise in a wholesale section, a breeders section for breeders, an import section for importers and so on. How that would be achieved is not so simple, but it could be done. Here you have a hodgepodge of wholesalers selling to individuals, individuals buying from importers, children representing themselves as a business, and on and on. No control, people hiding behind emails, and a trail of blood money that reads like a nightmare novel when you hear some of these stories on the BOI

I feel sorry for Rob and alot of other great people who have tried to elevate themselves to a standard that keeps on hitting a brick wall, and as a pessimist at heart, I see in the not to distant future, the ruination of the herp industry because things today always seem to lead to a health issue. I was around when the salmonella wars occurred between the health dept and the turtle breeders, and I fear that the day will come when you will need a health permit to ship any herp via airlines. Its just a matter of time.

Sorry Iam going off tangent here, but it just takes one individual to bring a problem to a health official, and things have a way of boomeranging out of proportion. Also, imagine, with all the animals that we were bringing in, not once with one exception, did we ever receive a visit from fish and wildlife at our establishment. Now compare that to their appearances at these shows of today and the waste of time and manpower that they go through to check these operations and what there inventory is, their permits, etc. Look at the ambiguous laws from one state to another even in transporting herps accross state lines. It can be a nightmare. I am enclosing another article that I have, its only the first page, of a 5 page article that was written about our business i believe in 1975. You may find it interesting.

the disease that effects this business. It has taken the quality dealer out of the picture when their are no rules to the game. If you read some of rambling posts you will see that one of the items I offered my customers was protection from the very thing that you are talking about. Thats the destructive nature that this herp enterprise has dwindled to. Its an emplosion, a cancer that is destroying the essence of this business from the inside out.

Thats what gets me so upset sometimes when I read some of these posts. The reptile business should have evolved from when I was in it to a worthy institution with all the advances in husbandry, and communications. But instead , you have a business that seems to have everyone lnvolved in one large pot, we have lost sight of the direction of what is considered a normal way of doing business. Nothing is normal anymore, and people seem to go out of their way to get attracted to this business because their are no ethics when it comes to money.

Insofar as the animals themselves, they were fresher than what is delivered today. Most animals were caught by the trappers over the weekend and shipped either Mon. or Tues. By the time we received them, usually on Wed or Thurs. they were sold. 80% of all livestock was pre sold before the plane landed. We had no forms of communications as we do today, but we had a system that allowed us to know in advance what we were getting. The airlines would receive what was called a telex with the list of what was being sent at least 48 hours before the animals arrived. They would call us and gave the list over the phone. That gave us enough time to notify by phone our accounts. This was the norm of doing business. No permits were necessary for fish and wildlife, and the flow of animals were uninterupted until the mid 70s when things began to change. It was at that time that we attempted to form an International Reptile Organization.