Expensive garters

[ConcinusMan]

I'll get whatever people are willing to pay. Simple as that. Like you said, they are a lot of work and that is one of the reasons I want them sold hopefully by the end of the year, sooner is better. If I price them high and they don't move, what else would you suggest I do about it besides lower the price until they start moving?

I would be doing this anyway, even if I didn't get a dime for them. Heck I used to do this and release them. So, if I get as much as people are willing to pay, even if that turns out to not be much, then so beit. At least I'm getting something to help offset the costs associated with my hobby. That's more than I used to get, especially in the days before the internet, and before I joined the forum.

[Jeff B]

Richard I'm really not trying to come down on you, I am sincerely trying to help you, but you need to take some responsibility. The reason you're not selling your snakes for what you think they should go for, has nothing to do with me or any other breeder.
Perhaps you need to have more patience to let the demand develop, especially when you had the only supply like the anerys, but too late for that now because you sold adults. You now will have competition selling babies before you have even yourself produced babies and your competition may likely market them better.
Unfortunately it sounds like maybe the concinnus weren't real popular last year, but heck the market and what's hot or what’s not, can change on a dime I have found, I might go a couple months and not sell a single albino red-sided and then the next month sell 10 in a week. You hadn't even produced babies, tried to sell them, get an idea what people are willing to pay, and that does NOT mean what will they pay so you are sold out of babies in 3 days, but rather what are people willing to pay when it is convenient to them.
Every new potential sale should be viewed as a unique opportunity to gain a happy and satisfied customer, and the only good successful business transaction is when both the buyer and seller are happy with it.
You had a rare unique opportunity to bring a new morph into the hobby, but maybe you just needed to have a little more patience to see the project through to fruition. Will you will be able to have more patience after you produce babies this year and they don't all sell in a week?

[Sonya610]

I'll get whatever people are willing to pay. Simple as that. Like you said, they are a lot of work and that is one of the reasons I want them sold hopefully by the end of the year, sooner is better. If I price them high and they don't move, what else would you suggest I do about it besides lower the price until they start moving?

I am new, and especially new to Garter Snakes so I think I may offer a different perspective with regard to marketing.

For the last couple of weeks I have been window shopping for a new display snake. I looked into various types, and want something high color and very outgoing hence the decision to go with a Garter.

In my internet travels I found VERY VERY few websites offering Garters for sale with photos (outside of the big herp dealers that have one generic photo up to represent their stock). I am likely NOT the only one that had this problem. A website with great key words that will show up on search with various attractive photos advertising available animals OR pictures of the parents advertising upcoming babies would be a big plus for you.

I have had a Ball Python for three years and let me tell you if you search for BP's online the sites are great, lots of pictures, easy to find, and very very appealing for potential buyers that show the actual animal for sale. There is a market beyond the Garter fans that hang out on these forums, many herp people may not be all that familiar with Garters or part of this inner circle but WILL search and shop online for an attractive animal. The people that have a variety of reptiles and are not interested in breeding the Garter will care more about visual appeal and less about "market value".

Make sure to have lots of clear photos and include various names so if they see something they like and google it your animals come up.

[infernalis]

In my internet travels I found VERY VERY few websites offering Garters for sale with photos (outside of the big herp dealers that have one generic photo up to represent their stock). I am likely NOT the only one that had this problem. A website with great key words that will show up on search with various attractive photos advertising available animals OR pictures of the parents advertising upcoming babies would be a big plus for you.

Working on ways to change that

What keywords come to mind for you?

[Sonya610]

Working on ways to change that

What keywords come to mind for you?

The obvious terms such as "buy garter snake online, garter snake breeder, etc..." along with latin names and also common colors "albino, fire, flame, etc..." You can also throw in terms like "aboreal" and "best display snake" if you want, doesn't have to be accurate only limitation is using copyrighted names of other companies or breeders. One easy trick is to do quick google searches and then look at the page source code for non-paid websites that come up first. Also use the name garter in your file folders so all the links have that term in them (ranks higher). The top page coming up for "buy garter snakes online" in google doesn't even use garter in the meta tags but it has several links onthe page with the name garter in them.

Make the site user friendly for regular people by posting pictures of the snakes NEXT to the listings and prices, not on a separate gallery page! Not everyone is a breeder nor an expert! The biggest frustration I had when searching online for garters is the lack of pictures, I do not know what the various descriptions mean and without pictures it is frustrating. I see an ad for an animal without a photo and try to google the name and no photos come up. Example from Scott's page, I have no frickin idea what these terms mean! At the very least have "generic" photos that represent the various colors.

There are people seeking pets that would easily spend $100 or even $200 for a nice looking animal -- I wonder if the mindset is only breeders or collectors would buy therefore don't dumb down the site for pet buyers.

