Reptile & Amphibian Forums

PLANNING ON JUMPING INTO THE REPTILE BUSINESS SOON BUT NOT SURE WHICH DIRECTION I WANT TO GO, BE IT RETAILER, WHOLESALER, BREEDER, ETC. ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Well for starters you are going about it all wrong. The only thing you will acomplish by cross posting is your potential customers will jsut ignore you
RR

And...you have to quit yelling. (When you type in all caps, you are "yelling"

The fields you list are disparate to say the least. There is a huge difference in wholesaling and breeding. It is going to depend on where your interests lie. If you plan to just jump into breeding snakes and make a bunch of money (or even eke out a living for that matter) you are definitely going to be sorely disappointed and will be looking for a "real" job in short order. Breeding reptiles is not something that just happens overnight because you want it to. It takes years of hard work, some failures and disappointments, some successes and a whole lot of learning. You may get lucky the first year and throw a couple of snakes together and get a clutch or two of eggs. Rest assured, next year it won't work like that. You will house and feed MANY snakes for a long time that are not making you money, yet. Then there's the expenses of caging, vets, supplies, permits (if required), business licenses, etc.
By the way, your commitment does not end when you sell someone a snake. You have to be willing help them with problems, answer questions, etc. even when it's not particularly convenient for you. God help you if you make a mistake or unknowingly send out an animal that's not completely perfect and healthy (if you ship out hundreds of babies, it's bound to happen at some point). People expect a response RIGHT NOW...if you happen to be at a show or something when they try to call or E-mail, you might return to find an avalanche of nasty e-mails, posts on forums trying to trash you, etc. I've seen it happen over silly stuff, like not getting an immediate response on exactly where the parents or grandparents of a particular baby came from. Not exactly an emergency in the real world, but they want an answer NOW anyway. Then there's the problems with working out shipping schedules, etc....if you get into it, you'll see what I mean. You have to deal with people wanting to come and look at your animals (lot's of potential problems there), people wanting to tie you up on the phone for hours to talk about a milk snake they probably aren't going to buy anyway, etc. while you are trying to schedule your time so that you can:
a) get all of your cages cleaned/disinfected
b) get shipments ready to go out
c) update records and paperwork
d) feed all of the animals (and update records again)
e) get all of the animals prepared to go to the show this weekend
f) prepare and examine fecal samples/check health of breeders
g) read and respond to emails, letters, phone messages, etc. (sometimes maybe only 10, sometimes 50)
h) spend some time with your family

I'm not saying that it's a bad deal, or that the people are a pain to deal with or anything like that...it's just that most people don't understand what it's all about and may have unrealistic expectations. When you run into that, you have to remember that they are customers or potential customers and that their problems are important to them. Then you just have to figure out how to fit it in, even if it won't fit. You won't make a lot of money, at least for the first few years. If you work at it and you are good at it, the money will come later.
You have always be watching the market trends. What sells like hotcakes for $400.00 each this year may not sell for $75.00 next year. You have to always be looking for and planning new projects, and looking for something unique. A good friend of mine and an excellent breeder worked for years and finally produced leucistic Cottonmouths this year. Since he's (at least one of) the first to do this, they will sell well for probably $2,000.00 each this year and maybe next year. After that, the price will drop as more show up available. He got seven of them this year, so if you count all the time and effort he put into this project, his payout will probably equate to $6.00 per hour.
Some people do make good money wholesaling and retailing reptiles that they aquired somewhere else. The problem here, as I see it, is that you obviously have to buy as cheap as possible and sell as high as possible. That means that you can't afford to put a lot of money into the animals you are selling in the interim in the form of feeding, caging, medical care, etc. You have to get them in and move them out. You will likely be selling fresh W/C imports as well as captive bred animals, but you really have no way of knowing the condition, history and health of each animal. As hard as some of the wholesalers try, they still send out diseased and unhealthy animals. Every measure you put in place to assure the quality of the animals will cost you some amount in real dollars. That means you have to increase your prices (and lose business to competitors), or accept less profit. There are, to be sure, a few dealers that do an excellent job, but they generally have a smaller customer base, have to charge more money for a given animal and probably make less money overall. However, there are always a few customers out there that realize price isn't everything.

And the way I see it there is no way to make a good living in it. You may be able to breed and sell some very rare high dollar snakes but you need a lot of education before you will be successful enough to make some real cash. How much of an education do you already have in the field of snake husbandry? Also go to a local school and get at least an AA in business it will help trust me. Running a business alone is a lot of work and when that business is the sale breeding ext ext of live animals it is even harder as all the work you need to do to keep them healthy as the aforementioned pointed out. In the long run you will most likely find a higher paying and more stable job at Taco Bell. "Would you like cinnamon twists with that?" LOL Sorry I could not help it.
RR