Sellers beware! It seems there is a rash of this stuff going on in the herp community. Its a real shame that people can't sell animals at a fair price without the fear that someone is going to turn around and try and resale them for more than they paid for. Worse yet not even give the original breeder any credit for producing the animal. Now don't get me wrong if you sell animals to a wholesaler then I agree he has the right to resell them. What I think STINKS is when someone poses as a true hobbyist or enthusiast and then turns around and makes a profit off of your good will! That is just plain wrong and these people should be ashamed of themselves. I had never heard the term brokering used with our awesome leopards until today but it is an appropriate word for what some people are doing. Sad thing is most people associate that word with commodities like wheat,porkbellies,orange juice,crude oil. It will be a good day when some people learn that this earth and its many wonderful plants and animals are not just things to be consumed and disgarded!
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Brokering,Resaling,Unscroupolus Practices.
Replies (23)
Unfortunetly not all people have the compassion that you and most of us have. Its truly sad.
Not sure why this has got you so pissed, unless you sold to someone and they are now reselling the geckos. I can understand being upset if they are passing them off as geckos that they bred. But once the sale is complete, they are theirs to sell. I had a buy 2 get 1 free sale a few weeks ago, someone bought 6 of them, then offered 2 up for sale within a week. I didn't get pissed because he paid for them so he was free to re-sell them if he wanted. Just my 2 cents.
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Sam
Gecko Den
Email Me
What if the broker buys an animal from you and starts trying to sell the animal before it is even in his possesion, by sending YOUR photograph around to his "customers". Do you think that is ok too?
I don't. The geckos I produce deserve better than to be shipped halfway around the country twice in one week. Sorry but that's how I feel. Brokering is fine, it's part of the business but one should at least have some ethical standards regarding their brokering practices, these are living animals we are dealing with, not inanimate objects!
I agree that is not OK, and I touched upon the misrepresenting of animals in my original post. I'm not saying that shipping twice in one week is the "right" way to do it either. The point I was making is that once you have recieved payment for the gecko, it is really out of your hands. You "sold away" your right to what happens to the gecko. I am neither supporting nor condoning the actions of these folks, only saying that it is a risk that you take when selling. You can try to minimize the risk by attempting to "pre-screen" your buyers, but you know as well as I, that some are going to slip through. It's the nature of this or any other business. And while some may say that they aren't in it for the business side, once they exchange any goods and receive payment, then it just became a business transaction.
I'm not trying to start an argument, or defend any of these people that you guys are referring to in your posts. The original post was necessarily vague due to the constraints of the forum rules. It was obvious that the poster had a particular person in mind, but was unable to post specifics, so perhaps this forum was not the proper venue for this "warning".
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Sam
Gecko Den
Email Me
With dogs and cats there usually are terms drawn up preventing unethical breeding or reselling of an animal after it has been sold by the breeder. It's too bad that it would be impossible to enforce that in geckos.
I'm going to be including something with this in mind regardless in my terms, and require them to be accepted with payment before the animal will leave my house (paypal has a "comments" section, I wonder if putting "I AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THE SELLER AS FOLLOWS....." in that box would hold any legal weight for either party)
Again, sorry Kelli.....
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Steven Beckerman
E2MacPets
but all one can do is learn from situations like this and move on. We all have different standards, business ethics and business sense. Believe me, it would have been better for my business and my bank account to keep the money and just ship the geckos but I couldn't do it. I'll never make it in the business world, LOL, I care too much.
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Peace-
Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
email me
Even in dogs and cats there's still unethicl breeding.
AKC still allows you to breed siblings.
I work in a pet store that mainly sells puppies. A couple came in wanting to get two dogs to be companions for them and each other. They decided on two weimies, swore up and down that 8 puppies running around would be too much and they they were going to be fixed within two months (The puppies would be 4 months at that time). About a year later the same people came back offering to sell us some of the weime pups. AKC papers.
Sickening to say the least.
Thank god we don't work with anyone in the state of CA...
