If you make an offer on an animal, should the seller expect payment immediately if the offer is accepted or should the seller have to wait 2 months for you to come up with the money?
Only if that was inherently part of the offer the seller chose to accept.
That is to say- if the offer which is made is explicitly clear about the intention to do a payment plan or a delayed payment. The seller can then look at that offer relative to what they want out of the deal or other offers received and then make a decision on that basis.
It's probably not something I personally would be real prone to do, I tend to be a cash in hand express lane kind of guy. I know what I want, I know about what it'll cost, I get the money then go buy whatever it is.
I can almost understand it for some things though- there are animals that I have wanted, some for decades, that I have not found for sale or are very rarely available. If someone came up with some legal to own tuataras or round island boas (both very endangered and very very cool species) and offered them for sale, chances are that I wouldn't have enough free cash on-hand to make an immediate purchase. I still would regard that as a sufficiently rare opportunity that I might toss out the idea of a payment plan or a delayed payment with a deposit; which the seller can then accept or reject based on their own financial needs and the immediacy of other offers.
'course if I were to make an offer of a payment plan, I'd probably initially offer about 20%
over the listed asking price, as an incentive for the seller to accept my time-delayed payments over the immediate money of someone else.
The time for asking questions and making deals is BEFORE you commit to asking the seller if they will take $XXX.xx.
I do agree with a substantial part of that statement.
To play the devil's (cheapskate's) advocate here for a moment though... Many dealers and breeders operate under a first-to-commit-gets-it mentality. It's kind of understandable- a paypal e-check in the hand is worth two in the bush but it's pretty easy to get the impression- valid or not- that a lot of dealers will just blow off the interested parties who have questions that might take three minutes to answer and go straight for the no questions asked here's the cash replies. Regardless of the order in which the contact was actually initiated.
First response sent- "Hi, I'm very interested in _____, but the ad didn't say how much it weighed. If you could give me that information, I'd be very likely to purchase it."
Second response sent- "What's your paypal address? Ship it monday."
Rather than answering interested party numero uno, a lot of dealers will just skip the tedious process of typing out some numbers and hitting reply and go straight for anyone with money waving around.
Sounding like a committed buyer, or at least a party with a serious interest, is sort of necessary with a lot of dealers. There's no take-a-number machine like there is at the deli. Although I don't think that justifies "I'll take it!" followed by the ad being pulled and shipping arrangements made, then come the questions and the buyer re-deciding if they actually want it.
