Observations Of A Closed Society

[KNOBTAIL]

after being involved with providing information on the post concerning LA Reptiles, I began thinking how different the business of selling Herps is today as when I was in the business almost 40 years ago.

We operated within a closed society. Everyone basically knew everyone else and we were all making money, had our routes and respected each other. Their were always new operations attempting to get into the field, but because of the heirarchy that was set up back then, importers only sold to wholesalers who sold to jobbers who sold to stores. Individuals were completely out of the loop, and maybe with a few exceptions were not privy to how the animal business worked.

The major difference was the protection that we afforded our customers. You just could not come in or call and buy. Needless to say this was done for many reasons, but the most important one was that the people who dealt with us made money. When they made money, we made money. For us it did not matter whether we were selling snakes or shoelaces, we maintained a tight community of customers that were loyal to us as well as us being loyal to them.

In todays market, everyone seems to know everyones business, and seems to have access into most facilities if your willing to spend the bucks. Their may be some exceptions, but the rule of thumb is "ours doors are opened to anyone who can pay" I found this to be a problem at Strictly Reptiles where they will sell to anyone and yet they are importers who provide no protection to their customer base. The business of selling Reptiles today seems to be the business of everyone. JERRY TRESSER

 

[The BoidSmith]

In todays market, everyone seems to know everyones business, and seems to have access into most facilities if your willing to spend the bucks. Their may be some exceptions, but the rule of thumb is "ours doors are opened to anyone who can pay"

Yes, I agree. But I wouldn't go as far as 40 years (when I started herping). In my opinion this is something more recent and that has developed with the age of communications. The Internet has opened the doors not only to us here in the US, but also opened the eyes of the shippers overseas. Almost anyone can get into a cybercafe and learn how much a certain morph is going for and who to contact to get the most out of it. Times have changed, and will continue to do so. Either we adapt or we join the T. rex!

Regards

 

[KNOBTAIL]

ALVARO, thanks for responding, but

what I am referring to is (and you may be right with regard to communications) is that we no longer know whom we are dealing with. I have received emails from 14 year olds who have a business name and are young entrepreneurs. They can hide behind their emails, advertise on forums and conduct business just like any other business.

That could never have happened when I was in the herp business. Nor would we allow it.

 

[dwedeking]

Alvaro is correct. The internet has opened a vast market. There is both good an bad in doing business online.

Good for the customer:

1. Wider selection. You can easily and rapidly browse for even the rarest of species/morphs.

2. Speed of shopping. No longer do you have to wait for a herp show or when you are able to make it to a specific breeders location. You can pick up the next animal or supply item today (even if today is at 11pm).

3. Information. There is a flood of information on everything from the simplest husbandry questions to complex genetic guesses.

4. Community. You can now fulfill the human need for belonging by getting into a hobby and joining a website dedicated to that hobby. For those home bound I feel this is probably the greatest gift of the internet.

Bad for the customer:

1. Sharks. It dangerous waters dealing without face to face communication. The anonymous nature of the internet can make scams prolific for all the same reasons that a good business can be prolific (see below).

2. Information. The flood of information can be overwhelming especially considering anyone can put up a website that says "do this with your animal" and there is no verification of actual knowledge behind that statement. Someone once told me you should not give your customers more than 4 choices (ie sizes, colors, etc) as it is too hard for them to make a decision they are comfortable with.


Good for the retailer:

1. Lower overhead ($$). You can stock a warehouse in a low rent part of town lowering your costs tremendously. You can streamline your product display area (a website instead of a retail store) and provide a professional appearance at 1/2 the cost of dressing up a retail location.

2. Lower overhead (personnel). By providing a well built website you can provide a larger amount of product information/knowledge without it being a burden on personal time. Email communication can be streamlined to be more efficient than face to face or telephone communication (especially if you can type fast ).

3. Volume. You can meet your target market on a much large scale because you are not limited to getting them to your physical location to buy.

4. Niche markets (like reptiles) can find their interested market much more successfully.

Bad for the retailer:

1. Competition. Customers can more readily price shop.

2. Volume. Now that your meeting more customers your good things shine more but also your weak areas are more visible. Competition moves very fast online.