It's sad tho that people still have to do things like this when it comes to animals. But as was stated...once the animal is out of our hands there's not much that could be done. We could only hope for the best really. And screen as much as possible before hand.
the animals are my responsibility until they reach the buyer, IMO. Let's say for instance a person buys a gecko from me and I am to ship it the next day. Before I ship I see them post pictures on this forum of the leos they already have at home and let's just say these pictures show, emmaciated, very ill leos. Do you think that I should go ahead and send them one of mine, just because they have already paid for it? I run a business, and I have the right to refuse to sell to anyone, and I will refuse to sell to someone that I feel is going to put my babies in danger or not care for them properly. Maybe I am in the wrong business, you think? Also, you can bet that if something happened to one of them during the shipping process or our 72 hour guarantee period they would be my responsibility also.
I realize that you cannot ever be 100% sure on a buyer however many that buy geckos from me call me on the phone and I get a good feel of most of them before I make a sale. I'm not saying it is wrong to wholesale animals or deal with brokers, what I'm saying is that I personally do not like it and prefer not to. That is the reason I sold so many of my adult normals/high yellows, jungles and patternless is because I was having to wholesale out the offspring and I didn't want to contribute to any kind of "disposable pet" thing.
Not trying to flame you Sam, seems like we just have differing opinions about this issue.
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Peace-
Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
email me
Yeah that goes back to my statement regarding porkbellies,oil,corn,wheat etc. Certain animals are not "consummable goods". I am not a vegertariam but I draw the line at treating pets as disposable!
Although we are aware of a particular situation that you may be referring to and we agree that it was wrong, there are some things about your post that are just about ridiculous! Your point of not being able to sell an animal at a fair price is wrong; if it's a fair price to you and you sell the animal, then what difference does it make if person X sells it for more? There are many breeders that charge much more for their animals then most, but that doesn't make what they are doing "wrong"! As far as the original breeder point, are you aware of the 1000s of geckos that are produced by private breeders, etc... that are sold to "BIG NAME BREEDERS" every year and not a bit of credit is ever given and the price that the "BIG NAME BREEDERS" get is usually a lot more? We agree that brokering animals can be a bit sketchy, but there are some very reliable brokers out there! Our comments are based on facts in which we ourselves have supplied larger breeders with leopard geckos, and numerous hatchling snakes. The larger breeders that purchased from us cared for the animals and made sure they were eating and healthy before reselling them. In all of these transactions NO credit was given to us and the animals were all sold at higher prices. We made the decision to sell the animals at a certain price and once the animals were out of our care it was up to the new owners to decide what the animals were worth to them. We can understand your point of view; however, we wonder if your opinion is biased based on the current situation that happens to be going on? There are many quality smaller breeders that sell their animals to quality larger breeders for resale and many of us are honest, caring and upstanding people. We too would be upset if we found out that a customer was trying to sell our animals for more money before the transaction was even completed and in that case we would terminate the transaction with that person period! Please try to take into consideration that not everyone does business like that, you just have to weed through the bad apples in the bunch!
Brian and Laura Hamel
I know firsthand about the incident that prompted Chad's post.
I also know Chad has had something quite similar happen to him with a different broker.
In both cases I think the sellers have made animals available at VERY fair retail prices, and sold to people under the assumption that they would be going to good homes.
I understand that if you sell at a price that you are comfortable with then that's what matters, but I also think the practice of taking advantage of these reasonable offers as an opportunity to make a profit is completely unethical.
It's one thing to broker wholesale items, its a completely different one to resell fairly priced retail items, in my opinion.
>>Although we are aware of a particular situation that you may be referring to and we agree that it was wrong, there are some things about your post that are just about ridiculous! Your point of not being able to sell an animal at a fair price is wrong; if it's a fair price to you and you sell the animal, then what difference does it make if person X sells it for more? There are many breeders that charge much more for their animals then most, but that doesn't make what they are doing "wrong"! As far as the original breeder point, are you aware of the 1000s of geckos that are produced by private breeders, etc... that are sold to "BIG NAME BREEDERS" every year and not a bit of credit is ever given and the price that the "BIG NAME BREEDERS" get is usually a lot more? We agree that brokering animals can be a bit sketchy, but there are some very reliable brokers out there! Our comments are based on facts in which we ourselves have supplied larger breeders with leopard geckos, and numerous hatchling snakes. The larger breeders that purchased from us cared for the animals and made sure they were eating and healthy before reselling them. In all of these transactions NO credit was given to us and the animals were all sold at higher prices. We made the decision to sell the animals at a certain price and once the animals were out of our care it was up to the new owners to decide what the animals were worth to them. We can understand your point of view; however, we wonder if your opinion is biased based on the current situation that happens to be going on? There are many quality smaller breeders that sell their animals to quality larger breeders for resale and many of us are honest, caring and upstanding people. We too would be upset if we found out that a customer was trying to sell our animals for more money before the transaction was even completed and in that case we would terminate the transaction with that person period! Please try to take into consideration that not everyone does business like that, you just have to weed through the bad apples in the bunch!
