Reptile Forums banner

Ball python market crash

1 reading
14K views 37 replies 18 participants last post by  Central Scotland Reptiles  
#1 ·
I keep hearing people talking about the Ball python market crashing, what actually is causing this ? And what are the effects ?
 
#2 ·
Here's a very simplified, and possibly cynical version;

Some people developed a (and then afterwards, quite a few) very rare and desirable royal morph.
Other people were prepared to pay preposterous sums (many thousands of dollars) for these "new" animals to add to their collections.
Some other people decided that they would be able to make a few quid by also producing these new morphs, and though the prices came down a little, they also made quite a bit of cash.

So far so good. : victory:

Many people who had never before considered breeding their snakes were caught up in this "gold rush" and also began to pump out these very same animals.
People completely new to the hobby heard that there was gold in them there hills, and mistakenly believed that any royal python they produced would make them their fortune.

Hmmm not so good. :blush:

The market was then flooded by every combination of royal morph known to man (so far.) This abundance of animals lead to a massive price slump, and now all but the rarest of the rare can be bought for a pittance. :gasp:

If you think I am patronising you, rest assured I am not.
The tragedy for the hobby is that there are thousands of "normal" royals that people don't really want. Why have a normal when you can have a multi het gti 4x4 for ÂŁ80?
Have a look on the classified section of any reptile forum and see how many "breeders" are selling their whole collections, or how many and how cheap individual royals are right now.:whistling2:

(Disclaimer; there are still many royal enthusiasts out there who keep them for the pure enjoyment of the individual snakes. : victory:)
 
#4 ·
And everyone jumping on the bandwagon. Paul gave a very good description as to the history of events. Some people in those early days made a lot of money from selling just one snake.

The problem is then compounded because often the customers of the "breeders" then became the breeders competitors as they would then breed those snakes in a bid to jump on this money making bandwagon. But by the time the then produced their off-spring a couple of years down the line, those morphs were two a penny as the world and his wife we selling the same Royal morphs.

Depreciation is one thing, but in real terms other than a few of the newer 5 or 6 gene morphs that are appearing, most morphs that were a few hundreds of pounds a couple of years back are now being sold for peanuts as "breeders" just want to clear their stocks and try to jump on the next bandwagon that's around the corner. As Paul said, look at the snake classified section. 9 out of ten listings are for Royals, some where the sellers are so desperate to sell that the current price is half the original.

One other factor that has occurred is that in some cases to hit the odds of getting the morph you want there is a high probability that a normal wild pattern is produced. These are even harder to sell given that "customers" want pretty painted ones - the result is that these now have almost no value whatsoever and are listed as free to good homes, or euthanasia is employed.

Basically the "crash" is flooded market where supply outstrips demand and there is such a surplus of snakes that their value drops.
 
#5 ·
You must always remember that your customers this year become your competition in a couple of years time.
 
#8 ·
Hence why they come and go from the hobby! No idea how to sell, no idea of supply and demand!

It takes many years and alot of time, effort and money to obtain the better specimens of particular species from reputable breeders around the world. Here in the UK we dont drip feed these morphs and pretty patterns so within the space of a few years prices crash! If you want to keep your margins up you need to control the supply, demand higher than supply is the aim. Even if that means keeping more hold backs than required, but then this can become a case of cut your nose to spite the face job!

We need to concentrate on breeding rarer species more to help stop them being removed from the wild, some of the prices these BP get touted for it aint like the buyers cant afford them. 35K I seen one for!!! Pair of sloths for that money : )
 
#10 ·
It happened with corns and is happening now with hognoses.
Look at corns. When I started breeding them reptile shops paid ÂŁ25 for a normal wildtype hatchling. Now most shops often refuse to pay for them.
Tessara morphs were selling in the ÂŁ1000 range but now they can be picked up for double figures.
Hognoses - anaconda morphs started at around ÂŁ500. Supaconda morphs started around ÂŁ1000. That was for wild type colour. Mix an albino in and watch the price fly.
Albinos were around ÂŁ250 when they appeared.
Yet now the price of these have dropped drastically.
As a species becomes more popular and bred in greater numbers, their value will drop.

The one snake that has bucked the trend is garters. They used to be picked up dirty cheap, even as cb, yet now they are ridiculously expensive in comparison to say 10 years ago.
 
#13 ·
I don't understand why making money is such an issue? Like most of you I have other hobbies / interests where ABSOLUTELY no consideration was made towards the possible financial return - does this mean I enjoy them any less?

I am not adverse to breeding but as I always say to people - I work for a living so my animals DON'T have too.



Speaking specifically about Royal Pythons - I am glad the price has decreased as it has meant that the morphs I covet are now or will eventually be within my financial reach.

For example, I remember seeing a picture of the original Toffee male acquired by Canadian Breeder - Craig Stewart (the 'brother' of this animal was purchased by American Breeder - Peter Kahl and went on to found the Candy line) in 2005-6 and immediately fell in love with it. In the preceding twelve years I have remained close to this project from afar and all things going to plan, I am now on the cusp of producing my own Toffee animals - has the price dropped? Absolutely. Has the beauty of the morph decreased? Absolutely NOT!!
 
#14 ·
People have been claiming the ball python market is crashing for 15 years. Pretty much since the first couple morphs came out.

Economics major here, maybe i can finally use my degree.

Its not a crash, its a natural cycle of supply and demand. By definition a market crash means a significant drop in the TOTAL VALUE of a market.
Thats not what is happening here. With ball pythons, a new morph comes out, its worth 50k lets say. Then its bred and more and more are created. As supply goes up, price goes down. Now theres 10,000 pythons out there all worth $200 each. The total value of the market has actually gone up.

The market for one particular breed may drop as supply increases, but the ball python market is not crashing. There will always be another morph.
 
#15 ·
I confess that I don't possess an economics degree, but I don't follow your logic. Agree, having 1 snake at $50,000 or 50,000 snakes at $1 is still the same value. But using this analogy, with a market flooded with 50,000 snakes, their value has decreased to the point that supply exceeds demand - that's a crash as the "market" isn't then sustainable and businesses collapse as turnover drops and profits turn into losses.
 
#17 ·
One more thing to add to my above post.
Supply exceeding demand does not cause a market crash, it causes a drop in price. Then, since more people are willing to buy the snakes now that they are cheaper, there will be a new equilibrium point between supply and demand at that lower price level.
 
#19 ·
Which if it continued ends up with snakes that are so cheap to the point where its not viable so breeders sell up, flood the market with their remaining stock at a rock bottom price in order to clear. Results in the same situation as your example. I've heard on the grapevine of people euthanizing any bog standard wild type royals that crop up in a clutch because its not worth keeping them due to their value being worthless.

People are also so desperate to sell, even at a loss. My female lesser pastel was advertised at ÂŁ80 a couple of years back, then over the course of a few weeks the price dropped to ÂŁ40. - She was a cracking snake, and I couldn't understand why she hadn't been snapped up, even at the original price. When I picked her up the seller was offering me most of his other snakes at silly prices, but I didn't have the space. His reasons for selling were two fold. The snake room was being converted to a nursery as they were expecting their first child, but also he wanted to move away from royals into "something else" as there was no market for royals, and it wasn't just "old" morphs that he was selling.

I also feel that the market has changed and the growth of the "hobby" is no where near the levels it used to be. 20 years ago nearly every local pet shop jumped on the bandwagon and started selling snakes and lizards. The network of societies held annual shows, and between May and October you could go to one almost every weekend if you wanted, so there were more outlets to off load the baby snakes. The going rate selling to shops for bog standard corns was between ÂŁ10 - ÂŁ20 per snake. At shows the same snakes went for ÂŁ50 - ÂŁ70. These days we have two shows a year held in one location. The cost of travel, accommodation, food, booking the table etc often means that it's not worth the effort to try and flog your surplus corns or royals, unless you have some striking examples of 3, 4, 5 gene animals.

We obviously have differing viewpoints so lets just agree to disagree on the current status of the markets for snakes as to whether its crashed or not.
 
#24 ·
This post seems to be a couple of years too late. The 'crash' was in 2012/3 or there abouts. The market isn't crashing really anymore, its pretty much bottomed out. Alot of stuff has just sort of remained at a static low price since about that time really. Female pastels have been 50-80 pounds since then, and alot of the 'classic' morphs such as pied have been 400 a female baby pretty much since then.

For me personally it doesn't really matter as i only really breed a few clutches of ball pythons a year for fun. I think this year ill have about 3 clutches, which is about normal for me. Some of mine are the results of 3-6 year projects anyway, so im happy with it.
 
#25 · (Edited)
perhaps not so much a crash as a sharp market correction in relation to the ball python bubble burst? this all started years ago 2012 was the year of panic i seem to recall.

As, rightly stated, it seems to be something akin to speculators in the market who invest heavily keeping one morphs prices artificially inflated for a year then you see the crash the next. Morphs were always more about fashion in terms of the market.


on a side note when we had shops we saw the average life span of the average customer was about two years. they'd go from 1 to 20 animals in a year. from buying all equipment and supplies at the shop to going elsewhere in order to buy as cheaply as possible. after this year what seems to happen is an animal dies, this lessens their enthusiasm and another dies and so on until they sell off everything and exit the market. rare was the keeper who lasted beyond the two year point. anyone that made it beyond this point we knew was going to be a die hard reptile enthusiast.
this boom and bust happens in slower motion with ball python keepers but after the initial buy in keeping prices up the 'sell off' resulted in depreciation causing a cascade of other smaller breeders as the panic sell engulfed them (sell now or all is lost scenario).
 
#27 ·
Im no economist but even I know that when snakes selling for ÂŁ250 are now hard to even give away (spider royals for example) then that market has crashed.
It has reached saturation point, in other works the supply has caught up with the demand. As more and more are bred, those new owner are reducing as they already have what is being bred. Chances are they are breeding them themselves.
When the royal hobby exploded with new designer morphs selling at stupid prices (in some cases more expensive than an annual salary), lots of people thought "Hey, I'm having a piece of this action".
But as the top morphs were so overpriced most breeders decided to breed those high value morphs from base morphs. But by the time they had hatched the golden goose, so had many others so the price dropped.
And in the process they had all bred a shed load of normal and less expensive morphs. Which in turn means that the value of those had also dropped.
The overall result is that the royal market is now affordable for most to get various 10 gene mega morphs, but equally the vast reduced value means that many breeders in it for money will give up and look to something else (Blue tongue skink morphs apparently).
So however you look at it, it has crashed.
 
#28 ·
For me it is not about whether someone lost money on poor 'business' choices, it is the damage that these individuals have left in their wake.