3. Harder to build a relationship with your customer. Customers that have a solid relationship with a retailer are more likely to be loyal and also more likely to value shop instead of price shop.

4. Sharks. Retailers can be scammed as well as customers. Professional scammers are now able to target multiple companies without leaving their house.

On a whole it has blurred the old-style heirarchy because customers can source items much more readily. This is encouraged by the fact that since you can now streamline your customer service issues it is more feasible for wholesalers to go directly to the public (one of the biggest reasons manufacturers would put a layer of distributors between them and the public is the fact that customer service requests (service, product information, order volume etc) would slow down the system they had created. With automation (website order intergration, computers eliminating the double work of data entry, more refined managerial skills) this customer service volume is more readily absorable by the manufacturing firm without slowing down the system.

This is a very similiar situation to the late 40's/early 50's when consumers where making good money (economic recovery after the Depression) and goods were cheaply being manufactured (due to the huge automation revolution in dealing with WWII). No one cared about the quality of products only that they were being produced cheaply (easy to replace). Then in the 70's people started to look at value over price alone. While you still had to be price competitive the consumer was demanding quality as well.

With the start of the internet the fact that you could find anything for almost nothing and have it shipped to your door was perfect. This led to the ebay type sites that moved a ton of volume of low priced low customer service items. Now we are starting to see the beginnings of people demanding quality (customer service in this case) on top of the lower pricing and ease of shopping. No longer is a cold impersonal internet transaction the way to survive.

Oh, yea, most of this is just my opinion and the basis for our economic experiment (which better work cause the people at the house like food on the table ).

 

[dwedeking]

I have received emails from 14 year olds who have a business name and are young entrepreneurs. They can hide behind their emails, advertise on forums and conduct business just like any other business.

This will become harder to do as business relationships are demanded by the customers. No longer will they be happy with getting a generic item from a retailer but looking for the customer service to go with it.

There is a basic need by humans for communication and a sense of community. As more and more demands are made upon our time fulfillment of that need is being found online (this is shown by the success of such sites as Fauna and KS).

It is financially rewarding for the merchant to fulcilitate (sp?) because it is much cheaper to sell to a customer that has already purchased from you than it is to locate a new customer.

Not saying that it's good, bad than how business was conducted previously. It's just the playing field that we have to deal with now.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

yes DANIEL, but the problem is if it were up

to me, (and Iam glad that its not), I would make this business a restricted one. We certainly never had the availability of SPEED and to reach world wide avenues in minutes if not seconds, when we were in business. I am referring specifically to herps. But we did have a general goal that we all understood and rules for conducting ourselves and maintaining some dignity in the herp business. That does not exist today.

What you are referring to cannot be argued because you are correct, but as it stands this business today is a mess with no clear direction in sight. I hate going backwards in time, but things were so much simpilar, and the road was clear and unobstructed by the govt and all of these pet advocate groups. Reptiles and Amphibians played such a minimal role in the animal heirarchy that people forgot they even existed. Today people are spending hours debating about how to ship a Uromastics lizards. Its ridiculous.

 

[dwedeking]

Jerry,

Spoken just like every other business man from every other period of time that had dramatic change, and probably spoken by me in X number of years as the business climate changes once again. LOL

The point I was trying to get across is that consumer demands are changing and that will raise the standards again on quality (both animal quality and business ethic/standards quality) in the near future.

 

[herpetological]

Good points and I agree. Another subject....From an importers side.. with the advent of better communication... dealers in other countries are seeing the prices the U.S. dealers get for their specimens and have steadily gone up on their prices. However, quality is the same and it's hard to get them to understand how much care has to go into an "import" before it can be sold to a "end consumer".(customer) In the "old days" it was nearly unheard of for a dealer to treat specimens for parasites or hand pick/sex specimens. I'm sure there were a VERY few exceptions. However, I remember the quality of what I used to get. At least there seems to be a trend for a "better product" so to speak. I'm sure it's due to both a better understanding of their needs and the increased awareness from the general "buying community". There again are still exceptions.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

RAYMOND your right, we never concerned

ourselves with bettering quality for the end consumer. As a matter of fact, we never even thought of the end consumer! That was because they were not part of our "chain" within the business.
Secondly, the availability of animals at least in our minds "were an endless stream of herps" never to end!
If we did not receive the variety we were expecting we assumed it was because the shipper did not pay the collectors. Our mind set had no room for thinking that maybe we were de-populating the enviornment and that eventually their would be no more animals. The bottom line is that the animal business was a commodity business that demanded quick movement, just as any other perishable operation. Get the merchandise in on Monday, and move them out on Tuesday. Presell and minimize the loss. That was the basic principle of the import business.

