Josh while I completely agree with your first two sentences, that people in this industry, because the little guy can create the product, drastically blur the lines between wholesale / retail. This industry is different than most, joe blow cannot walk into best buy, purchase a few items and then next year be shooting tvs out their rear end. People are not prepared for the work or care thus need to move their product and are afraid they will never be able to sell their product next to the big boys so they must drop their prices.

The other enormous problem is that people want to look at this as a business, want to make their money back but don't want to spend money to sell their product. No offense to KS but people who want to sell 10, 20, 50 ,100K worth of animals and only want to spend a $100 a year for their marketing budget on KS are the ones who complain the most about stagnant product who drop their prices because its not moving. Within weeks they'll drop their price $500 but would never think of dropping $500 on a banner, some business cards and a table at a show where they can display all of their product rather than just discounting a single animal to make it go away.

On the other hand the guys that do spend the money to go out and find new customers, often go about it terribly wrong. They have one bad show or don't sell anything at a tiny show and give up, feeling its pointless when in reality people want to buy from people they are comfortable with. They want to see your name on KS and other sites, they want to see you at a few shows know your going to be around and if your sitting behind your table with a stick up your butt, your arms crossed and frustrated who in their right mind would want to buy from you.

This business is literally what you make it. You want to wholesale your product you can, you want to make an extra $10,000 a year or literally a million a year, its entirely possible, but its a business, a new business and its a hell of a lot of work. Brian is right there is absolutely no better way to make a living in my opinion than what we do however you have to fight for it and work damn hard.

Brian is also right that the more snakes out there, the bigger the market, however I do not look at people that I sell to as competition. in fact the reason that I do very well in the this business is that I go way way out of my way to help my customers produce as many high quality animals as they possibly can. The more people who see our products the more that become interested in them. Go out of your way, help each-other and grow, push towards your goals and you can get there.

What I disagree with your statement is in regards to ball pythons being different than any other species. Balls were / are the hottest thing out there so they are the target but to say that balls are worse than anything else just is not true. Joyle wants to talk about $1,000 pieds and $500 albinos, those are onesy twosy deals where someone is dead broke way over extended. I will buy cash right now 100 pieds for $1,000 each but it won't happen, they are not out there. Those type of examples exist in every market, I can tell you some of the stupid offers people have sent me for their albino boas, motley boas, retic clutches. To state that the market or people of the ball world are any different that that of any other species is just wrong, their are whores in every market.
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Neil Golli
(813) 856 3408
info@gollireptiles.com
www.GolliReptiles.com

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