How much do you wholesale what for?

[Fran]

That's completely true, because this is a free market, but the lower the prices go, the cheaper the whole hobby becomes. The spiders are the ones who will suffer all across the country from lack of interest from their captors, to an overall saturation in the market like so many other animals. Reptile shows are good examples of this. I've seen some good dealers that care for their stock, then I've seen the others :barf: The less something is worth it seems, the more I see people depriving them of such simple things as water, it's disturbing.
I'm not trying to start a big thread again on the market prices either, I just don't have the time or energy, so this is just my opinion.

I somewhat agree on that too.

 

[proper_tea]

So, is this the way to go? Rather than contacting dealers and offering them slings, you post an add to sell slings wholesale with the prices you want, and wait for the dealers to come to you and make an offer?

Is this how it's normally done (I'd imagine not... right, or we'd see more $1 slings out there)?

 

[Fran]

So, is this the way to go? Rather than contacting dealers and offering them slings, you post an add to sell slings wholesale with the prices you want, and wait for the dealers to come to you and make an offer?

Is this how it's normally done (I'd imagine not... right, or we'd see more $1 slings out there)?

Thats how I did it, and I ended up giving a ton for free to some members.

Obviously knowing they were gonna keep them, not just throwing them away, giving like 5-10 each.

 

[proper_tea]

I just bought a formosa sling from someone on this board.

I have noticed that there are some people selling pokies in the classifieds for WAY cheap. Probably not good for those that are trying to sell them at whatever might be considered the "normal" selling price right now. I could be wrong though.

There will always be people who need $$$ quick, and will be selling part or all of their collection. I've bought a lot of my spiders this way. If you're looking for an adult female that you can afford, a lot of times you'll just have to sit and wait and watch closely until someone posts it for the price you want to pay. However, you're usually dealing with a person who is fairly unknown. You don't know what kind of care they take of their spiders, and from what I've found, they usually have an inflated idea of what size their spider is (can't tell you how many 6" spiders have turned out to be no bigger than 4"). Also, you either pay shipping on that one spider, and don't buy anything else, or you're limited to buying whatever else that person has in their collection. If it's a collection sale, you're also dealing with a person who is getting out of the hobby, who doesn't have a lot of incentive to maintain a good reputation.

You can get a great deal if you're lucky (and I've had some very lucky finds), and you can also get somewhat screwed.

On the other hand, you are probably going to pay a little bit more with a dealer. In my experience though, the spider is usually as big, or bigger than advertised, and is very healthy. Also, dealers are much more concerned with maintaining a good reputation, so if there is a reasonable dispute, the dealer will usually be quicker to resolve it. And on top of this, I for one hate to pay shipping on one spider... so if I'm buying, I usually buy a pretty good selection of spiders at a time. If I'm doing this, I'm more likely to be able to get exactly what I want from a dealer.

I think this is why the very reputable dealers on these boards are able to continue to survive despite the fact that there is probably someone out there low balling them on any spider they are selling.

 

[Fran]

There will always be people who need $$$ quick, and will be selling part or all of their collection. I've bought a lot of my spiders this way. If you're looking for an adult female that you can afford, a lot of times you'll just have to sit and wait and watch closely until someone posts it for the price you want to pay. However, you're usually dealing with a person who is fairly unknown. You don't know what kind of care they take of their spiders, and from what I've found, they usually have an inflated idea of what size their spider is (can't tell you how many 6" spiders have turned out to be no bigger than 4"). Also, you either pay shipping on that one spider, and don't buy anything else, or you're limited to buying whatever else that person has in their collection. If it's a collection sale, you're also dealing with a person who is getting out of the hobby, who doesn't have a lot of incentive to maintain a good reputation.

You can get a great deal if you're lucky (and I've had some very lucky finds), and you can also get somewhat screwed.

On the other hand, you are probably going to pay a little bit more with a dealer. In my experience though, the spider is usually as big, or bigger than advertised, and is very healthy. Also, dealers are much more concerned with maintaining a good reputation, so if there is a reasonable dispute, the dealer will usually be quicker to resolve it. And on top of this, I for one hate to pay shipping on one spider... so if I'm buying, I usually buy a pretty good selection of spiders at a time. If I'm doing this, I'm more likely to be able to get exactly what I want from a dealer.

I think this is why the very reputable dealers on these boards are able to continue to survive despite the fact that there is probably someone out there low balling them on any spider they are selling.