We had built into that philosophy a very interesting method for conducting business which I will get into if anyone is interested. JERRY

 

[Rob @ RK Reptiles]

One thing, I agree with Ray. Most of my suppliers in Africa see my ads on KS and know how much I sell animals for on there. They have tried raising their prices as to get a bigger chunk of the pie. But most of them have realized that when they raise their prices I don't order as much. I am lucky that most of my suppliers listened to me in the beginning of our relationship and learned how to take better care of the animals before being shipped to me. (there are still those that don't care and just want the money). Most of my suppliers if they don't have the ability to house and care for the animals for any long periods of time only collect the animals within 3 days prior to the shipment. Because of this I have not been able to get all the animals I order but the animals are ensured that they have not been sitting around for weeks and not being cared for. I have one supplier that I have not ordered from in a long time because he has seen that I sell a species of Chameleon that I order from him posted for sale on KS for $200 per pair. Well he has raised his prices on these animals to $50ea before importation. He just does not realize the cost involved with importing the animals and the cost that go into caring, treating, and acclimating those animals before I can sell them at those price. One good thing about the Internet and my exporters in Africa is I am able to communicate with them via e-mail and save myself alot of money on international calls.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

ROB, that was not a problem that we

had to deal with, and the reason was simple. We took everything they could ship. In todays market from what Ive been able to learn, Importers have additional unwelcomed partners. Namely the govts. That was unheard of when we were importing. The major difference was that we had to take the valueless with the valuable. In turn, we had to quota those same animals to our customer base. For example if you wanted to buy Cordylus lizards from us, you would have to take depending on the amount received 50 johnsi lizards on each order. Otherwise, we would sell out on the better items and be left with 500 johnsi lizards.

This was an understood practice, and everyone accepted it. Now insofar as the importer raising prices. The govts in Africa during the 60s into the 70s were extremely turbulent, and all the suppliers, and their were only 3 major dealers then, wanted their monies sent to Europe. Not to their respective countries in Africa.
That gave me leverage,and if I was going to insure that they were going to get paid that way, the last thing they wanted would be for their govts to be notified that products were leaving their country and payments were not being sent back. That would have been , jail time if not worse. So, we kept them in line with the prices. Secondly, they had no way to know what we were selling the animals for , nor did that ever come up while I was in business. Today, the exporter is a bit more savy, has limitations as to what and when he can ship, and can get instant information off the web. A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing. The last thing you want to do with an exporter is to make him a competitor. But that seems to be what is happening. JERRY

 

[dwedeking]

The last thing you want to do with an exporter is to make him a competitor.

From a business persons point of view you want to own the market in your area with little to no competition. This allows you to deliver the product in the fastest way possible at the largest profit margin.

From the customers point of view they want the highest quality product at the lowest price (a balancing of these is two is what I call "value").

Competition puts reality somewhere between those two views. If you can survive, competition will raise your standards while watching your cash issues. Since standards where low (emphasis was more on moving product quickly) this left a vacum that is filled by the 14 year olds you spoke about. While committing business suicide by offering animals at little to no margin they forced people to compete on a different level. This level has become customer service. Since most 14 year olds have little experience to develop customer service skills (as most customer service skills are learned by interacting with people) only the top 2% will survive in this environment raising the industry stanards by attrition.

 

[JungleHabitats]

Heres my limited view of this era

I have not been in the export/ import end of this business so i cant rightfully comment on those positives or negitives so i will leave that to the ones that have & are in it and know it from what i have read you all do it pretty well lol .

