I disagree. I feel that the issue is that we're selling a luxury item (not a requirement for day to day life such as housing or toilet paper). This previous year was an election year and they are known to drive the flow of the economy down as people feel wary (financially) until that has passed. After this last election there was not a flood of "good" economic news but rather more reports of increased unemployment, rising fuel costs and instability. A person, unsure of their future employment status, is not going to increase their collection size but rather maintain it's status quo until they are sure of the future.

The sales trend that I have seen for the last 9 months has been increased sales of maintenance items (substrates, lights, etc) and a decrease in new animal purchase (new set ups etc).

I think there is an increase in potential demand due as reptiles become more and more mainstream. The prolific nature of the information on the internet has been a large portion of this growth. Once the economic situation moves to a point that people can focus on luxury item purchases again you will see in an increase in sales.

What we will hopefully see due to this "drought" is a smartening of business practices by breeders and importers. With it's easy entry (low experience in business and low start up costs) this industry tends to attract those that have little understanding of business practices.
Scales - Premium Exotic Reptiles

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