are not selling?!

[golden rabbitry]

hi, so just recently, i put my two babies on the market just like i did with all my previous litters, but for some unknown reason, they just won't sell. We have gotten no offers or any emails. Normally the add takes a day or two and we start getting offers, but it has been a week and i post it every day so it stays on the top. What am i doing wrong?

 

[MaggieJ]

Do you have cute pics of the buns in the ad? Helps a lot.

It might be the time of year. People just back into the school year, but not totally settled in yet. Or it could be the market is saturated. Do you monitor the ads even when you are not selling, to keep an eye on trends?

You don't say where you are placing your ads, but you might consider branching out a bit to try to reach new people.

:good-luck:

 

[akane]

I find summer sucks for selling them anyway but some areas you can't hardly give a common rabbit away. Unless I wanted to send them with cages I did not make many pet sales and then for only $20 each. If you don't have a breed desirable for your area, colors people like, good ads, good pictures, etc...... Rabbits are so numerous it's like trying to sell farm kittens.

 

[golden rabbitry]

i spend like two hours getting the cutest pictures and keep the ad up all the time, the pet store loves them but i normally like avoiding the middle man to gain more profits so i don't want to sell to them quite yet. Whats nice through is if i cant sell, they always oopen a spot for me.

 

[MaggieJ]

It's nice you have the option of selling to the pet shop.

Do you send a care sheet with your rabbits? So many new bunny people are completely clueless about rabbit care.

 

[akane]

Careful selling to pet stores. Particularly in california. There is a max amount you can accept a year before you have to declare a business and be usda inspected. I think it's about $500 and people have unknowingly reached it even just selling their extras for $10-$20. It goes on record when you sell to stores unlike personal sales. California is also passing increasing laws for places selling cats, dogs, and rabbits to investigate the breeders they buy from.

Unfortunately pet stores here actually want me to pay them to take extra rabbits unless you get a contract with them and have a recognized business name. I found with the increasing enforcement of usda laws even personal owned pet stores are becoming far less friendly and easy going about selling things like my gerbils as when I was younger and the feed store got in trouble for selling animals without keeping a record of the people they bought from. The US federal laws were not enforced much until the past few years so they have not been updated to reflect current prices and trends resulting in some nasty surprises for breeders or stores on occasion.

 

[michaels4gardens]

When I lived in N. Ca,--I found that sales to "pet customers" picked back up about the time it began to feel like fall... for me-- July, was kind of slow- August, and usually Sept were slow.. Like you, I had a pet store, and a couple feed stores, that wanted rabbits sporadically.. for me- it was all cash- so I did not have to worry about business regulations, and tax.
I was a "meat rabbit" producer, and had a good market..I only considered selling to pet markets, if the price was high enough to be bothered.
For most people... times have changed...

 

[akane]

Yeah, for some reason as soon as weather gets cool or sometimes when it's storming on a long weekend I suddenly get responses to small animal ads. All summer people just seem too busy to consider adding an animal and those with outdoor animals probably don't want to deal with more in the heat. Being Iowa I also get a drop off in very cold weather except for those wanting an indoor pet around christmas. Warmer climates probably don't have that issue of equally not wanting to travel or deal with outdoor animals in Jan as in July or Aug. I think the number of colleges and nearby University of Iowa contribute some as well since college students with apartments come back from summer activities or home visits and debate something cute and fluffy to play with during the school year. With some large late spring litters I have quite a backup of chinchillas at the moment and just started getting messages. It's still hot but we've been having constant thunderstorms. I have an uncommonly large litter of 4 to wean and no more cages with at least one female ready to pop. :lol: