Scorpion/Centipede etc wholesaler?

[Mrwolfe]

Hi everyone My name is Josh,
I am looking for a centipede/scorpion (and other inverts) wholesaler. I already have a source for Tarantulas local, but unfortunatly hes doesn't dabble in other inverts anymore for 5+ years, strictly tarantulas. if anyone has any leads at all please let me know.
Im not looking for retail, im looking for wholesale price. My usual Tarantula order consist of over 60 slings at a time (usually every 2 months).
thank you everyone for your help

 

[Chillilisous]

Are you looking for someone local? I too am looking for wholesale centipedes for research and have yet to find a reliable supplier.

 

[Mrwolfe]

im looking for anyone in the usa, I prefer local (so i can go pick up instead of ship) but at this point its pretty hard to find anyone with a reliable source and variety of species. I wonder why there are no suppliers of them

 

[Chillilisous]

im looking for anyone in the usa, I prefer local (so i can go pick up instead of ship) but at this point its pretty hard to find anyone with a reliable source and variety of species. I wonder why there are no suppliers of them

I think it's because people have a hard time breeding them (at least from what I have read). The proteomics studies I have followed all involved live capture of the specimens because there was no way to purchase them.

 

[Mrwolfe]

I think it's because people have a hard time breeding them (at least from what I have read). The proteomics studies I have followed all involved live capture of the specimens because there was no way to purchase them.

Ya I've also read that they were pretty hard to breed. I just want to get my hands on some breeding stock so I can try my hand at it. I live in southern california, the weather is usually perfect or near perfect for breeding temps. (Besides the lack of humidity) but I can always mist or use my son's humidifier that has been in storage for years.
But I haven't had any luck finding any breeding stock. There was a pet store close by that usually had a pretty good selection of scorps but sadly they went out of business and my tarantula supplier doesnt sell or import anything besides T's

 

[Galapoheros]

I think captive born wholesale supply is low because of the gestation time for scorpions, centipedes and tarantulas. It's not so long T's but it's the success factor that adds value to hard to get sps. Some scorpions have a rather short gestation period but some popular sps have very long gestation periods, 9+ months. It may not be long for centipedes either but it might be long there also, it may take them a year or more to lay eggs, or a couple of weeks, then they may eat the eggs, then molt, then lay eggs over a year later, then those hatch out haha, happened over here once. So progress with breeding centipedes is less predictable but not necessarily hard imo, harder to get babies from pedes than with Ts though. It's just more unpredictable ime. A breeder is probably not going to want to wholesale just due to the time it takes but they might, depends. If somebody has a lot with breeding and with more babies coming along, then I could see more people wholesaling. The hobby just isn't that popular in the US to find many of those people. It wouldn't be real hard to do, you need space, many containers and to be able to control temp and moisture. I've got a room full of stuff, 100s of things, all four walls full, yet I can leave for a week and not worry about any of it so I know it can be done. Because of the time from mating to babies, you can lose stock really fast if you wholesale even when you have a lot of stuff. Crickets?, that's the other story.

 

[Mrwolfe]

Do you happen to have any that you would be willing to sell?

 

[Galapoheros]

Not at the moment, I just don't have a strong reason to do it right now.

 

[sschind]

Not at the moment, I just don't have a strong reason to do it right now.

You don't have a strong reason to breed your animals or you don't have a strong reason to wholesale them? I fully respect your decision whatever it may be but I can add that I would love to find some CBB or even CB baby centipedes at wholesale prices. Part of the problem is that what I consider to be wholesale and what a breeder considers to be wholesale may not be the same.

I think another reason you don't see so many CBB scorpions and centipedes offered wholesale is because they don't have hundreds of babies like some T's can have. A batch of 30 or 40 baby scorpions or centipedes may not be as overwhelming as a batch of 300 baby Tarantulas and a breeder may be willing to sit on them and feed them until they can sell them at retail or closer to it rather than blow them out at lower prices.

Mainly though I think it comes down to shear numbers. There are far more people breeding Ts' and far more baby T's available as a result, than there are scorpions and centipedes. I would like to say I think scorpions and centipedes as a whole grow much slower but that's just from my own limited experience. I know there are some T's that take forever to grow.

I've got 3 baby S alternans that I got from Bill Korineck when they were wee pups just away from mom and they are about 3.5" now and its been almost a year and a half (I think) I'm not sure if that's good or bad or average but I had read that its possible to overfeed centipedes so I go easy. That seems slow to me in a sense that it is a very long process.

 

[Galapoheros]

I’ve always got a breeding project or two going on. To simplify the wholesale/retail thing ..why wholesale when you can retail? There isn’t much incentive to wholesale this stuff unless a person is just overwhelmed. To wholesale when you don’t need to would just be handing stuff over to somebody else that will make the profit you could have. But once a person gets high exponential growth, I can see a person more willing to wholesale. The hobby is just not that popular for there to be a lot of wholesalers around, unlike a staple or nail factory. When you offer inverts or anything else at close to wholesale prices, retailers buy them all and sell at retail. Wholesale prices are for retailers, other than that you're just looking for good deal where you can find it before a retailer does.

 

[Chillilisous]

Galapoheros I see your point here. And this may be a point of distinction between sschind and I; I am more just looking for a reliable supplier of a few different species of scolopendra- I either have found breeders who once in awhile get a WC one in stock but at sporadic periods or I see breeders at conventions who have no idea what species they are handling (an issue if I am doing research). Could you assist in my search for reliable breeders?

