You own a pet store. You sell mom and child a guinea pig. Your pig bin was of mixed genders and sales haven't been brisk so they've been growing and aren't piglets anymore. Child gets to learn about pregnancy. Or maybe you sell the kid's sister a California king snake. They want a pair to see if they can breed them. Trust me, they can. Boom. Your customers are now your competitors. They won't make their own dog food or aquariums, but your livestock sales may take a hit. Welcome to the pet industry - my home since 1982.
I understand this situation. It has been my career's annoyance at times and nemesis at others. I am a professional. Most of my competitors are not. If I sold televisions I'd be pretty safe. Nobody is going to buy a few TVs from me and then build their own. And absofuckinlutely nobody is going to buy his first television and then a month later decide to sell televisions.
But in the live animal world, this phenomenon is common. And the worst part is that there will be someone with little television experience that decides to sell televisions part time. He or she is supporting his or her family with a "real day job" that perhaps (s)he got a fancy degree to be qualified for, but (s)he just thinks it might be fun to sell televisions during free time. So (s)he markets a "hobby business" alongside other TV sellers and doesn't care about things like profit that the professional seller requires to feed his or her own family. (S)he just wants to make a name for him or herself. (S)he is willing to sell cheaper or ship illegally or immorally (see yesterday's blog). Of course, it won't be as fun and who wants to have no time for just relaxing, and in a year or two (s)he will stop with the TV nonsense. He or she never was a real TV person anyway.
Worst case scenario in our metaphorical TV selling world: The person is inexperienced with televisions. The person doesn't really understand how they work. The person dispenses bad advice on proper TV use every day. Sometimes the advice makes the TV stop working and becomes, um, dead. This is the blind leading the blind and is the scourge of the "television hobby" (ya pickin up what I'm layin down?). However, more often the people buying our neophyte part-time TV seller's stock knows a whole lot more about TVs than (s)he and, thankfully, things have a chance to work out.
I think I've made my point. So let me drop the analogy and define my "pseudo dealer" and "weekend warrior" and make the distinctions between the two. It is the pseudo dealer that is the evil in our hobby. It is the inexperienced playing experienced animal person. It is the newbie, that's bred nothing and nobody's ever heard of before, that is dangerous. Or he or she is the person who makes a great living in the "real world", but wants to pretend he or she is a pro dealer in his or her spare time and - the important distinction - is willing to ship illegally or beat any price or otherwise be a liability to the hobby. (S)he will cut corners. (S)he will tell lies. (S)he will make enemies. He or she is the aforementioned "scourge". My "weekend warrior" is different altogether.
You see I don't completely oppose non-professional competition. As I stated at the beginning its part of the pet industry and I've had forever to get used to it. But those of us who pay our bills solely by animal sales certainly have the right to scrutinize the competition and distinguish between the respectful and the shitheads.
So to be clear: I am not against "non-professional" sellers or those who have a day job. Loads of Americans are forced to have multiple jobs (may have to do with our health care costs and high taxes, but what do I know). Why shouldn't your/his/her part-time job be selling tarantulas? I have no problem with it. It's fucking America for fuck's sake. Do as you please. But do it respectfully. Learn the game first. Gain some experience before you decide to put up that "Dude's Tarantulas" webpage. Become a breeder first and use sales proceeds to fund your resale purchasing. Ship properly, or as close to it as we can get. Act professional.
See that's the other reason I am not against "weekend warrior" tarantula sellers. I SUPPORT AMERICAN CAPTIVE BREEDING. It's getting better all the time, but outside of spiders produced by a few of us in the past, the percentage of European imported spiderlings in our hobby was daunting. So I love the people who are breeding cool shit and selling it. Again, as long as they're respectful.
