living off the hobby

[skippy]

Pretty sure that Ken works full time as well as being one of if not the largest dealers in the hobby. Not to mention the 2-4 people he has working in his shop to take care of the business while he's at his regular job.

Most dealers are lucky to breach even or come out a little ahead, no one that I know of is getting rich.

 

[Spiral_Stairs]

Hey Ken I just wanted to say thanks a lot for your input. I appreciate it. That is exactly what I wanted to know. I feel a little guilty for jacking the thread and turning it into another P. metallica pricing thread. But this aspect of the hobby has always been very fascinating to me. Add that to the fact that I spend a good 10 minutes awake in bed every morning dreading getting up to go to work and you can understand why I am so hell bent on doing whatever it would take to make it work. The whole 30$ metallica thing was a joke, in case you didn't pick up on that. I've always ordered from Paul Becker because his prices are usually a lot cheaper than most everyone else. I know he catches a lot of flack about it, and I see comments all over the internet accusing him of "Brown bagging" and what not. But He has found a way to make it work for him and is able to offer some great T's at great prices to us hobbyist. I will say though, Ken you have a fantastic list of species that no one else has, some of which I've never even heard of lol and I think that is worth a little extra. Which brings me to another question I had. How hard is it to import t's? I wouldn't even know where to begin.

 

[BrettG]

Not this again..................

I fail to see how many of the major dealers do not make money,giving some of the prices that they have listed.I understand feeding costs,etc,but when a dealer is selling certain species for 2-3 times what you will see the average Joe selling them for,I wonder how the heck they even manage to stay in business in the first place.That is honestly the #1 reason I have never bought from a dealer as of yet.

 

[andy375hh]

It is really Hard to make a living breeding, I have been to Bryans house, MIARACHNIDS, His hole basement is full of T's and Slings and he still has to work a regular job. Just my op though.

 

[KenTheBugGuy]

thanks ken for all the input i think we got a little off track with the pricing, but lets keep it going. Ken how much time a week do you spend on your stock and do you have anyother job. maybe some pics of your room? if there isnt anything good at the expo tomorrow ill most likely be buying a few things from you btw.

thanks guys for all your opinions and input.

The animals take about 65 hours to keep them all fed and watered. Of course I have help for that though not alone. I do have another job but not for long

 

[JimM]

I sell species X for $20
You sell species X for $19
Someone else sells species X for $18

Where does the price war end? Do we end up with a $1 spider in the long run? How many breeders would stop breeding due to this? How many dealers would quit importing?

But that's how things work, and not necessarily because of price wars. You're free to decide what you breed, what you import, or whether or not it's worth it to stay in the business based on market factors, but you can't change supply and demand. Todays $200 sling is tomorrow's freebie.
H. lividum anyone?

You can't keep the price of them artificially high either. The more slings hit the market, the more the price will drop. As more of something becomes available, it's worth less.

 

[2oCHEVYo0]

Avg. Market price = What I feel like paying ;P

 

[Twillis10]

I fail to see how many of the major dealers do not make money,giving some of the prices that they have listed.I understand feeding costs,etc,but when a dealer is selling certain species for 2-3 times what you will see the average Joe selling them for,I wonder how the heck they even manage to stay in business in the first place.That is honestly the #1 reason I have never bought from a dealer as of yet.

Just because they have really high prices t's doesnt mean they are selling a bunch of them. I know several people trying to make a living of selling reptiles (and a few t's) and they are having a hard time making a living out of it. and the reptile industry is way larger and more profitable than the t industry.

 

[jeryst]

If you really want to give it a try, go ahead. You dont have to quit your regular job at first. See how much you can make on the side, and then decide if it can support you if you do it full time. You complain about not making much, so why not supplement your income instead of replacing it? If you make $200 a week on your job and replace it by making $200 a week on T's, you havent really gone anywhere. If you do both, and make $400 a week, then you are doubling your income by doing something you like in addition to doing something you dont like. You can also look for another $200+ a week job to replace the one you dont like. THen you will be doing 2 things you like to do.

By your initial assessment, I can see that you have not gathered all of the information needed, or thought it completely through. You are just looking at the up side. That's what gets a lot of people into trouble whenever they get into any business. For example, just because you have a bunch of slings doenst mean that you are going to sell them right away. What if you dont sell ANY this week? How are you going to pay your bills. And if you dont sell any this week, it doesnt mean that you are going to make it up next week, It just doesnt work that way. Add in maintenance costs, extra costs, livestock losses, DOA shipments, market fluctuations, the economy, hobby interest cycles, etc, and you have a whole bunch of variables that you have no control of, but you better take into consideration. You are not going to be able to sell everything mail order, so figure in time and cost for being a vendor at shows. I go to a small show in Pgh Pa to buy T's, and there are vendors there that have traveled for 6+ hours one way. Gas aint cheap. BTW, none of the vendors there are strictly T vendors. They sell a wide variety of items. Anyone who puts all of their eggs in one basket is a fool.

Better to start out as a sideline, and see what develops.

