Expensive garters

[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]

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.

[ConcinusMan]

This is going to be long but I would like to explain where I am now...

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.

Believe me, that's the first thing I thought of when I first got this morph. I think we talked about this before Jeff. I do not view this as, nor do I think it should be, a competition. If "they" market them better than I, than good! Let them market them, creating demand, and I will still benefit from that. I do not give a darn who gets credit for being "first". Nor do I want to be the only source and charge ridiculous prices. I think all this damn bickering you guys do is a bit ridiculous. If you guys would help each other and cooperate to create the new morphs, all of you could mutually benefit and bring them to fruition sooner. Also, I did not just indiscriminately sell off a bunch of adults just to make a few bucks now, due to impatience. I gave it much thought and careful consideration in every aspect. There is a method to my madness, believe that. I will attempt to explain. I only have room and time for so many snakes and breeding projects and that capacity is somewhat limited. I can really only handle so many litters in a season, and so many offspring (and grow-ups) in my current situation so having one or two other breeders working on this, in cooperation, not competition, is good. Also, I have a strong goal to diversify and get into breeding other morphs and species such as plains garters and checkereds which I know will sell very well locally at well above average online market value that most of you established breeders get. Being how I am cash poor, the quickest way to accomplish that and acquire the animals I require, is to use the only card I have - this anery morph. My goal is actually to use this to acquire animals I can't afford to pay for, so I can move away from breeding concinnus, or any sirtalis for the most part. I just can't go to local shows with them or any sirtalis, or sell them locally and high profile. pet stores here can't sell sirtalis either, but they can sell the species I have been getting in trade. I am actually looking to pass on the "blue anery morph torch" so to speak, but I also want to make sure I secure the animals I need for my long term goal,(non sirtalis breeding) in the process.

It looks like perhaps myself and shannon will be the only one's producing anery to anery litters. Don is the only other person that has the snakes required but it is unclear if he's going to produce any. I highly doubt that this will "ruin" my market by producing competition. There was, and still is, no need to "create demand" for these since the demand was strong from day one, and still is strong. As I said, I am not in competition with Don or Shannon. We are mutually benefiting. I'm getting the animals I need from them, to accomplish my long term goals and they got anery breeders from me in return. It's win-win. I have a local market new to snakes that you guys have had for decades. Also, I can get much more for them.

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?

I completely understand and believe me, I recognized the "rare unique" opportunity and still do. I am using the opportunity in the best way I know how, to benefit my long term goals, to benefit a few other breeders, and the garter snake hobby as a whole. Like I said, there's a method to my madness and so far, it's going as planned. I have some darn fine animals(non sirtalis) to grow up and breed for my local market and what's the big deal if shannon or don also produce a litter of anery concinnus? We might all three just "co-op up" and dictate their value, (a.k.a. set the price). Did you ever think of that? Farmers do it, so can we. I think the small group of us can all benefit each other by cooperating whereas if we were in competition with each other, we both would lose out on opportunities. Sort of a "united we stand tall and accomplish much. Divided, we struggle in competition and accomplish very little"

[Jeff B]

I understand your method of madness more now, it's a different perspective than mine, but to each there own. You really can't have your cake and eat it with prices though, either you care or you don't. If you say you don't care about value and prices and the money ect, ect., thats fine, but don't complain about a lack of it either then, when you go to sell. You should be happy that your concinus weren't worth anything, that's what you really want anyway isn't it? You don't want to pay for any of the snakes that are higher dollar and you don't think they should cost that much right? And what "we" sell these morphs for is rediculous, right? Isn't what you really want, is for all morphs and all garters to sell for $10-20?

[ConcinusMan]

Isn't what you really want, is for all morphs and all garters to sell for $10-20?

No Jeff, that's not it at all. It's not exactly that simple. Try to understand when I started this thread I was coming from a point of frustration and was only trying to understand the market a bit better. In the previous year, normal concinnus were selling for $35 and going fast. I put my effort into producing them for the following year and nearly had to give them away and it wasn't just me. Even reptutable established breeders weren't selling them very well and had to drop prices. I was only trying to understand why, and I was frustrated as I said. I totally understand that some of the more expensive morphs out there are much more difficult to produce and take a much longer investment of time, money, and effort.

I also now understand that we are all going to take a different approach to the marketing aspect. You do what works for you. I just won't be buying flames, or any other morph as long as they remain as high priced as they are. Lord knows with my luck, if I did do that, by the time I raise them up and produce litters of them, they will darn near be worthless. That's just how it seems to work out for me.

Are you going to sit there and actually tell me that these anery concinnus would go for $250 or higher just because I keep them to myself?

Please. I knew better than that, just by the fact that Scott wasn't even slightly interested in trading for them when I first got them, and neither were you.

When I say "ridiculous" price, I mean from my perspective. I just don't think that snow or albino red sideds are worth the prices you guys charge. It's insane to me. Not nearly as insane as ball python or retic morphs though.