How do people afford....

[connorrm]

Okay how does everyone break into the big time for reptiles...when you get morphs where to you get the ridiculous amounts of money to do so? Are some people just nice and give them away?? Why are some co-dom morphs more expensive than others. Spiders are WAY more than pastels in bp but they are both co-dom? Seems to be the trend for every thing.....leos, boas, etc; I myself am planning on focusing on boa locales cause they are interesting and I just can't afford to break into morphs.....grrr. I would like to hear how everyone deals with the expense etc; as there doesn't seem to be many millionaires into snakes.

 

[hhmoore]

or should the question be - did anybody actually buy bumblebees for the sticker price of $35,000 in late '04??

 

[cryptly]

I'm working a ton of overtime at work so I can save money for a couple of Mack Snow leopard geckos. My job is boring as hell, but it pays well and with OT being time-and-a-half I should have enough for a snow or two fairly quick (If I can tolerate spending much more time at work! ).

I've seen many dealers offering payment plans for high end animals.

 

[christopher66]

I married into money.Just being honest


Christopher

 

[jglass38]

or should the question be - did anybody actually buy bumblebees for the sticker price of $35,000 in late '04??

Haha! I am sure a few did! Who knew that by 06 you could be making your own for under $3K? As far as where the money comes from, its different for different folks. I have known some people that have cashed out their 401K and spent $15,000 in one week (which I don't see the wisdom in) to some that had some extra savings. Its an investment (or gamble if you like) just like any other with a possible rate of return higher than any other type of investment. For me personally, I don't have a ton of money to drop on morphs. So I do some long and short payment plans. For you, maybe the answer is to buy a 100% het male and a bunch of poss het females (from a reputable breeder of course) and start a nice recessive project that way (I forgot if we were talking about BPs or Boas). Lots of people have done it! Good luck!

 

[High End Herps Inc]

Okay how does everyone break into the big time for reptiles...when you get morphs where to you get the ridiculous amounts of money to do so? Are some people just nice and give them away?? Why are some co-dom morphs more expensive than others. Spiders are WAY more than pastels in bp but they are both co-dom? Seems to be the trend for every thing.....leos, boas, etc; I myself am planning on focusing on boa locales cause they are interesting and I just can't afford to break into morphs.....grrr. I would like to hear how everyone deals with the expense etc; as there doesn't seem to be many millionaires into snakes.

Different breeders offer different payment plans or varying methods of obtaining the morphs one may want, on easy to manage terms. For instance, with us, to open a payment plan on any species or morph one only need send an initial payment of 50 dollars to open a Payment Plan Account. Then, thereafter, they may pay as little or as much as they want, whenever they want, as long as they don't lapse more than 90 days between payments. I have payment plan customers accross the entire imaginable spectrum. One customer sends me 10 to 20 dollars every 2 to 3 months for their blood python. Another customer sends 50 per week, like clockwork, towards a Hybrid Rock/Burm dbl het albino/green for 3,000 total. It'll be paid off in roughly 15 months at this rate. Our payment plans are 100% interest free. These methods make it easy for these and our other customers to get the morphs they want even if they are on a tight budget. I don't know of any other breeders that are as flexible as us, but there may very well be. I hope more will follow suit soon. We all need to make it as easy as possible for folks to get the morphs they have thus far only dreamed of owning.

David Beauchemin
High End Herps Inc
http://www.highendherps.com/
318 335-3673

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Different breeders offer different payment plans or varying methods of obtaining the morphs one may want, on easy to manage terms. For instance, with us, to open a payment plan on any species or morph one only need send an initial payment of 50 dollars to open a Payment Plan Account. Then, thereafter, they may pay as little or as much as they want, whenever they want, as long as they don't lapse more than 90 days between payments. I have payment plan customers accross the entire imaginable spectrum. One customer sends me 10 to 20 dollars every 2 to 3 months for their blood python. Another customer sends 50 per week, like clockwork, towards a Hybrid Rock/Burm dbl het albino/green for 3,000 total. It'll be paid off in roughly 15 months at this rate. Our payment plans are 100% interest free. These methods make it easy for these and our other customers to get the morphs they want even if they are on a tight budget.

Sounds like you'd be on the loseing end with this method. Holding onto a snake for 12-15 months until it's paid off would be a feeding/houseing bill that you loose out on profit. Or do you charge monthly feeding/houseing fees?

Per my terms, I require a 25% non refundable deposit. Orders with a value of less than $500 are expected to be paid in full within 10 business days. Orders totaling $500 or more can have additional payment time if required by our customer, to be determined on a case by case basis.

However, I would never do a year payment plan without charging feeding/houseing fees.

 

[The BoidSmith]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but my interpretation of David’s words was that he was not saving “that” special snake for the customer. After the payment is complete the customer will receive a similar baby of that morph that David will still be producing. Maintaining an animal for over a year free of interest will not be economically sustainable.

 

[Griz]

When I decided to get back into Boa's, after a 10 year hiatus, I knew that in order to get the fastest payback would be to invest in a morph that was just at the affordable level. I spent close to $50,000 in the past year and have made back most of my money on this years litters. It's a gamble and one in which paid off for me.