 

[Botar]

i agree with blooms on this one but still want to hear from someone with expierence. wheres botar for this i bet he would help out in questions like these.

First off, let me apologize for not having read the entire thread. So if I repeat anything that has already been said, that is why.

You can easily make a living off the hobby, but there are tremendous risks and the amount of time it requires makes it more a labor of love than a good economic strategy.

The main drawbacks include the fact that your business is based on a living entity ... which means you cannot take a week off without making other arrangements and, unless you have some very good friends, trusting someone else with your main source of income is somewhat unnerving. Again, takes you back to labor of love.

You are also one regulation or law change away from not only being out of business, but becoming an instant criminal. If the laws were to change, you could easily find yourself out of work and in possession of a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of "illegal" inventory.

Shipping is problematic. I worked above board with one company for a few years and then suddenly was told they did not ship scorpions and tarantulas. The fact that they knowingly did for years was of no interest to them. Again, having a ton of money tied up into something that cannot be shipped is a risky venture.

Liability ... I don't really need to explain what would happen to you when someone's kid gets stung by a scorpion you sold them, do I?

In my opinion, if you want to make a little cash off the hobby, then find a species with which you like to work, breed them, and sell them off in bulk to the dealers. You will reap the benefits of the experience and make a little cash on the side. Leave the hassels to the dealers.

There are quite a few good dealers out there. They are aware of the drawbacks of their business and make the decision to continue anyway. Support them as much as possible and you will support your hobby.

 

[Rich65]

Awesome posts Ken and Botar, you hit the nail on the head.

I have something to add also on the overhead cost of breeding. I have purchased three adult female P. metallica have been raising slings and had to buy MM males for breeding attempts. Out of three mature males two have died. One I have no idea just found him upside down a few mornings ago, the first stuffed himself in his water dish and drowned, he was very skittish and running all around, never even got a chance to pair him up. So that was $500 bucks down the drain on males plus shipping. Breeding and selling making a livivg off T's is very expensive and can be risky. GBB females are known for eating the males sometimes before mating, take that into account as well.

And like Ken said buying crickets, you have to factor in the feeders. I breed roaches and it is to the point of a second job in the way of hours and time. It absolutely becomes a labor of love.
We haven't even discussed feeding, watering a couple hundred or thousand slings. How about the cost of hundreds of vials in multiple sizes.
I have spent 3 to 4 hours one night watering and another 3 to 4 the next picking out tiny roaches and feeding the same 200 slings. It is a lot of work !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What will also help this trade and hobby is getting more people exposed to the hobby and over their fear or misconceptions of the inverts. The more hobbiest the more demand ? right ? The girl that handles my shipments at the local postal store was scared to death of roaches or tarantulas a year ago, two weeks ago she held a sling then a large B. smithi and now she is ready to have one. BOOM....new customer....... and like potato chips you can't have just one....LOL educate , share, experience , enjoy.

My 2cents

RICH

 

[brachybaum]

This is an excellent thread:clap:. Thank you all for your input and advice. I've learned a couple of new things now. Take care.

 

[kaydyn1512]

A good example

Of course all of this is a little far fetched, I know this. But Take these principals and apply them to more common, readily available species that are easier to get a successful sac from like A. avicularia and sell sling lots. I just recently bought an A metallica lot from someone on this forum just because it was such a killer deal (I got 5 for 5 bucks a piece). A. metallica sling for 5 bucks, you can't beat that. I hadn't planned on buying anymore more A. metallica slings but I couldn't resist. I paid what you would normally pay for one and got the added excitement of getting 5 new T's in the mail as opposed to one.

This is a great example as to why people really have a hard time making a living at this. People get into this hobby thinking to make money and it doesn't seem to matter who they undercut to win the prize. Good, trusted dealers/breeders keep the prices of their slings at a standard price range to give everyone a shot at doing business. Then you have those who could give a damn about everyone else and price to sell for themselves. There are some that really just want to give those who just cant afford a specific T the ability to buy something for less just to put more out in the hobby. Those I can see thier hearts are in the right place.

I don't make really much of anything. And that would be most anyones view if you knew how much I didn't make. But honestly, that's not anyones business.

I wish we could get together and lower some prices of Ts that are rediculously over priced to be reasonable for most and stay within a reasonable range of standard for the rest. But it would be nearly impossible to gain the acceptance from everyone to work together. Sad but reality is often none cooperative.

 

[brian abrams]

Making a living

I haven't been in the hobby as long as many of the responders, but from my experiences, it seem like it would be very hard to make a living by breeding just from this hobby. You would have to do it on a very large scale and invest a lot of money upfront. Look at the large snake breeders like NERD, RDR, BHB, etc. How much money and how many years do you thing THEY ALL have invested? As far as the market value on T's going down, welcome to the real world! I've seen Ball Python morphs drop to about a third of the value since I've gotten involved in the hobby. I've also seen substantial drops in the Boa morphs. If you're looking at it as an investment, then it's just like playing the stock market. But as a sideline "dinker" project it can be a lot of fun and very rewarding.