I'll give a couple examples of "Weekend Warriors": One started as a customer, became a friend and still buys wholesale from me. Randy Martinez and his dad operate a tarantula business here in the Chicago suburbs. It's called Evil's Arachnids and is limited to local sales only. He has no website; just a Facebook page. He doesn't ship. He arranges to meet people once in awhile, but his sales are mostly restricted to the twice-a-month All Animal Expo nearby. Randy and his Dad (also Randy) have day jobs. They sell twice a month and do a very professional job of doing it. He learned from my buds Bill and Bruce so he had a good foundation. He helps me now at shows and takes care of my spiders while I'm out of the country. Good stuff. Here's another: my buddy John Apple has worked at the same company for over 20 years. He is a highly knowledgable, veteran spiderman. A true animal person. He may have not have spent his life in the pet trade like me, but he has always spent his waking hours as a spider dude. He sells at a show in Michigan. He might not be a "professional", but his information, passed on as he is an advocate for the hobby and a source of knowledge for his customers, exceeds that of most who think they are professionals. A third example might be Jen Newman, who has operated her Heartland Invertebrates for quite some time, web site and all, local shows, ATS, etc., but is a licensed veterinary technician. There are many good "weekend warriors" and, thankfully, an increasing number of people breeding a huge variety of species. And that's where I will always end up. Support American captive breeding. There are people importing and selling loads of European spiders that are breeding nothing or very little. I wish your spider dollars went elsewhere. The animal business should be about a passion for the animals, not seeing how many units of widgets you can move.
Which brings us to the pseudo dealers. The hobby has people who stick with it for life. Tarantula keeping is addictive. Only a few people make it their life's work for decades (try to name others besides me and Kelly Swift who have done so professionally for a long time. Actually Becker has been around quite some time too). There's a handful more. But there are people who come and go in the hobby and a staggering number of people who become "dealers" and then, poof, are gone. Remember Botar? A retired cop who decided to be a spider dealer. He worked hard at it for a handful of years, traveling to every show within striking distance. Hear of him now? Remember Art Cerda? A Chicago business man who decided to play spider dealer and was a complete prick. Gone. Justice. Remember Bill Stanton? Come and gone. John Hoke? He was a close friend of mine and operated E-Spiderworld while also publishing an amateur wrestling magazine. He ran a shop for a few years and bred a few things. But it was business first, and animal business don't succeed if it isn't animal first. You have to be willing to be poor! Remember Theraphosid Breeding Project? Two of my best friends; I lived with Bill for a bit, but Bill has vanished from the hobby and although Bruce still keeps some spiders, TBP is defunct. Chris at Crazy 8's? He closed his short-lived business a long time ago, but recently popped back up selling tarantulas but working for BioQuip, a large entomological supply house. I could go on and on. And there are a bunch of "pseudo dealers" out there now. Name them yourself. They're salesmen or engineers or graphic designers or truck drivers. Nobody ever heard of them before their business was branded and website was launched. You hear nothing about them breeding anything or not much. They just got in the hobby and thought a father and son business would be swell. A years ago they bought a Rose Hair at Petco and now they're vending at reptile show X. They have a little extra money to burn because they have good jobs with benefits and 401Ks, but they want to play in the ballpark with the fielders who earn their sole income from animal breeding and pay brutal amounts for health insurance and have no retirement nest egg. The fielders have nothing but passion for the animals and are that much richer for it. Swift Inverts is still playing ball because Kelly is, like me, a life-long reptile and arachnid guy. He does it because it's what he does.
It should be obvious by now that my "pseudo dealers" and "weekend warriors" are not black and white distinctions. There is a continuum from bad to good. There is a grey area where they overlap and each must be judged on his or her own merits. But I can tell you that the breeders usually stick around and most of today's "tarantula dealers" will be gone within a few years. I've illustrated that above. But until they get bored or otherwise decide to throw in the towel, let's hope their damage is minimal.
I guess all I'm saying is that the hobby is better served if you order from Kelly Swift (or me!) instead of someone who started dealing in the last year or two. You will be better served as well. Going back to my "Information is not Knowledge" blog, you'll be cultivating a relationship where you will have access to information from someone who has knowledge. And you'll be supporting someone who makes tarantula sales his livelihood, not someone who has a day job selling steel.
I guess in my perfect world you'd buy a Lampropelma sp. Borneo from Chad Campbell (or me!) instead of a dealer who imported his from Germany or a pseudo dealer who bought his group of the same German imports from the importing dealer. You'll be rewarding a serious American hobbyist for his or her success instead of a stranger in Europe and a widget reseller who breeds nothing.