100% Het flame albinos (normal looking) $100
Flames 66% Het albino flame $175 - $225
50% Piebald hets - Inquire
Albino flame/erythristic combined ?
Flames $100 - $150
Leucistics - (From Paradox bloodline) $450
Flames 66% Het leucistic $375 - $425 pair
66% Het leucistic $250 pair

[Jeff B]

hmmmm, good tips there. I thought my site is very picture rich with lots of pictures of morph examples and discriptions, and that it google queries fairly well, but of course there is always room for improvement. Thanks for the input.

[ConcinusMan]

I wonder if the mindset is only breeders or collectors would buy therefore don't dumb down the site for pet buyers.

100% Het flame albinos (normal looking) $100
Flames 66% Het albino flame $175 - $225
50% Piebald hets - Inquire
Albino flame/erythristic combined ?
Flames $100 - $150
Leucistics - (From Paradox bloodline) $450
Flames 66% Het leucistic $375 - $425 pair
66% Het leucistic $250 pair

Let me point out that you are looking at a price list for eastern garter snake (T. sirtalis sirtalis) morphs there. This is a list for people who know what they are looking for, know what the percentages mean, and just need to see the prices for this year's offspring. It is not intended to answer any questions or to educate anyone about the morphs. However...

The very same website (or any google search) will also show you what a "flame" eastern is. Same goes for Albino flame, erythristic, leucistic, etc.

I have always found it very easy to look at this list and if I don't know what a certain morph is, I then go to the gallery on the very same website, and see pics of what a certain morph looks like. I also know that a "het albino" is a normal looking snake that carries albino genes. The percentages are the odds that a het carries a certain gene.

It just seems to me that if you don't know what these things mean, or what certain morphs look like, then you should do the research. The information you seem to be missing is right in front of you, and on that same website. It really doesn't take much effort on your part to find out what this stuff means so that you will understand the list just fine. If someone is selling dozens of "spider ball pythons" for example and I don't know what that means, I'm just going to have to research that. I don't expect the seller to do that for me.

But, I don't think it would be a bad idea for someone to try the more basic, almost classified-type approach, where you show a garter, show a price, show the species.

Of course at the volume that these breeders sell at it would be a huge task, but I could see how that would be more useful for a beginner to the hobby (and likewise unnecessary for a veteran).

Not sure what you're getting at there. Pretty much everybody here already does that. Are you suggesting that a breeder take pictures and post an ad for each snake out dozens, or hundreds born? That's not going to happen for obvious reasons. I always do show pics of the actual snake before I ship but I"m certainly not about to do each individual one and place ads for them if I have dozens of them. Its not practical.

I'm just having a hard time trying to picture what exactly it is that you're suggesting should be changed.

[Sonya610]

I'm just having a hard time trying to picture what exactly it is that you're suggesting should be changed.

This thread started off with you saying you were trying to understand the market, and you didn't want to sell to whole salers at $5-$10 an animal.

Merely pointing out there IS a market out there and a good website could bring in pet buyers. I do research regarding husbandry so I know how to care for the animal and what to expect, but beyond that I do not want to research genetics or spend hours googling photos and then more hours trying to find a specific morph etc... I am quite sure I am not the only person like this.

[ConcinusMan]

This thread started off with you saying you were trying to understand the market, and you didn't want to sell to whole salers at $5-$10 an animal.

Merely pointing out there IS a market out there and a good website could bring in pet buyers. I do research regarding husbandry so I know how to care for the animal and what to expect, but beyond that I do not want to research genetics or spend hours googling photos and then more hours trying to find a specific morph etc... I am quite sure I am not the only person like this.

I started this thread in December of 2010. A lot about my understanding of the market has changed since then. You say "I do not want to research genetics or spend hours googling photos and then more hours trying to find a specific morph etc... I am quite sure I am not the only person like this"

I totally understand where you're coming from but let me ask you this. If you suddenly decided to spend $200,000 on a car, would you not do any research before you decide what car to purchase in your price range? It really isn't the car dealers business to make sure you know what you're buying, especially when he sells out all of his stock every year, to people who already do know what they are buying.

If you take a look at the photographic library on this website, and click on specific species, you will often find photos of different morphs(different forms or variations) of that species. For example, plains garter snake:
Photographic Library - Caresheets

Oregon Red Spotted: Photographic Library - Caresheets

If there is any place to come and ask questions and to do research before you purchase, you've come to the right place. Right here.

[Sonya610]

Working on ways to change that

What keywords come to mind for you?

You have a very nice image gallery on your site. Add "alt" tags to all your images with the FULL name of the snake so that name displays when the mouse moves over hte image and also registers on search engines.

Put your mouse over the Thamnophis image at the top of this page to see what I mean, the name "Garter Snake Forum" appears. Right now your images do not have alt tags to name them so the file name shows (albsnake.jpg). Add alt="Albino Red Sided Garter" in the img tag after the albsnake.jpg file name and that name will display on rollover plus be picked up by search engines. Actually looking at your site again the html editor you used is using the file name as the "title" by default so put the name of the animal in the quotes after the title tag.

It's an easy way to add the searchable terms to your site and label your photos without having to do a lot of redesign work.