About new Valentine collection

[Nocshadue Balbozar]

Ok, gonna throw my 2 L$ in on this one =op
The customer base of KittyCatS is diverse I am sure. But what really needs to be looked at is what percentage of the customer base provides the greater percentage of your income. I once worked for a company where approximately 4% of the customer base accounted for over 80% of our profit. Now there were *LOTS* of customers...but the few that kept the company alive were our hard cores. They were the ones there and buying every day. If we lost them, I don't see how the company would remain solvent.

I do think that the intent behind the creators of KittyCatS is to provide a great experience. However, lets not fool ourselves..this is a business. And I am sure that decisions are made from a business standpoint if they were not, I do not think we would all still be here.

OK..so my partner Andre was one of the lucky ones and got at least one Ambrosia kitty. He is also a new breeder. A few others I know got one at least with a few tries, a reasonable amount. And yeah, I was happy that we got one at least. It will help a little if I am able to pull that shade out before toooo many other do. The market is pretty dead right now and will be for a while I think.

I think the better and more ethical way to go in the future would be make some traits gauranteed to be hidden and maybe something special like the shade a chance to be hidden. People will still buy, though maybe not quite as many because the more you have, the greater chance you have the possible hidden.

This is really all about balance. And it can be like walking a tightrope. Give it to everyone, it has little value. Give to a very few..its value is greatly exaggerated for a short time then quickly degrades til everyone has it. Make traits pop out easily and its not that special. Make it tooo hard and folks get discouraged. I think overall, we're doing pretty good.

I've been breeding almost since the start. I came in before Lazy Dasies and was hooked. We've come a long way since then. We've seen a lot of improvements and enhancements which I really love. So kudos there for sure. What KC folks need to ask themselves in developing new cats/traits is: How will this be received by our core customer? How could this affect the secondary market and our breeders bottom line? Aesthetics are important, but I find the explaination of the decision regarding the shade a bit disturbing.

This particular vendor did provide some interesting market research though. Some hit that vendor hard just to get an Ambrosia for immediate resale and others hoping like hell for one or a breeding pair to get that shade. The market is *highly* competitive. And for the most part it is breeders selling to other breeders. The special collections do bring in a trickle of new blood. But there are still way more kitties for sale than people interested in buying them. Some who are entirely new to kittycats..get a LM for the mainstore and unless they do a place search or eventually join the chat group, they have no clue there *is* a secondary market. (For that I'd suggest Markets promote outside the KC community as well as hold regular events to draw folks in)

So, lesson learned I hope? You know, I do understand that KC wants to stay "outside" the secondary market and with good reason. However...perhaps an occasional panel discussion with some long term breeders to bounce ideas around would not be a bad thing. I know you all read the forums..but we can't read your minds and a causal 'off the record' chat with a few breeders may prevent future headaches.

Peace,
Noc