Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i want to sell my 4 month old ball to a friend thats allready got a tank set up, i think she can look after him fine and she can always ask me if she has a proplem.my first proplem is i want to make a profit, he cost £35 then £25 for his food so that would be £60 with no profit but she wont pay higer than £80.
he'l be her first snake so she dont know the prices but i'll feel shadey about the high price and if she found out he was only £35 she kill me, and besides, £60 to £80 seems a retarded price anyway. So what should i do?

Don't try to make a profit off of selling something to a friend.

If she really is a friend of yours, just charge her for everything at cost, that is, the price that you paid for everything.

60 pounds or less, IMHO.

Joel
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3.6.3 Leopard Geckos (1.4.3 Albino)
~~25 Leo eggs cookin'~~
1.1 Ball Pythons
1.0 African Fat Tail Gecko
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.0 Blair's Phase Gray Banded Kingsnake

I don't think you should be factoring in the cost of the food. Forget about the profit as well. This is not something that appreciates. As far as food costs go, that's the cost of doing business, so to speak. Unless you were keeping it FOR someone, you can't recover that cost. That's like charging someone for all the gas and maintenance costs when you sell a car. Did you get 25 pounds worth of enjoyment from the snake while you have had it. If so, consider yourself even on the food and don't charge your friend more than what you paid for it. At least that way you don't take a loss.

When I sold my friend my kenyan sand boa, I actually took a LOSS on it. I paid $100 bucks for it (pet store price). I had her for two years...and sold her for 80 (might have actually been 60) bucks to my friend. I just wanted it to have a good home. I also looked at the going rate for normal adult kenyans at the time. I gave her a fair price, even though it was less than I paid.

Think of it this way, if you were to sell a 10 year old car, would you factor in all the money you spent on gas and add that to the price?

if a snake i bought cost 80 bucks, i would go down 20 and sell it to him. thats just my nature. friends are friends and if you need to make a profit off it, sell it to someone else.

Real friends don't try to make money at the expense of other friends. You'll have to ask yourself if this is a real friend that you want to treat like that. NOBODY can tell you. That comes from you.

And why the quick turnover in the snake? Why doesn't anyone keep their snakes for more than a year nowadays? Sad.

Jeff, speaking of which, seeing how the market is going for pastels right now, I have a pastel that I picked up a week ago; she weighed 200g. I got her for $2500. One week later she is 250g. I am selling her for $6000. Anyone interested? This sounds way too familiar also. Too bad it's all about the chedda'.

LOL!

I think you hit it right on the head. Very well said Jeff...

JAZ

If you were in her shoes what would you think?It basically boils down to MORALS which it seems the animal industry has been lacking for a while now.Do you think its morally right to sell her her first snake for a much inflated price even though she is a friend?One thing about the animal industry,especially the reptile industry is making a good profit margin is impossible.One way or another you will lose money in the long run.Sure you may make a few bucks here and there but what about the 100's or even 1000's you lose by vets,food,housing,power,heating,unsuccessful breeding attempts,etc.The disadvantages greatly outweigh the advantages but alot of us do it for the love of the animals and not the love of money (which some have that vice versa).Please dont take this the wrong way because its not an attack just an out of the way explanation of the basics.If it was me i would rather give her the snake just to see her happy but thats just me,and only with my closest friends would i do that with, anyone else i would sell to but not at an overly inflated price but a little above what i payed for the animal itself.Regards Bill McLeod