• In case most of you have not noticed, I made changes to the donation amounts as well as the durations for all of the paid membership levels. Things are winding down here, and this seems to be the most prudent way to deal with the "end of life" period of this site.

    Contributor level members - $10 per 30 days
    Sponsors - Eliminated
    Benefactor level members - $25 per 30 days
    Endowment level members - $50 per 30 days

    Account Upgrades Page
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

I'll have the money sometime next week, promise!

C

CrossboneCorns

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Many times I get calls or messages asking about particular animals. The client will ask for more pics, details about the animal, shed and feeding habits. I don have this stuff laying around. I take more pics and send them, reweigh the critter, go through my logs and send feeding, shed and breeding info. The client then starts negotiating a price. All seems great and everyone is happy. The. I hear them say, "Great, I'll probably have the money in a week or two. Thats cool right?"
There is not much more frustrating than someone wasting my time when they don't have the money! I do two shows a month and Internet sales are booming. Holding an animal is not a luxury I can afford. I always tell the client that unless they put down a deposit, they can get back in touch wih me when they have the money and I'll see if I still have the animal. Please believe that there are times that I do hold an animal without payment, but this will usually be for we'll established customers.

Please please please please have the money before you contact you dealer and waste everyone's time.
 
This behavior isn't limited to the herp world. After looking over your web site, the best advice I can give is to create a page for each snake that's for sale, with lots of pics, and keep the feed/shed/personality info updated for each. Yes, it's work, but not as much as emailing all that info out to every individual client who asks. If people do ask you can simply state that the most recent info is on the web site.

I really love your "Reptile Encounters" idea. I also noticed that page is more professional with rates, policies, deposits, etc. spelled out. You need a similar policies page for herp sales that includes a statement that a nonrefundable deposit of X% is required to hold an animal, with the balance due in Y days or the animal goes back on the market (you can fill in the blanks). If needed you can privately tweak the policy for your better customers, but the tire kickers will likely move along to another dealer and waste their time.
 
I often have over 200 animals for sale. It would be impossible to create a website with that many pages! It isn't as much the people from the website as the people from fauna and similar things like that. Even the people who have previously purchased at an expo will contact us and ask what we have. They go through the whole process and then tell me oh I get paid in a few weeks.
 
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