In closing, my own "business" is a mystery to some. Some call me "semi-retired". I've used the term myself. Some call me "reluctant". Guilty. Some think I only sell to a "private group" despite my e-commerce site. It is true that retail sales hold little appeal to me after all these years. It is true that I travel a lot and shut down my store for months on end. I'll spend a whole blog on my past two years with my "reborn Spider Shoppe" at a later date. In the twilight of my long career, I'm now mostly a breeder who is working with some rare stuff and trying to bring interesting species to American arachnoculture. Since November I've produced five US firsts (in order): Tapinauchenius sp. Colombia, Pachistopelma rufonigrum, Harpactira pulchripes, Pachistopelma bromelicola, and Avicularia sp. Colombia. I also had an Avicularia hirschii sac that unfortunately went bad while I was in Sri Lanka. So, I'm just a guy chilling with his spiders, breeding loads, writing, photographing and blogging to you. I also spend a great deal of time traveling in search of tarantulas or working in my role as BTS North American Coordinator. So I sell when I want to, on my own terms. My desire is to sell everything wholesale and much of my common stuff is sold in bulk and never makes it to my shopping cart. Or maybe I'll just sell everything and finally retire to Costa Rica. Or buy an RV and move every night. I am known to be nomadic and make hasty decisions ;) But I'll always be writing and as opinionated as can be. MJ
You see I don't completely oppose non-professional competition. As I stated at the beginning its part of the pet industry and I've had forever to get used to it. But those of us who pay our bills solely by animal sales certainly have the right to scrutinize the competition and distinguish between the respectful and the shitheads.
So to be clear: I am not against "non-professional" sellers or those who have a day job. Loads of Americans are forced to have multiple jobs (may have to do with our health care costs and high taxes, but what do I know). Why shouldn't your/his/her part-time job be selling tarantulas? I have no problem with it. It's fucking America for fuck's sake. Do as you please. But do it respectfully. Learn the game first. Gain some experience before you decide to put up that "Dude's Tarantulas" webpage. Become a breeder first and use sales proceeds to fund your resale purchasing. Ship properly, or as close to it as we can get. Act professional.
See that's the other reason I am not against "weekend warrior" tarantula sellers. I SUPPORT AMERICAN CAPTIVE BREEDING. It's getting better all the time, but outside of spiders produced by a few of us in the past, the percentage of European imported spiderlings in our hobby was daunting. So I love the people who are breeding cool shit and selling it. Again, as long as they're respectful.
I'll give a couple examples of "Weekend Warriors": One started as a customer, became a friend and still buys wholesale from me. Randy Martinez and his dad operate a tarantula business here in the Chicago suburbs. It's called Evil's Arachnids and is limited to local sales only. He has no website; just a Facebook page. He doesn't ship. He arranges to meet people once in awhile, but his sales are mostly restricted to the twice-a-month All Animal Expo nearby. Randy and his Dad (also Randy) have day jobs. They sell twice a month and do a very professional job of doing it. He learned from my buds Bill and Bruce so he had a good foundation. He helps me now at shows and takes care of my spiders while I'm out of the country. Good stuff. Here's another: my buddy John Apple has worked at the same company for over 20 years. He is a highly knowledgable, veteran spiderman. A true animal person. He may have not have spent his life in the pet trade like me, but he has always spent his waking hours as a spider dude. He sells at a show in Michigan. He might not be a "professional", but his information, passed on as he is an advocate for the hobby and a source of knowledge for his customers, exceeds that of most who think they are professionals. A third example might be Jen Newman, who has operated her Heartland Invertebrates for quite some time, web site and all, local shows, ATS, etc., but is a licensed veterinary technician. There are many good "weekend warriors" and, thankfully, an increasing number of people breeding a huge variety of species. And that's where I will always end up. Support American captive breeding. There are people importing and selling loads of European spiders that are breeding nothing or very little. I wish your spider dollars went elsewhere. The animal business should be about a passion for the animals, not seeing how many units of widgets you can move.