>>
>>Brian and Laura Hamel
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Steven Beckerman
E2MacPets
giving someone credit for producing an animal, at least in my opinion. It has to do with the responsibility I have for the animals I produce pretty much. If I wanted to be a wholesaler I would produce thousands upon thousands of animals each year. I don't want to do that. I want my geckos to go to good homes to be loved and properly cared for, not to some broker that only cares about the dollar signs!! It's my choice not to sell to someone like that, I have done it in the past and I just won't do that anymore.
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Peace-
Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
email me
Everyone keeps talking about something but wont go ahead and spit it out. Can someone please email me what this big secret conspiracy is, so I can understand what the fuss is about.
On a side note . If someone buys a gecko off of someone for $100, and sells it for $200, who cares. The second guy bought it, he should be able to sell it for whatever he wants. Its like if you bought a house, and sold it that day for twice as much. Its called capitalism.
Now selling something, before you actually own it is dumb.
Maybe theres more to this than what I am understanding, if there is, please explain it to me.
Jeff
jmedley@speedway.k12.in.us
P.s Watch the Indy 500 this weekend, I'll be the drunk guy waving from turn 1.
I disagree when it comes to live animals. An animal should not be shipped clear across the country twice in a week, let alone less than that as is the case here.
What happened is someone purchased some geckos, and before they were even shipped to him he was looking for buyers at a marked up price.
This "broker" has done this before, putting ads up for an animal the day he shipped it. In one case he even deliberately misrepresented the sex of the animal to make a sale. In this second case that i'm referring to he purchased an animal for $125 and was looking for $1000 in trade and cash value for it.
You can bet that if he had a buyer the animal probably would be shipped right back out in the same container he recieved it in!
Unfortunately the TOS of this forum prevent names from being mentioned. If you want to know, you'll have to wait for an email from someone here ;p
>>Everyone keeps talking about something but wont go ahead and spit it out. Can someone please email me what this big secret conspiracy is, so I can understand what the fuss is about.
>>
>>On a side note . If someone buys a gecko off of someone for $100, and sells it for $200, who cares. The second guy bought it, he should be able to sell it for whatever he wants. Its like if you bought a house, and sold it that day for twice as much. Its called capitalism.
>>
>>Now selling something, before you actually own it is dumb.
>>
>>Maybe theres more to this than what I am understanding, if there is, please explain it to me.
>>
>>Jeff
>>jmedley@speedway.k12.in.us
>>
>>P.s Watch the Indy 500 this weekend, I'll be the drunk guy waving from turn 1.
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Steven Beckerman
E2MacPets
I didn't mean to get everyone riled up. I was just trying to voice my opinion that brokering animals by some is done in a piss poor, dishonest way! Capitalism is fine as long as its done in a honest and ethical way. To me its all about integrity. The statement earlier about needing to weed out buyers is a good one and I guess the main point of the issue at hand. So Seller Beware!!!!
As a potential buyer and not a seller, I most certainly would want to know if a gecko that I am interested in is offered by a broker rather than the original breeder. Personally, I prefer to buy from the breeder who knows the history and lineage of the leo. The original breeder can offer more gex at a later date from the same line of leos and is a known entity as far as health and quality of the animals go. Brokers, however may not have a clue as to the background or genetics of an individual gecko. Also, there is the question of quarantine, which surely would be inconvenient to say the least if dealing with large numbers of leos. Just my 2c worth... RR
Hey, welcome to the world of business. There is nothing wrong with buying an animal from one person and reselling it. They do not have to give you any credit for producing the animal as well. Theirs a other word that comes to mind instead of brokering, that’s called Pet Store. You made a profit that you were obviously happy with. You sold an animal. Now you are attacking your buyers? That’s an interesting way to do business. This person did nothing wrong with reselling the animal unless it was sold on specific terms that it was not for resale. Must breeders are selling their animal’s cheep to wholesalers. They then can provide them to the pet store that maybe looking for a quantity of them. Generally you give these people the reptile at a discounted price called wholesale because they are generally going to be buying large quantities which keep you in business.