While some dealers really are trully great, with nice speciemens...some others sell you the idea of a cherry pick fat healthy spider, when IN FACT, is a regular WC specimen.

So, hmm...It depends who you are dealing with.

Then you got the idiot like me who trust people , send a great female T and doesnt get paid for it.

 

[proper_tea]

Then you got the idiot like me who trust people , send a great female T and doesnt get paid for it.

that sucks.

 

[AzJohn]

So, is this the way to go? Rather than contacting dealers and offering them slings, you post an add to sell slings wholesale with the prices you want, and wait for the dealers to come to you and make an offer?

Is this how it's normally done (I'd imagine not... right, or we'd see more $1 slings out there)?

I post an add let it sit for a few days. If that doesn't work I cut and paste a message to any dealers I can get in touch with.


John

 

[NChromatus]

They are one of the best spiders in the hobby, that's just a fact. I understand the perception of not being worth much, but that is only because of the massive number of offspring from an eggsac, and the inability of most confronted with this to house and keep them properly. Some view it as a godsend, and not a burdon. When I hatch these, I try my best to cup as many as I can stand. L. parahybana is a beautiful spider! I have females that are easily 9", and I would not sell them period! I'm not sure if the "few cents" was a joke or "misspeak..(ha!), but that spider deserves more respect than that. Also offering cheap prices like that for spiderlings is not a general practice with most dealers, not with me anyway. I'm not trying to start anything with Todd either, I just kind of find it hard to believe Todd would offer that price, maybe he could chime in about it.

A cent apiece offer is effectively saying someone doesn't want to buy them.

It sounds like he thought they were just going to be more trouble than they were worth, which is understandable. Not everyone wants to put up with 1,500 spiderlings, even for free.

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

I post an add let it sit for a few days. If that doesn't work I cut and paste a message to any dealers I can get in touch with.


John

see this is the way to go, like for me, i had a lot of OBT slings and i was sitting on them like a hen. i didnt want to put any more time or money into them, no one was offering me the price i wanted...so i started dealing with insiders...and through a bit of chit-chat ended up doing a GREAT trade. i ended up pushing a large number of my slings to an individual who sent me some really nice things that i would be able to make money off of down the road.

almost everyone in the hobby wants to breed and make money from the hobby, which is good and bad at the same time. some people will go out of their way to lowball and get their stock moved, which cuts into guys like Ken, Crow and Swift. these guys have fought tooth and nail to be the inspiration that we strive to be. when the proper thing to do is contact them directly, take what percentage they offer and work out a deal. if you were going to lowball the competition anyway you might as well do it on a respectful level. to put it in terms so im not rambling on and getting way off topic...i say follow these steps and you'll ultimately have some success... buy, breed, sell, trade, move...Buy something of value to YOU...Breed it, Sell what you can for a value of what you would like to see, Trade off what you cant sell for something of value to you, Move on to a new project.

 

[OneSickPuppy]

hey hey whoa, rusty. A lot of us want to keep a great collection of stuff we like without turning a profit or even trying to. Like my wife ... she got her T. blondi female today. The only interest she has is to enjoy her Ts and be able to talk to them when she thinks they are lonely or when they are looking at her. I personally consider this a complete loss of money for me that I enjoy wasting. When I talk about trying my hand at breeding it she talks about having hundreds more babies to call her own to love and grow.

As for it hurting the dealers ... no its not. Without those of us who trade and breed they would not have a way to make a living at all. If we undercut them on a single species its not doing them an injustice, its growing the availablity in the hobby which will only allow them to get future business as new people will undoubtably end up with one and simply have to have a bunch more soon. If I picked up 5 slings at a super price, I guarantee you that ive already seen the dealer price and would have never in a million years have paid their price for a single. Theres a part of the hobby who feels safer buying from dealers and theres a part of the hobby who would not buy from dealers under any circumstance. Theres also the part of the hobby who buys what he wants the minute he wants it whether that need be fed by dealer or individual selling off a single specimen. Either way, some people want to buy a lot of different things at once when they have the cashflow ... and that ends up going to a dealer that has a good chunk of their wantlist on hand vs an individual who has 1 or 2 specimens only at that particular time. For the most part I dont buy period. Its the same way I used to get my baseball cards ... I might buy a pack here or there from the store but 95% of my acquisitions were trades with friends or other collectors who I could make lasting friendships with. My wife and I dont care about what the newest hottest species is in the market. We care about our kids and what we want no matter how square that species might be. Today I picked up a female A. hentzi for free and IMO she is more fun already than the new T. blondi. What dealer was going to put their kid through college with my single purchase of an A. hentzi? They arent and I wouldnt have bought one from a dealer anyways as the shipping would have made it completely unjustified for me.

