regards to cat flipping..

[Kayla Woodrunner]

I've been breeding cats a long time. I'm a bargain hunter, always have been as I typically get a cheap love cat if my cattery has too many boys or too many girls to even things out a bit while I wait for a few of the too many to get old enough to no longer breed.

I don't flip but I've had people be unhappy at me because I'm good at digging out traits and sometimes find a hidden recessive that the previous owner didn't bother to dig out in a lovecat. It's not just who owned the cat first. Breeding skill or marketing skill also counts.

I am ok with people trying to flip. I think, as you found, that if you watch the trajectory if flippers buy a lot of cats cheap and put them up high, most of the cats will not sell so flippers will lower the price. And then probably lower prices again later. And imho the majority will find that they lost money on trying to flip.

Many people get excited about KC when they hear a new super-recessive sells for oodles of lindens. And often they don't understand how tiered the market is as traits go in and out of fashion, nor how quickly a new trait can fall in price. Or they think 100L per nongenesis traits is the going price when it still really depends on the cat and the season and they become unhappy they can't get 900L for a 9-trait cat or even 500L. They will learn sales are seasonal and there are times when the doldrums hit and nothing sells. So often flippers will get burnt and will stop flipping after a season or two unless they've become addicted to breeding.

Flippers don't generally last long unless they are successful at marketing. And to be fair, if flippers put in the time to understand the market and learn how to market -- that's a skill set too that equals breeding in time and effort to gain. I never mastered the marketing/selling skillset so I don't sell often.

While most flippers fail, if a flipper is successful, more power to them -- they are likely to be bringing in new people into kittycats thru their marketing (us oldies are unlikely to buy from a flipper) and the more new people, the better because Kittycats will last longer if we keep getting new blood.

FYI, as an oldie I have more than 10,000 boxes. You have to do what you feel comfortable doing but also recognize whatever your choice, anyone is free to do whatever once they get the box. Ages ago, I also got burnt when I gave a special birth kitty to someone I thought was new who was bemoaning not having a collection cat. She acted so happy when I gave it to her. Wtihin a day, it was birthed to a different owner. So my personal lesson, don't give away a cat except to close friends but give away breeding info instead -- knowledge will last longer than a giveaway. Also I don't sell unless it's at a price that equals my effort -- which is why I have 10,000 boxes, lol. My effort is worth more than 100L. (I just realized 10,000 x 100L is 1,000,000L. omg! That's a lot of kibble)