Sorry to hear about your disappointment.
The problem here is that the animal was sold retail, and in fact this "broker" was trying to resell it before it was even shipped out. You can bet that had he found a buyer he would have sent the animal out the same day he recieved it and that in my mind is completely unethical.
I have no problem with brokers, regardless of if they credit their sources or not. I do have a problem with lying on both ends of the deal as was the case on certain deals with this individual...
>>Hey, welcome to the world of business. There is nothing wrong with buying an animal from one person and reselling it. They do not have to give you any credit for producing the animal as well. Theirs a other word that comes to mind instead of brokering, that’s called Pet Store. You made a profit that you were obviously happy with. You sold an animal. Now you are attacking your buyers? That’s an interesting way to do business. This person did nothing wrong with reselling the animal unless it was sold on specific terms that it was not for resale. Must breeders are selling their animal’s cheep to wholesalers. They then can provide them to the pet store that maybe looking for a quantity of them. Generally you give these people the reptile at a discounted price called wholesale because they are generally going to be buying large quantities which keep you in business.
>>Sorry to hear about your disappointment.
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Steven Beckerman
E2MacPets
the "broker" to sell an animal he purchased from a breeder BEFORE the animal has even been shipped from the breeder's facility? Is it perfectly fine for the "broker" to sell this animal that he has never even seen in person by sending out photographs that the breeder took of the animal? Someone correct me if I am wrong here but doesn't the breeder own those photos?
I feel that when dealing with live animals we (the breeders) are responsible for those animals we sell until the buyer receives them. In my particular case, I am responsible for the animal for 72 hours after he receives it. As far as I am concerned I have the right to refuse to do business with anyone, that's my right. If that person is upset about it, well, I suppose they can go buy their animals from a wholesaler, not a hobbiest.
By the way, I do take pride in my animals, and I also have feelings for them, I care about them. The day I stop taking pride in my geckos and stop caring about them will be the day I get out of the hobby.
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Peace-
Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
email me
.
I am glad to see this discussion and I am glad to see everyones view. The following is my opinion and comes after dealing herps in a commercial setting since 1989.
We all have to take a strong look at what it is we do. If you breed, hatch, advertise and sell your animal for the basis of a monetary transaction you have just entered the "livestock business". This is what has become the issue with most breeders, is that there is a "low barrier of entry" for anyone wanting to get into this business. This is where the problem lies. This is what I was mentored on early in my herp career:
Broker: handles export/import transactions
Importer: imports herps and distributes accordingly
Dealer: purchases herps from importers for resale
Jobber: same as dealer, term not used as often these days
Business protocol in the livestock trade has diminished in the past few years. Importers/dealers selling directly to consumers instead of retail shops is now in fashion. This would kill most traditional businesses types. Fortunately, herps have had a steady increase in demand, so we are safe for now. Don't be afraid to ask for credit or name recognition for your efforts. I do this with my retail costomers. It's not to take their business, but more to build a relationship and let their customers know the quality they are getting and source. This could be a double edged sword, so have a good feeling of your customer before committing to that level of branding. Always keep in mind to never follow pricing trends until the consumer drives it (ie. If SHTxCT are now running $100 from 80% of breeders and you been sitting on yours for 8 months with no sales at $300 it may be time to consider price changes). This is the hardest part of this business. It drives me nuts to sell nice high-yellow leos wholesale for $8, but I see hope for normals and feel great pride in knowing that mine make it to market, regardless of margin. That may sound like poor business sense, but I don't deal with one species alone so the differance is averaged out. A good thing to keep in mind, like everything else, for every person that gets in, 3.75 individuals get out. This business is no different than any other condidering cyclic changes. In addition this business is most peoples first business endeavor and in my opinion is not the type of business to practice your chops on. You can tell just from reading the forums that feelings and pride are involved which is a hard thing to overcome when talking about animals and business. You have to take an unbiased approch. Deal with who you are comfortable with, try new dealers out, sell to whom you choose, and price as you see fit. You all are producing some fine animals and I enjoy seeing your progress and accomplishments. Don't let poor dealers get you down as they will, by their own actions, weed themselves out.
Respectfully,
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Galen Clark
www.captivescience.com