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

well we are both pulling hairs in this, and i dont want to hijack a thread. understanding completely where your coming from i will say i agree. but where im coming from is the band wagon theory. if you have 100 slings available and you are selling them for X% under what a dealer sells them for, and someone realizes that you are making good money off this, they start breeding, then they sell for X% under YOUR cost and then trickle down the line. Due to this, the dealer is moving less volume and is forced to lower price to make up for it, there for losing money in the long run. if you do this with enough species then the market is flooded and everyone loses. take P. metallica or M. balfouri for instance. 3 years ago you couldnt touch a sling for under $300, better yet 6 years ago i remember seeing thousands of dollars for these guys. due to breeding efforts and people trying to make a quick buck and move a lot at once we are now able to get both at roughly $100 a inch (thats obviously just a guesstimate) but a very close one. though $100 for a sling is still a really good price and only certain people will be able to obtain these species 5 years from now the P. metallica is the new regalis and those who scrounged their savings to purchase it now are kicking themselves in the behind becuz the animals "value" (not worth) has plummeted and they will never make back what the put into it.

 

[Swifty]

Without those of us who trade and breed they would not have a way to make a living at all. QUOTE]

That's total BS.

 

[Swifty]

A cent apiece offer is effectively saying someone doesn't want to buy them.

It sounds like he thought they were just going to be more trouble than they were worth, which is understandable. Not everyone wants to put up with 1,500 spiderlings, even for free.

That's why you need to consider this before you put a male into the females cage.

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

That's why you need to consider this before you put a male into the females cage.

+1 lol....couldnt have said that better myself.

 

[Swifty]

well we are both pulling hairs in this, and i dont want to hijack a thread. understanding completely where your coming from i will say i agree. but where im coming from is the band wagon theory. if you have 100 slings available and you are selling them for X% under what a dealer sells them for, and someone realizes that you are making good money off this, they start breeding, then they sell for X% under YOUR cost and then trickle down the line. Due to this, the dealer is moving less volume and is forced to lower price to make up for it, there for losing money in the long run. if you do this with enough species then the market is flooded and everyone loses. take P. metallica or M. balfouri for instance. 3 years ago you couldnt touch a sling for under $300, better yet 6 years ago i remember seeing thousands of dollars for these guys. due to breeding efforts and people trying to make a quick buck and move a lot at once we are now able to get both at roughly $100 a inch (thats obviously just a guesstimate) but a very close one. though $100 for a sling is still a really good price and only certain people will be able to obtain these species 5 years from now the P. metallica is the new regalis and those who scrounged their savings to purchase it now are kicking themselves in the behind becuz the animals "value" (not worth) has plummeted and they will never make back what the put into it.

First of all, they were never "thousands" of dollars. And just for the record, In 2005 I produced the first P. metallica spiderlings in the U.S. that I sold for $225 ea. In 2007 I produced a sac, and sold them for $195 ea. In 2009 I produced two fertile sacs, and a third that was eaten and sold them for $175, and $165. Recently I produced a sac now in 2010, selling for $185 ea.
That's 5 years, so how do you come to the conclusion that they will plummit to P. regalis prices? Why do people say stuff like that?

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

First of all, they were never "thousands" of dollars. And just for the record, In 2005 I produced the first P. metallica spiderlings in the U.S. that I sold for $225 ea. In 2007 I produced a sac, and sold them for $195 ea. In 2009 I produced two fertile sacs, and a third that was eaten and sold them for $175, and $165. Recently I produced a sac now in 2010, selling for $185 ea.
That's 5 years, so how do you come to the conclusion that they will plummit to P. regalis prices? Why do people say stuff like that?

it was more in theory, no need to throw crap in my face. though your records are accurate i was trying more or less to make a point that with the idea that people can just sell for what they want you would have a serious decline in value in a short period of time. you however took it to a new level by proving what the others had said to be true, if the market doesnt drop then what does it matter what we sell them for?...and the "thousands" comment was more towards M. balfouri and i will swallow mine like a good boy and say i was misleading... i was talking more of an adult female import, and thats by what i was hearing, not hard proof or fact.