The key here is not to go into debt to do this. My $50,000 was my money to do with as I pleased. It was not 401K money, I did not take out a second mortgage, or anything else crazy that I have heard about.

You simply have to plan well, and make sure you plan out 5-8 years down the road. That is the only way to get "into" the game and even then you will probably never be at the top.

Griz

 

[The BoidSmith]

The secret is not to cut corners. It takes time. If you can't afford that covetted morph wait and save. Don't go for the "cheap" deals. They are usually the most costly ones. Start slowly, and learn in the meantime if you are persistent enough you will eventually get there. Anyways, "who wants to be a millonaire"?

Regards

 

[High End Herps Inc]

Sounds like you'd be on the loseing end with this method. Holding onto a snake for 12-15 months until it's paid off would be a feeding/houseing bill that you loose out on profit. Or do you charge monthly feeding/houseing fees?

Per my terms, I require a 25% non refundable deposit. Orders with a value of less than $500 are expected to be paid in full within 10 business days. Orders totaling $500 or more can have additional payment time if required by our customer, to be determined on a case by case basis.

However, I would never do a year payment plan without charging feeding/houseing fees.

No, I do not charge feeding/housing costs and it does not put me on the losing end by any terms, much less one concerning profit. I own and maintain a very large rodentry building and we breed mice, rats and rabbits in it on a VERY large scale. Because of this our snake food is incredibly inexpensive. I currently have over 40 customers on payment plans and all of their snakes are fed for free. In addition to this free service they can actually choose how big they want their snake to be when they get it. So it can be fed many more, larger meals, or much smaller, more infrequent meals (always within the perimeters of a healthy diet). Most folks choose the latter so they can receive a snake that is still small that they can grow with themselves. But all in all, whether they choose to receive a larger snake or a smaller snake it does not cost me more than say, 1 to 4 actual dollars per month to feed each snake. Rats cost roughly 20 cents to raise to large and rabbits are even cheaper per pound (in terms of the cost of rodent feed).

The BoidSmith's Quote:[Correct me if I’m wrong, but my interpretation of David’s words was that he was not saving “that” special snake for the customer. After the payment is complete the customer will receive a similar baby of that morph that David will still be producing. Maintaining an animal for over a year free of interest will not be economically sustainable.]

No, the customer selects their snake out of numerous pictures/individuals and I raise that particular snake to the exact size that they want it at the time their payment plan comes to an end. Housing the extra snakes is not a hardship in terms of actual space as we have quite large facilities but I must admit that it can be quite an added chore to care for our 200+ snakes and then 50 or 60 extras. But I wanted to offer up something different and entirely new in the snake market and our customers really love it. It's a small price to pay to have an extra hour or so each day of cage cleaning and or maintenance.

David Beauchemin

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Doing the math on a year at $4 a month with 40 customers with one snake each, that puts your feeding bill at $1,920. That of course does not include the energy & substrate bills. Though being in Louisiana, I wouldn't know how much electricity/gas you would use through the seasons.

I would see it being worth while if each snake cost over $1,000 & you have the space to house additional animals. That definitely would not work with me. Maybe one day, but I just think a year+ is just a little ridiculous.

 

[The BoidSmith]

Doing the math on a year at $4 a month with 40 customers with one snake each, that puts your feeding bill at $1,920. That of course does not include the energy & substrate bills. Though being in Louisiana, I wouldn't know how much electricity/gas you would use through the seasons.

I would see it being worth while if each snake cost over $1,000 & you have the space to house additional animals. That definitely would not work with me. Maybe one day, but I just think a year+ is just a little ridiculous.

That's why I thought David was not talking about a specific snake. Even with "free rodents" (which we currently raise) it wouldn't work for us either. In our case it might work with very expensive snakes only. Even with them it would depend on the length of time as the cost of the hourly labor will be the "killer" and not the room or feed. The most I have seen with big breeders is 90 days or thereabouts. Of course they are more apt to do it if we are talking of 3 installments of $1,000 for a $3,000 snake. But hey! If it works for David and his customer base that's all that matters.

Regards

 

[hhmoore]

I think it is great that David is willing to offer extended and (incredibly) flexible payment plans...but can't help but wonder where/when the line will have to be drawn. At some point, there is a saturation level...the more snakes you are holding on "lay-away", and the more you produce, the more likely you are to reach it. At that point, the extra care required will be deemed "too much" or "not worth it"...of course, that is from the perspective of one that has no help with animal maintenance, and works 2 "real" jobs besides (sometimes I feel like I am at that saturation point, just with my own animals - never mind babies or something somebody is making payments on).
I haven't been selling anything high dollar, so I haven't had a need for extended payment options; but I have held an order for about 4 months with a 25% deposit (special conditions made it seem prudent). In that instance, I believe I ended up charging the person an extra $15...but that was mostly for the requested Saturday delivery.

 

[The BoidSmith]

Particulalry if we have to also raise our own rodents. They do take a lot of time compared to the snake themselves!

Regards.

