For a small time breeder it isn’t much effort, but when you have 500+ hatchlings that you need to fill out information for, I’m guessing it gets a bit tedious.
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if you love the hobby of keeping and breeding snakes, wouldn’t it be worth it?
I don’t think you can question someone’s love of the hobby due to lack of information on certain adds. Of course some don’t want to put the extra work in, but that’s not fair to say they don’t love doing what they do.
And like @eaglereptiles said, when you have say 500 hatchlings, that’s a lot of work to do for “possible” sales. And a lot of breeders have a life outside of the hobby. Many don’t have the time to take 3 pictures of every animal and list every type of information you’re asking.
Honestly do the work on a buyers end if you’re interested in a snake. Don’t expect the breeder to do it for you.
That’s one way to look at it. Or possibly with the more information they put out on a add, the more likely they will sell that animal? For me personally, all I need to know is the weight, feeding habit and genetics. That’s enough for almost any good hobbyist to understand what they are buying. If I need to know more I’ll contact the seller. And then I judge whether I’ll purchase with how they respond to me and my questions, not the information or lack of information they put on an add.
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That is a very unfair and inaccurate assessment, some breeders (most actually) would rather spend time in the snake room and rat room (that’s often part of breeding) taking care of their animals than on the computer writing a novel of a listing, some simply don’t have the time and animals maintenance will come first as it should.
So assuming basic info on a listing means a person does not care is completely false, so assumming that the breeder is lazy which was mentionned before.
Additionally in some cases forcing people to contact you and asking questions (versus having everything handed to them) can tell you a lot about a potential buyer, often enough to decide not to sell the animal to them.
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wouldn’t it be better to list all of those things instead of getting countless “possible” buyers asking questions? Doesn’t that consume more time than filling out information permanently?
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No actually. Because not all sellers are just looking to sell their snakes.
Many of us who have actually bred snakes like to take the time to answer questions from possible buyers so we can get to know them and how they keep their animals. I just don’t sell my snakes to the first person who contacts me. I like to see some initiative from the buyers end and get questioned myself so I can ensure what I produce goes to a good home. The more questions the better I look at it. If someone takes the time out of their day to converse with me on my animals, that at the very least shows me they are more interested and possibly more likely I will sell to them. Just because I or other breeders have a snake for sale, doesn’t mean we will just sell to the first one who offers us money.
And like Deb said in her post, many of us would rather spend the time in our snake rooms than fill out countless adds with all the information you’re asking. Because if you’re actually serious about purchasing, you should ask questions. Otherwise how can we tell you would be a good fit for our snakes. And by you I don’t mean you in particular more a generalization.
Maybe if you ever breed you’ll actually see the work and time it takes keeping up with your animals. And that time, I and many others would rather devote to our animals than sitting on a computer doing all the work for possible buyers.
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In this vein, with rare exception, I do not think any sale I have made on MM has been completer in less than 20 messages back and forth between the buyer and myself. A buyer that takes the time to ask the questions they have and answer the questions I might have is a buyer that, to me, actually cares about the animal they are acquiring
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It’s one of those complexities in running a marketplace, where you are trying to balance the desires of multiple parties. We have a compromise of have lots of fields but making most of them optional. I like what @johnnyb76 said:
There are sellers, not to toot my own horn but like myself, that already do all that you’re looking for and others that don’t for whatever reason. This gives the buyer an option to rule out certain sellers based on their own personal preferences. Some of the sellers on here that hide their ratings, don’t put great pictures & info, etc. on their ads have a great reputation and great animals though but have their own reasons for doing this which they can explain further if needed.
Consider it a gift that you have an easy “tell” to eliminate the other sellers from your consideration.
As we add more fields to search, they will also miss out in that their ads will be excluded from those searches.
Another thing that makes it challenging for the breeder is a lot of those fields are constantly changing.
While organizing the “What features you want to see” megathread, came across basically the opposite request by @kylefrost, which represents a lot of sellers.
- I don’t mind the redundancy of having DOB, weight, and(baby/juv/adult) when creating ads, but it would be nice if the latter weren’t a required field. Not a huge inconvenience but seems unnecessary and I trip over it every time.
Re turning off ratings, this has been discussed in many other places like: Are Warnings about New Sellers Fair? - #60 by john