What i can comment on is since the age of the internet has come I beleive that all importers would have to say that the sales of there animals have picked up a great deal maybe even 200-300 % with the ease of dialing up , or login's provide us .As it was Daniel i think stated "people no longer have to wait for a herp show or untill there near a person facility to make the purchase" With that i would only think that with out the internet available as a pretty much free advertising your overall sales would reflect that ?and you overhead costs would likely be higher resulting in a higher end user's cost on the animals.with that i mean if you could only sell your stock to as Jerry stated a " few people that you know" how fast would your stock be moved in relation to the volume it can be moved in now? i think that your overhead of housing heating watering feeding the animals would be a longer burding to you as a importer and there so result in the cost at which there sold to be of a higher amount then now ? a perfect example of what the age has brought can bee seen by fauna and kS ... how many would be doing as well as they are now with out those two avenues afforded to them ?also as Daniel stated the ability to provide customers a online store to shop on greatly increases the ability to sale to a wider market almost 24 hrs a day where before you would have been limited to 16 hr long days in a shop with a million things to do on top of taking care of customers. Now the customer base is broader and more easily available to all which means IMHO that the animals can be cared for in a greater number due to the fact that your website can run the buisness end for you with alot less effort needed by you to sell your product which means you have more time to spend making your service better to the customer.

Jerry also stated that having to deal with people with out knowing them first hand while on a importer reslleing side that may have truth to it but i would think that as a retailer not having to deal with 20 people a day who take up 15-20 mins of your time in a shop asking questions just to ask them means that they have wasted several hours of your time in which you could have been doing something else more productive. The drawback is not knowing who you buy from wel lthat isnt that awful bad unless you are totally knew and done know of this site first lol .Just because you can walk into a retail shop and meat the people there doesnt mean they cannot screw you over just as fast or faster ... that means if they are good with words they could still sell you the london bridge if you as the consumer are not educated first ... ok im going to stop because i think im getting on a tangent .... but i think whats offered today to all of us provides a MUCH better market for all involved and i for one am gratefull for it .. maybe now the importers are not making as much money in relation to what they did because now there are more breeders providing captive bred animals ? who knows .. all ican say is if things stayed the same like Alvaro said we would all be eating lunch with the T-Rex's of the past lol

 

[KNOBTAIL]

DANIEL, when I was using the 14 year

old as an example, it was done to illustrate that the business of selling herps has migrated to everyone . That was not possible when we were in business. It is true that individuals may attempt to sell to other individuals, but their were no Kingsnake.coms in those days, secondly their was no reason to breed , maybe with few exceptions, as the animals were plentyful. The price was cheap, and the availability was non restrictive.

Todays market is a limited market, whether imported or bred. And the mainstream of big ticket items rest with the collectors. Thats a 180 degree turn from when we were selling. Their were no such a thing as morphs, or papers indicating their gene capabilities, etc. A ball python was a ball python, and the fact that the coloration may have been different played no part in its sale factor.

As I indicated, we were unconcerned about the final purchaser of the animal. That was the pet shops job. Every now and then we may get an inquiry for something specific, and if it was within our ability to help, we would do so.

Insofar as compitition, what you say is correct, but we had no compitition because we controlled the complete movement of all reptiles and amphibians in the country of Africa. Believe it or not.
Granted their were retail compititions, but that only reflected the end user, and that was not done for purposes of reselling as it is today. Todays market and price basically demands that if your going to pay that much money, you may as well try to breed the animal. Thats where I am today ! But back in the hey days, we would not deal with anyone who attempted to sell to the trade. On an individual basis, well thats a different story. As much as I may agree with you, and your point is well taken, it did not apply to a market 40 years ago.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

I saved some articles from years back

if it does not show up, ill place a url for you to see it. This one reflects our control over the herps in Africa. Jerry ps. i hope you can read it.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

ALLEN, I guess your interpetation, is

certainly beneficial to the retail end. I dont want you to think that I live in the 1950s although life was simpler, and things were less complicated. We had no email, no fax machines, no 800 #s and no credit cards. Today, you spend $ 500. you buy a snake, back then you spend $ 500. you become a jobber. Certainly when gas was 17 cents a gallon and baby boas were $ 1.25 it only became a profitable business when it was controlled by a few and not the many.

