So they have been around a very, very long time....so have I and countless other annonymous herpers. Does their being around a very long time justify their massive over production?
Your impressed.....I am shocked......difference of perception and values!
I also think thread has stayed on topic, since the video is basically a tribute to their mass production capabilities. When I see that video I wonder with all of their overhead costs are they able to adjust production to flow with the economy or do they have to, or choose to, pump out just as much if not more and offer deep price cuts to move their inventory. Their price cuts were very evident at Daytona, but like Wally World swamping a few mom&pop shops their tables seemed busy. But....see.... now we are not talking about herptoculture we are talking about Walmart style business practices. That is a big turn off for me.
To me mass production and herpetoculture are two conflicting ideolegies!
"Massive over production"? Says who? Mark bought a lot of cornsnakes from me for resale, so it appears to me that he is selling the stuff and needs to buy more to keep up with demand. I am certain I am not the only one who sells him animals, so obviously he is actually UNDER producing relative to his potential sales opportunities.
As for price cuts, have you taken a look at the economy this year? EVERYONE across the board has to make price cuts, pretty much no matter what they are selling, or they don't sell a darn thing. That is the reality of the situation. Sure, it would be nice if everyone kept the prices up until YOU could sell out your animals at the prices you want, but it doesn't always work out that way, now does it? I've had countless people tell me point blank that they feel they need to undercut my prices simply because I have a well known reputable *name* and they don't, so they need to undercut my prices in order to make sales. In other words, if you can't compete against reputation, then you have to compete with prices. Like that should be OK with me.
Yeah, I'm sure that when a well known name in the business also cuts prices to make a sale, it certainly does throw the "countless anonymous sellers" for a loop. After all, if they can't compete based on their hoped for prices any longer, don't have any notable reputation to back them up, and HAVE to cut their prices even lower to be even competitive, I guess it does hurt them a bit. So a reputable well known *name* also cutting prices is "unfair"? How so?
That's just what competition is all about! That is why people go to shows in the first place to check out the competitive bidding for their dollars. And yeah, MANY people will go to the bigger name breeders first, and yes, if their prices ARE very competitive, they may not even get to your table before they have already spent their money. That's just the way it goes.
As for mass production being a bad thing, sorry, in my opinion, as long as the producer can afford to maintain those animals and can sell them now or before he or she is operating in the red by maintaining them, then what that is telling me is that there is still a healthy market for those animals. Granted, perhaps they are capable of taking away YOUR sales by being so competitive in price AND having the reputable and well known name to back them up, but how is that their problem? I can't think of a single person (or business) that is considered as a "big name" in this business who did not bust their butt to get there, and has gone far out on a limb financially in order to get where they are today. If they can now reap the rewards of their hard labor and sticking their neck WAY out in order to try to make a thriving business out of something that most certainly started out as a hobby, well more power to them. I believe they earned it. Most of these people have likely LOST more money in animals each year than most of us will ever MAKE during the entire time we are in this business. Yeah, that's right. Animals will die. Regardless of how much they cost you, or the potential income they could have produced for you, some will just up and die anyway. That's the risk you take, and that is the risk those big names have taken all along the way hoping that eventually things will pay off for them.
When I was at Mark and Kim's place, what I saw more than anything else was an immense amount of WORK. Even trying to manage 30 employees would be a nightmare in itself. I can imagine the overhead is quite a lot to have to bear up under, and I believe they are under a LOT of pressure to sell animals just to make ends meet every month. What would you think their payroll is like every month? What about the cost of rodents to feed all those animals? ANYONE who has done this in any volume at all knows that the overhead is quite a lot, and the real profit margins not all that one would hope for. So yeah, they do mass produce animals, but from what I saw, quite a few of those animals that they have are really still somewhat of a hobby for Mark. Mark pulled out quite a number of animals to show Connie and I that were marked as *keepers* with the obvious intention of working with newer and interesting things. Just as most of us do, but on a much, much smaller scale. Hell, I was getting burned out just holding back 300 or so animals a year. I really can't imagine how many animals Mark holds back. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, NO ONE is going to do that much work for something that is just a Walmart methodology about selling animals. Quite frankly, that sort of work, financial burden, and just flat out initiative would earn most people FAR more money if put into over avenues with a lot less overhead involved.
Honestly, in my opinion, I have never considered the large producers of animals as being much of a problem in the production and sale at shows or on the net. Actually from what I have seen, the market is FAR more influenced by the basement breeder who really doesn't have any stake at all in maintaining a business presence from one year to the next. Their only goal at a show is to get rid of their animals, no matter what. Ask most of them if it is either Saturday or Sunday where they make the most sales, and they will likely say Sunday, by far. So why is that? Well because on Sunday they slashed prices to MOVE the stuff so they wouldn't have to take it all back home. Many don't have a real business nor opportunity to sell their animals after the show is over with, so they will lower the prices absolutely as low as possible until someone, ANYONE, buys those animals from them. THAT, in my opinion, has done far more damage to far more people in this *business* then all of the "mass producers" of animals combined.