 

[Swifty]

it was more in theory, no need to throw crap in my face. though your records are accurate i was trying more or less to make a point that with the idea that people can just sell for what they want you would have a serious decline in value in a short period of time. you however took it to a new level by proving what the others had said to be true, if the market doesnt drop then what does it matter what we sell them for?...and the "thousands" comment was more towards M. balfouri and i will swallow mine like a good boy and say i was misleading... i was talking more of an adult female import, and thats by what i was hearing, not hard proof or fact.

I don't think I was that harsh as to claim I threw crap in your face. M. balfouri, wasn't that high either, but I see you were trying to make a point. My point is, let people sell their offspring too cheap. Do it all day long. But it isn't going to have the same effect as you think. M. balfouri hasn't dropped down in price because it has been bred alot in this country, and I'll bet you money, it's going to increase in price very soon.
This whole disscussion has run it's course on similar threads about pricing, and how dealers are out to take your hard earned cash. I'm sick of feeling I have to apologize for having a retail tarantula business, like dealers are second hand citizen or something. I'm a breeder also, so am I a good guy and contributer to the hobby for being a breeder, or am I a money grubbing jerk because I sell retail? Who cares! Back to my hermit hole!

 

[rustym3talh3ad]

I don't think I was that harsh as to claim I threw crap in your face. M. balfouri, wasn't that high either, but I see you were trying to make a point. My point is, let people sell their offspring too cheap. Do it all day long. But it isn't going to have the same effect as you think. M. balfouri hasn't dropped down in price because it has been bred alot in this country, and I'll bet you money, it's going to increase in price very soon.
This whole disscussion has run it's course on similar threads about pricing, and how dealers are out to take your hard earned cash. I'm sick of feeling I have to apologize for having a retail tarantula business, like dealers are second hand citizen or something. I'm a breeder also, so am I a good guy and contributer to the hobby for being a breeder, or am I a money grubbing jerk because I sell retail? Who cares! Back to my hermit hole!

well i by no means wanted to turn this into a peeing contest with the pro's. i am on the same page as you guys...and i buy from breeders and dealers alike. if i can get a sweet deal thru joe-shmo then i will but if i know that a dealer has an amazing animal at what is an expected price then i buy it. i dont think that dealers should have the say in the market but i think they should have their hand in the play by play. i appreciate your input to the thread and i will go ahead and bow out of any further discussion of this as i do not know my facts like you guys do. but my original statement stands, we do need to make sure that everyone is watching what price things are and try not to drastically undercut said price, and if youre going to sell wholesale, talk to the dealers to get your wholesale price, dont make it available to everyone. in the end even its a few bucks outta a dealers hands, thats a few bucks a hard working person got screwed out of in an already crappy economy.

 

[codykrr]

Not getting into a debate, but i will say, i dont care if i see someone offering a P. metallica for 100 bucks, and Swifty is selling them for 200, i will gladly buy from Kelly as i have purchased off him many times, hell i believe half my collection came from him...mostly slings when i started off, but my point is, i dont support lowballing dealers. I am sure there are other that feel that way too. so while it may hurt dealers some when people lowball prices, alot of them have LOYAL customers and i will buy from dealers just because i know their stock is of good quality. like Ken, and Kelly.

As for breeding just to sell wholesale, i say go for it. If not, then trade them off to get a better collection. I mean i wouldnt have A LOT of my T's without trades for roaches and H. incei. so long as everyone gets a FAIR deal we should ALL be happy.

I mean this is a hobby...you dont see people in RC airplanes and Car trying to make a bunch off of their car or planes. same should apply here.

 

[proper_tea]

I'm sick of feeling I have to apologize for having a retail tarantula business, like dealers are second hand citizen or something. I'm a breeder also, so am I a good guy and contributer to the hobby for being a breeder, or am I a money grubbing jerk because I sell retail? Who cares! Back to my hermit hole!

I don't think that anyone here thinks you're a bad guy for making a living. I know that we all appreciate the work that you do for the hobby. The reason I started this thread is because I want to breed and sell directly to dealers. This is mostly because I'm about to be a graduate student student, and am sure that I won't have time to make it to the post office and sell the slings off 1@atime. I followed the other pricing threads enough to understand how lowballing on the open market ends up hurting the hobby, and I don't want to do that. That said... the only situation where I could see myself ending up lowballing, would be a situation where I felt that none of the dealers out there were offering me a fair price. It sounds like you and Crows consistently offer fair prices to people who breed.

I'd love to hear from more dealers about how they deal with buying people's slings. I'd also love to hear more about what you all are more interested in buying... and what you aren't so interested in buying.