You are correct, the market of today has shifted, the availability is restricted to controls by the govt and new international treaties. Duties are included and this has raised the cost of importing as well as when one is able to ship. Quotas are imposed and the awareness of animal abuse has risen to the federal level. Taking all these things into consideration has placed a burden on the exporter as well as the importer to import less of a variety, but increase the quality, and the price if necessary. The introduction of breeders who have accessibility to import from Europe and resell on the internet, as well as other classified avenues has brought into this business the worst kind of preditors, quick buck artists, and thiefs. Unchecked, careless for the herp business, and ruthless in their attempts to sell without impunity.

I am not suggesting that this is the norm here, as we both know their are many fine people who have attempted to bring some wonderful qualities to this business, but contrary to what Allen may be stating , I believe the opposite has been achieved. Not on the import level, but on the end user level. As the mass becomes more involved in the workings of the herp business, you get a diluted breeder, a diluted collector and people who go in and out of business with a pair of geckos. We fought in the 70s to form an organization to protect and control with one voice any impending legislation, from within the govt. Very few people are aware of this, but we were more cohesive than the herp business is now, because no one knows who is the herp business now! I found these articles from the 70s . This should give you some idea of what was going on then. ENJOY, JERRY

 

[KNOBTAIL]

this is the 2nd page of the article

some of the respondents have passed on. Most are still alive.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

todays entrepeneur are unchecked

individuals, who may have money and are in the hobby of selling herps as breeders. They are not in the business. They are not corporations, they are basement dwellers and weekend show dealers. They comply with local laws, and do what is right to keep what they have, and if they are fortunate they sell to others.

I dont have a problem with this, as I am presently in this catagory. My business days are over, and I am in it for the enjoyment more so than anything else. But their is an underlying destructive button that gets pressed once one gets tired of selling herps, and the game then becomes " better to have it die in your posession than mine" I personally think its getting worse than better. I attribute this to the "speed" that Daniel may be referring to and the belief that because that the animals are cared for better is not a valid explantion for me. Just look at Kingsnake and see the ads, see what these people call themselves, and see the miseries that Ive read on the BOI. This is no accident. Worse than that , theirs not much anything can be done about it. Thats not to say that these things could not happen when I was in business, what I am saying is that it was limited to the top of the food chain (so to speak), and it never filtered down to the individual who was the end user. That is not the case in todays market.

 

[dwedeking]

1. I understood the scenario of the 14 year old. I think that includes all the physical age 14 year olds and the mental aged ones as well. I am continually amazed when talking with other "businesses" in this industry how little knowledge there is of business practices (for example the difference between gross profit and net profit is generally not a part of business discussions in this industry).

2. It would be hard to guage the increase of bottom feeders in this industry. Sort of like the reports of rape. Have the number of cases actually increased or just the social stigma with reporting the illegal actions so they are tracked down more. 15 years ago if you bought a bad snake from a guy in his basement what recourse did you have? You might be able to physically meet him and get your money back on pain of an ass whooping but you were not able to warn others about it. With places like the BOI you hear about it much more. Sadly human nature is that you see a larger percentage of the bad transactions rather than the good ones.

Again, the way to influence things in a free market place is with your wallet. Consumers need to support those retailers that provide value, and retailers need to support those wholesalers/importers/exporters that provide value (and common business sense. ). The combination of warning others about bad people (and others having the common sense to heed the warnings) and financially supporting those that are more along the lines of your business ethics will HELP to clean up the industry (you'll always have scum bags in every industry, just part of the real world).

 

[KNOBTAIL]

DANIEL, your point is very well taken,

and I agree with you completely.

It is interesting to note that without the modernization that was lacking in the 60s and 70s , the demand for reptiles was much greater then than it is today. Basically it was due to the fact that the Herp industry was in its infancy and people were excited about being able to actually see some of these animals that were now being made available to the trade. That included myself.

You are also on target 100% about the undeniable value of the BOI. It acts as a mini credit reporting agency. Long overdue once the " bottom feeders" became the focal point of this trade.

Thanks for participating. Respectfully, JERRY