Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What sells? ....... We all know that every ball python morph will be in a pet store eventually. And that we are all collectors, but not all of them will sell well in pet stores. For example, pastels, spiders, bumble bees, albino's will eventually make their way into pet stores within the next 2-3 years. Pastels and spider are already their, but combo's will be there eventually. Axanthics, cinnamon's and mojaves are not really that marketable in a pet store because they look very normal to your average pet owner, the more colorful the ball is the better it will sell. Does anyone take this in account for future breeding.? I know that most people will say breed the ball morphs that you are really into. And I do that, but you have to have common sense. The brighter looking snakes will sell better in a pet store. Lets here some opinions!!!

Kyle

I totally agree. My collection is and will remain pretty small. I am going to work with the recessives, fires, and a couple of super pastels to make fire pastels and then I won't keep the super pastels. I have chosen to work with albinos, pieds, caramels, g-stripes, and eventually lavender albinos and make the double recessives of these animals. But, like I said, I am producing for me and not really for public sale.
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Happy Herping,
Jody Barnes
Royal Kreationz

My snakes aren't fat, they're big boned.

Right now I am working on my first season with a NERD lemon male and 3 normal females. I want to get into yellowbellies, spiders, and black pastels as well one day...(I want pewters and bees, and I just like ivories)

If I can find a local pet store that will buy my excess pastel males...I'd be ecstatic. That way I won't even have to deal with shipping or selling over the net.

I'll have to take some snapshots to local stores and see if they are interested.
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"What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit.
For what happens to the beasts,
soon happens to men.
All things are connected."

-Chief Seattle (Duwamish Tribe)

Honestly thats the best way to move pastels. I don't even want to bother shipping a snake that I am only getting 100-150 for. Produce a lot of them and unload them at a pet store at whole sale prices. Just go to all your mom and pop pet stores and start asking around.

Kyle

Yes but are pastels flashy enough for the mom and pop petstores and their customers to pay even whatever wholesale pastels are when they just finished the imported normal season and are used to $15 balls? May need pieds and albinos and bumblebees for that.

Pastels do fine in the pet store. I have sold many pastels to one pet store the last 2 seasons w/ no problem.

Kyle

Good to hear.

A pet store near me had a 500 - 600 gram screamer male pastel for $175 for the longest time and I was soo tempted to get it but eventually did pass the word to another instate breeder who came and picked him up. It was their first ever ball morph and as long as it stayed there I'm getting the idea that my market doesn't yet support ball python morphs but hopefully a lot of other markets are better.

Well next season they will be $80 bucks and I think be stable around that price. And the price will be very affordable for most pet owners, so they should sell even better then the last season.

Kyle

~np

Well, I already have Pieds, Clowns, Mojaves, Blue Eyed Lucies and Albinos at our pet store. We've sold a few Albinos and hets but thats it so far this year. We usually do a couple shows and will sell a few over the internet but if we can get a few sells at our store then all the better. It is nice to have some of the nicer things out for sell/display to get people excited though. I'll let everyone know if we manage to sell anything else through the store or not.

I agree with you in that not all morphs and combos will sell well in stores. However, I do not think that they have to have bright colors. I think mojaves are beautiful and I'm sure many non-ball breeders would agree with me. I actually think normals look a lot better than some of the morphs. Sometimes breeders get caught up in how rare a snake is. To me the only reasons to own/breed a certain morph is that it either looks great or will make good combos. Why shell out big $ to own a snake that does not even look as good as a normal? Some morphs are ugly in my opinion.

I agree...I bet Lucies and Super Cinnies/Black Pastels will sell well, too, once the price comes down. I think all black and all white snakes are pretty neat

We have sold albinos, pieds, ivories, pastels, bumblebees, mojaves, spiders, axanthics, and a few pthers out of our store.
You'd be surprised how many people want to "move" up.....the best sellers are pastels, spiders and albinos due to price.
Pieds, if they were 500, we could probably sell one or two a week no problems. We have also sold more morph balls than burmese of any type or retics. But color or weirdness does play a major role if someone that wants just a pet is choosing a peretty color to have.

You got it! color sells.

normal balls....

for $17.50 wholesale ......retail $60 $70..???....

the people are still buying normals........they don't care where they were born or what sex or anything....just that they are cheap.......

they are too dumb to know that cheap isn't cheap.......and for a little more they could get better snakes....

.the one store here finally got the last 15 baby normals from me the other week.......and they would not buy the one pastel I tried to sell them.....it was ugly.......well......he was...but I told them for the $50-70 they were going to give me I brought the ugly one along to try and sell them......(I sold him at Hamburg for $50......the guy was just so happy all day for some reason)...

.......
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your mommas' so fat?...
what you want for a dollar......
$..?
.

I agree that producing morphs that most people like is probably the best strategy to go with. I am trying to work mainly with the either brightly-colored morphs/combos, or ones that have high contrast. I find that most people are attracted to pieds, albinos, and bumblebees. You can never produce too many of those in my opinion. There are so many color morphs out there now that there really is something for everyone's tastes. In addition to producing all of the most popular morphs, I also want to produce small numbers of some of the others, just for variety. Besides, you never know when one of those less-attractive morphs will become a key "ingredient" to a new, extremely beautiful morph. To be honest, I wish I could have a 1.5 goup of every morph out there, just to play it safe.

Garrick
Royal Constrictor Designs

>>I agree that producing morphs that most people like is probably the best strategy to go with. I am trying to work mainly with the either brightly-colored morphs/combos, or ones that have high contrast. I find that most people are attracted to pieds, albinos, and bumblebees. You can never produce too many of those in my opinion. There are so many color morphs out there now that there really is something for everyone's tastes. In addition to producing all of the most popular morphs, I also want to produce small numbers of some of the others, just for variety. Besides, you never know when one of those less-attractive morphs will become a key "ingredient" to a new, extremely beautiful morph. To be honest, I wish I could have a 1.5 goup of every morph out there, just to play it safe.
>>

That's how i see it too...consider what a mudball caramel will look like...?...lots of purple? or what?...or how about a super cinny lavender...or even a super sable clown..? blah blah,yadda yadda ,thisthattheother lol...

We still have a long way to go with this.
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Charles Glaspie

I agree. Too many potential combos . . . too little time (and money).
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Alice Cobb
Florida Reptile Room