Which brings us to the pseudo dealers. The hobby has people who stick with it for life. Tarantula keeping is addictive. Only a few people make it their life's work for decades (try to name others besides me and Kelly Swift who have done so professionally for a long time. Actually Becker has been around quite some time too). There's a handful more. But there are people who come and go in the hobby and a staggering number of people who become "dealers" and then, poof, are gone. Remember Botar? A retired cop who decided to be a spider dealer. He worked hard at it for a handful of years, traveling to every show within striking distance. Hear of him now? Remember Art Cerda? A Chicago business man who decided to play spider dealer and was a complete prick. Gone. Justice. Remember Bill Stanton? Come and gone. John Hoke? He was a close friend of mine and operated E-Spiderworld while also publishing an amateur wrestling magazine. He ran a shop for a few years and bred a few things. But it was business first, and animal business don't succeed if it isn't animal first. You have to be willing to be poor! Remember Theraphosid Breeding Project? Two of my best friends; I lived with Bill for a bit, but Bill has vanished from the hobby and although Bruce still keeps some spiders, TBP is defunct. Chris at Crazy 8's? He closed his short-lived business a long time ago, but recently popped back up selling tarantulas but working for BioQuip, a large entomological supply house. I could go on and on. And there are a bunch of "pseudo dealers" out there now. Name them yourself. They're salesmen or engineers or graphic designers or truck drivers. Nobody ever heard of them before their business was branded and website was launched. You hear nothing about them breeding anything or not much. They just got in the hobby and thought a father and son business would be swell. A years ago they bought a Rose Hair at Petco and now they're vending at reptile show X. They have a little extra money to burn because they have good jobs with benefits and 401Ks, but they want to play in the ballpark with the fielders who earn their sole income from animal breeding and pay brutal amounts for health insurance and have no retirement nest egg. The fielders have nothing but passion for the animals and are that much richer for it. Swift Inverts is still playing ball because Kelly is, like me, a life-long reptile and arachnid guy. He does it because it's what he does.
It should be obvious by now that my "pseudo dealers" and "weekend warriors" are not black and white distinctions. There is a continuum from bad to good. There is a grey area where they overlap and each must be judged on his or her own merits. But I can tell you that the breeders usually stick around and most of today's "tarantula dealers" will be gone within a few years. I've illustrated that above. But until they get bored or otherwise decide to throw in the towel, let's hope their damage is minimal.
I guess all I'm saying is that the hobby is better served if you order from Kelly Swift (or me!) instead of someone who started dealing in the last year or two. You will be better served as well. Going back to my "Information is not Knowledge" blog, you'll be cultivating a relationship where you will have access to information from someone who has knowledge. And you'll be supporting someone who makes tarantula sales his livelihood, not someone who has a day job selling steel.
I guess in my perfect world you'd buy a Lampropelma sp. Borneo from Chad Campbell (or me!) instead of a dealer who imported his from Germany or a pseudo dealer who bought his group of the same German imports from the importing dealer. You'll be rewarding a serious American hobbyist for his or her success instead of a stranger in Europe and a widget reseller who breeds nothing.
In closing, my own "business" is a mystery to some. Some call me "semi-retired". I've used the term myself. Some call me "reluctant". Guilty. Some think I only sell to a "private group" despite my e-commerce site. It is true that retail sales hold little appeal to me after all these years. It is true that I travel a lot and shut down my store for months on end. I'll spend a whole blog on my past two years with my "reborn Spider Shoppe" at a later date. In the twilight of my long career, I'm now mostly a breeder who is working with some rare stuff and trying to bring interesting species to American arachnoculture. Since November I've produced five US firsts (in order): Tapinauchenius sp. Colombia, Pachistopelma rufonigrum, Harpactira pulchripes, Pachistopelma bromelicola, and Avicularia sp. Colombia. I also had an Avicularia hirschii sac that unfortunately went bad while I was in Sri Lanka. So, I'm just a guy chilling with his spiders, breeding loads, writing, photographing and blogging to you. I also spend a great deal of time traveling in search of tarantulas or working in my role as BTS North American Coordinator. So I sell when I want to, on my own terms. My desire is to sell everything wholesale and much of my common stuff is sold in bulk and never makes it to my shopping cart. Or maybe I'll just sell everything and finally retire to Costa Rica. Or buy an RV and move every night. I am known to be nomadic and make hasty decisions ;) But I'll always be writing and as opinionated as can be. MJ
2 comments:
Really enjoyed this read!
Really sucks that there's always someone who sell a specific brand of television, but when you get it, you see that's not the brand you've pay for. But cannot get a refund and the T.V. doesn't have the fault if your dealer is an asshole, so keep that poor thing, and suddenly bam! it turns out that your television moult and is in fact a radio!
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