Short answer: What Vanessa said.
How do I know I am making a fair deal?
Harald described it well with comparing prices and using your own judgement. There's a lot of factors to consider. Even between the same morph, an animal may express higher quality and command a higher price. Depending on the project, certain sexes will cost more. Animals that are older/larger than fresh hatchlings will have more work put into them and be priced higher. When it comes to something new, if it produces quicker - easy to breed, large clutches, or some sort of dominant morph - then the price will likely come down quicker. Also a big name in the business can generally get away asking more and a new hobby breeder may ask less to get by since they don't have a reputation attracting people.
Of course it's never exact, I'd do as much research as possible first~
Every seller has different feelings when it comes to offers. Some are just looking to unload animals or need cash quick, they might say OBO/Or Best Offer after their price to let you know they're open to it. Others don't mind hanging onto their animals and may say "firm" after it.
Personally I'm not one for making offers. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I usually consider most prices to be fair. If I think the seller is
way out there with what he's asking, then that'll probably make my mind up for me by killing my interest.
Everyone has their own idea of what constitues an insulting "lowball" offer, but just try to put yourself in their shoes. I'm of the personal opinion that it should never be more than 20% off what they're asking, but that's just me~
How do I transfer the money? (money orders?)
Paypal seems to be the most popular. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I believe it has limited protection when it comes to live animal purchases as a buyer. Like if you aren't happy with it's health, I think that so long as the seller provides a tracking number proving you got it, they're in the clear. But if you paypal it through a card, you can usually try a chargeback through your bank. On the seller's side, a buyer could hypothetically do that for an unjust reason and get away with the animal and the money.
I haven't had any issues with it either, I've just seen cases of folks who have and thought I'd throw that out for you. Also, they'll subtract a 3% fee.
As a seller, I really like
USPS money orders, but I have to admit that it doesn't offer much protection to the buyer. Also if you're doing a local deal and it's in cash, I probably wouldn't see anything wrong with it, but I wouldn't accept a check personally.
I guess you can use your own judgement on those, but I will say that if payment's going through snail mail, I'd make sure it's sent quicker than standard and that it has a tracking number. This way the buyer has a bit of protection in proving that the seller received it and nobody has to worry about it getting lost~
How should it look when it arrives to me?/how do I set up the shipping?
When it arrives to you, the
temperature-controlled box should hopefully be
undamaged and the animal packed
securely inside. A more fragile animal will probably be sealed in a ventilated deli cup and a larger probably in a cloth bag, there should be some sort of packing material (like crumpled up newspaper) to stop them from bouncing around too much and the box itself should be properly labeled and well insulated with foam. If the weather's warm, then cold packs should be used.
Too warm, and animals shouldn't be shipped at all! Or if it's real cold, then heat packs.
I agree that ShipYourReptiles is great for this sort of thing, here's a link to their FAQ~
http://www.shipyourreptiles.com/en/get_help
Should I update the person that my reptile has arrived safely?
Always!
Not only do most sellers state in their TOS that you only have so many hours afterwards to contact them if there's a problem, but it's also just common courtesy to let them know. Many will request you do it regardless to make sure, it can be pretty nerveracking having a live animal shipped.
As a seller, I'll be relieved. As a buyer, I'd usually consider the safe arrival of an apparently good animal the premature "end" of a deal and take the time in my response to sum up my thanks for everything~
Best of luck to you~