 

[sschind]

I’ve always got a breeding project or two going on. To simplify the wholesale/retail thing ..why wholesale when you can retail? There isn’t much incentive to wholesale this stuff unless a person is just overwhelmed. To wholesale when you don’t need to would just be handing stuff over to somebody else that will make the profit you could have. But once a person gets high exponential growth, I can see a person more willing to wholesale. The hobby is just not that popular for there to be a lot of wholesalers around, unlike a staple or nail factory. When you offer inverts or anything else at close to wholesale prices, retailers buy them all and sell at retail. Wholesale prices are for retailers, other than that you're just looking for good deal where you can find it before a retailer does.

I agree with you totally and I would probably do the same thing. The only reason I asked was because I wasn't clear on what you meant exactly. You cleared it up. Well, OK another reason I asked was so that you might say OK I'll wholesale you some animals what do you want

I should add that when I said I would love to find the animals at wholesale prices I meant larger quantities for resale not just cheap prices for a few animals for my personal collection. I do reptile swaps mostly but I just don't like the idea of buying and reselling WC animals. I prefer to deal with CBB animals. When I bred corn snakes I'd give discounts to BAM stores looking for animals to resell in their stores because I owned one myself and I know how hard it is to make a profit. I'd sell 2 or 3 or 4 animals to a store owner and give them a price break but I knew breeders who wouldn't even consider giving a break unless you were talking 25-30 animals or even more. One corn snake breeder said Let me know when you want 100 and then we will talk. I bought 100 and we talked. The one thing I wouldn't do is give other vendors at the swap a price break because I knew they were just going to take the animals and mark them up a few bucks and try to sell to the same people I was trying to sell to.

 

[Mrwolfe]

Well I agree with everyone here lol.
I'm not looking to buy just 1 or 2. I'm looking for an actual wholesale, to buy 25 -50 at a time. When I do buy inverts at wholesale it's usually a 250-300$ min purchase. (That is what's required) so I'm not really looking for a cheap deal to buy 1 scorp or 1 centipede. I'm looking for a reliable supplier that would be able to do just that, supply lol. And yes I do agree that the hobby just isn't that big yet (which is sad) since there are tons more species of scorpions and centipedes than there are Tarantulas.
And now for my opinion lol.

I would hope that some big breeder or someone who has alot going on. Would wholesale a bunch out for the simple fact is (I sell tarantulas and feeders insects). I've had countless people come to buy some feeder roaches and because I happen to have a species of tarantula for a low price, cause I was able to purchase on bulk. I was able to offer them one for a really low price and alot end up taking them, and I would estimate that more than 60% of those people would get hooked on tarantulas and they always comeback and purchase more. 2 of those people happen to purchase over 30 from me. I want to be able to do that with scorpions and centipedes. Besides my own personal interest alot of people are asking for them. Which led me here to ask about wholesale. I do understand that they don't have hundreds of babies at a time, which I'm sure is not helping the hobby grow as much as we'd hope. Hopefully in a couple years or so someone will take on a massive breeding project and bring at least 5% of the known species of scorpions to market

 

[Mrwolfe]

I’ve always got a breeding project or two going on. To simplify the wholesale/retail thing ..why wholesale when you can retail? There isn’t much incentive to wholesale this stuff unless a person is just overwhelmed. To wholesale when you don’t need to would just be handing stuff over to somebody else that will make the profit you could have. But once a person gets high exponential growth, I can see a person more willing to wholesale. The hobby is just not that popular for there to be a lot of wholesalers around, unlike a staple or nail factory. When you offer inverts or anything else at close to wholesale prices, retailers buy them all and sell at retail. Wholesale prices are for retailers, other than that you're just looking for good deal where you can find it before a retailer does.

This is just an example-

Well if someone has an outlet to reach more potential customers and grow the hobby that would be a reason to wholesale imo. It may not benefit the seller directly but it will benefit the hobby as a whole. Example - you have 30 scorplings, most likely 90% of them will go to people in the hobby already and it will just add to their personal collection.and maybe you keep the other 10% for yourself for future breeding (doesn't help grow the hobby much if anything).

OR

You wholesale them out to someone who has an outlet to reach 200-300 new people (possibly more) that arent in the hobby yet. And if those 30 go to those new people, most likely they will catch the "bug" we all here have and they will be active in the hobby and will bring new faces and new passion. (Which helps the hobby grow as a whole)

The first example mainly grows the collection of people already in tho hobby. Which I'm sure over 70% of the transactions on here do. (And benefits the SELLER heavily)

The second example help grow the hobby by reaching new people that otherwise would have probably passed on it. (Which doesn't benefit the seller directly, but benefits the hobby as a whole)

End rant lol
(I like to consider myself open minded hahaha)
I don't mean to offend anyone here by any means. I'm young and I really just don't understand why the scorpion and other inverts haven't grown more in the hobby. I understand people don't like change but sometime you just gotta take a risk with things

 

[Galapoheros]

"It may not benefit the seller directly but it will benefit the hobby as a whole." The problem there is that the seller/people care more about benefitting directly rather than thinking of benefitting the hobby as a whole, just the way it goes with just about everything in life, especially when you get older. You may do some philanthropic things when young but then say, "Wait, what the heck am I doing.", then wise up and you try to get da $, going with demand. Then when you're old and can't walk anymore and don't care, some people go a little philanthropic(just discovered that word) again. There are exceptions, I just don't think there are any people out there that wholesale CB inverts on a regular basis, just because it makes more sense for them to sell retail because they can. Anyway haha, yeah sschind, it's a concept that can go round and round and round.

 

[Mrwolfe]

Just an update
Still haven't found a wholesaler of centipedes or scorpions.
Well I have found 1 for scorpions but they are all usa native scorpions. Only about 4 species to choose from.
What about importers or anything, can anyone point me in the right direction? I have the sellers permit and everything to apply. But I just can seem to find any. PM me if you have any tips please