 

[High End Herps Inc]

Doing the math on a year at $4 a month with 40 customers with one snake each, that puts your feeding bill at $1,920. That of course does not include the energy & substrate bills. Though being in Louisiana, I wouldn't know how much electricity/gas you would use through the seasons.

I would see it being worth while if each snake cost over $1,000 & you have the space to house additional animals. That definitely would not work with me. Maybe one day, but I just think a year+ is just a little ridiculous.

Hi Stephanie,

I appreciate all the feedback and input I can get on what we do and how it affects the reptile market. We have been doing business this way for quite a while now and it does work incredibly well.

In regards to the above: Most customers opt to receive their snakes small (as stated previously) so to to the math accurately would be to add up 1 to 2 dollars, per month, etc. Secondly, not all payment plans last a year. Most last 2 to 5 months. Being at a point just past hatching season I reckon we have a much higher number of payment plan customers than at most points in any given year. Thirdly, most of the snakes that we sell do cost over 1000. Most of the snakes we produce run anywhere from 500 to 25,000 each. Fourthly, We maintain the temps in entire buildings. To say that 20 extra snakes in a heated building (cooled this time of year) would cost extra would be like saying 20 extra french fries in the deep frier would make a substancial difference. And Lastly, As to substrate we get surplus newspaper tonage for such incredibly inexpensive prices it isn't even worth mentioning. Pennies per snake per month. Literally.

None of what we do is really hard or expensive. And I guess if most assume it is and as such they don't offer services like ours it is actually in our favor. I mean, if y'all think about it, we get ALL the customers that want high end morphs that can't afford to pay by conventional terms. There are a lot of them. And they are all grateful that we are here, doing what we do.

Y'all have a great day now
David Beauchemin

 

[Bill_Leverton]

Hi Stephanie,

I appreciate all the feedback and input I can get on what we do and how it affects the reptile market. We have been doing business this way for quite a while now and it does work incredibly well.

In regards to the above: Most customers opt to receive their snakes small (as stated previously) so to to the math accurately would be to add up 1 to 2 dollars, per month, etc. Secondly, not all payment plans last a year. Most last 2 to 5 months. Being at a point just past hatching season I reckon we have a much higher number of payment plan customers than at most points in any given year. Thirdly, most of the snakes that we sell do cost over 1000. Most of the snakes we produce run anywhere from 500 to 25,000 each. Fourthly, We maintain the temps in entire buildings. To say that 20 extra snakes in a heated building (cooled this time of year) would cost extra would be like saying 20 extra french fries in the deep frier would make a substancial difference. And Lastly, As to substrate we get surplus newspaper tonage for such incredibly inexpensive prices it isn't even worth mentioning. Pennies per snake per month. Literally.

None of what we do is really hard or expensive. And I guess if most assume it is and as such they don't offer services like ours it is actually in our favor. I mean, if y'all think about it, we get ALL the customers that want high end morphs that can't afford to pay by conventional terms. There are a lot of them. And they are all grateful that we are here, doing what we do.

Y'all have a great day now
David Beauchemin

David/Tawni I have to give credit, where credit is due Y'all find happiness in the way you do business. the way I'm seeing this,is helping your fellow man get what they want. And that is way Cool..... Kudos

 

[Laura Fopiano]

Sounds like a win-win to me...you have happy customers, and word of mouth travels fast, not to mention doing shows and other things to keep sales moving along.

And like Griz, I've dumped a ton of my divorce settlement back into my snakes, all new cages, heating, and sometimes it's being at the right place at the right time, or who you know. I picked up my blood boa project allot cheaper, because the breeder is a friend of mine. The right time thing also happend to me in January of this year. A friend needed eye surgery and I bought 9 animals of r 2000. The Hondurans/fire belly tigers have been offered as high as 1750 each on another sight....sometimes the boa gods smile on us all.

 

[High End Herps Inc]

Thanks Bill and Laura

We appreciate your kind words. We really do only strive to get great animals to super people in the easiest ways possible. I won't lie, we do get by pretty well and things are really good, but we honestly wouldn't care if our profit margins were razor-thin just so long as our animals are happy, safe and well fed and our customers are happy and have the animals they always dreamed of having. All this talk about, "Not making very much profit" and "That would be too much overhead" is just silly. We're not in this to get rich or have fancy cars. We just love working with these incredible reptiles and doing what we love for a living and helping others to live the dream as well. That's what it's all about. Not a fat bank account. It's about loving what you do and sharing that with others just like you. I'd rather be sitting on a box with a beautiful burmese in it and be happy with great friends, than a box full of money and be miserable and alone, if I had to choose between the two.

I also like the friendships we forge with all of our terrific customers. We email back and forth frequently even with customers that bought from us many years ago. As time passes we get closer and closer and have frequent conversations. Not just about reptiles but about "how our day went, how our kids are doing, how's your weather", etc. There's a lot of great folks in this hobby and that's the reward in what we do. Knowing them. You can't place a value on that. It's a shame that the business/money/profit side of this hobby have to make so many good herpers bitter and negative. There's no fun in that.

Best of luck to both of you on your 2006/2007 breeding season. If you ever want to drop us an email to shoot the breeze feel free to do so and we'll write you right back.

Y'all take care now

David Beauchemin