Kitty pricing!

[TerrorMisu Resident]

It used to be 50-100L per trait for basic kitties .. 200-2000L or more per for the most sought after traits.. now people are selling cats for 100L for 7T or more.. how do we compete w that? I am seeing this happening now with a vengeance. Do we all start selling our cats for 100L to give some competition? Someone said or I read that it costs 700L to produce one kitty? How is the feasible to sell for 100L? I know how one person does it. He sells all the newly traited kitties for 30-100k per cat.. then when the market slumps he sell off his kitties for nothing. Does it mean we all must compromise our integrity and that of our kitty business to stay competitive. Perhaps I will do that? Selling cats to a target market niche "beginners" for 100L does not justify this absurd pricing. It only teaches that there is someone willing to compromise their integrity and value of these lovely kitties. I see this practice detrimental to the market, clearly a desperate person doing desperate things to hang on...just saying!

It really makes me sad and disappointed. What are your thoughts?

---

PS Happy Tax Day, Americans! I better go finish mine! LOL

[LyricaBlues Resident]

Well, you know me. I dont hide or dress up my thoughts and I even address this in my Profile...Out loud and proud that I am a thinking person with a social conscience that Requires me to consider the Greater Good and Support the Market that supports me: Re: Kitties...has anyone ever stopped to think that some pass out Great kittens dirt cheap like Jim Jones passed out the Kool-Aid. In the end, both will kill you...Have doubts? Just wait til you try to sell Your Good Kitties and cant get more than 300L for them. Enjoy the Kool-Aid

[Ivy Lane]

i must say when i visit someone's shop in one sim and see kitties there for 4K than go to their satellite shops and see similar kitties with similar traits for 800L i start to wonder what is going on and who is the fool? Why should i pay that person 4K for their cats? when obviously their prices are pliable and change from sim to sim

on the other hand anyone ever hear the word hegemony?

[Wendi Lavendel]

The Nachts had a really cool budgeting class one day back in June 2011 that had some interesting bits of data. It only included costs of land and food though, and we didn't have the online cattery or low-prim cats back then so it didn't include that information of course. Someone should update that info, it would be interesting to see how much things have changed. My own, without the cost of purchasing a cat I might buy to bring in something new to the cattery, is around $L350 to $L400 depending on what sim I have the cat on, plus I use milk, don't use low-prim mode, don't use cattery for live cats, etc. so mine might be higher than others.

$L 700 seems high to me, and is that per week, per month? Over a cat's lifetime?

Anyway...

This kind of discussion has been ongoing practically since KittyCatS began and there are some really old forum posts about this exact same issue (the oldest post I could find on a quick search was from June 2011). There have been a few attempts to help regulate the market e.g. a group of breeders and market owners got together a long time ago to see if there was anything we could do about people over pricing or under pricing; that group died out after about 6 months I think. There were also groups of people that would notify you if you over-priced or under-priced your cat.

New traits have always been over-priced; in fact, $L100 is not the highest price ever paid for a cat with a new trait, and not even recently. It was (and still is, I think?) quite common at auctions for new traits to go for 40k, 50k, and 100k or more sometimes if the trait appeared to be quite recessive and it was desired by more than one person. I had a new fur back in 2012 that wasn't even all that recessive but I had people in my IM offering insane amounts of money for it because it was new -- and I hadn't even put it up for sale, yet. If there are people who will pay, then those higher-priced cats will sell. When there aren't enough people to pay the high prices, those prices must drop to be more affordable to a few more people. When those cats no longer sell, the prices drop even farther to be more affordable to those who couldn't/wouldn't pay the higher prices. By that time, the trait has proliferated throughout the markets and catteries and is not as "rare" as it was in the beginning.

I'm not a business person at all, but I've been around KittyCatS since near the beginning, and have read most of (and occasionally replied in) the past posts that address market issues. I think it's a legitimate concern and there will always be greedy people whose sole purpose is to make money, and there will always be those on the opposite end of the spectrum who breed KittyCatS for fun and don't care if they break even. There are lots of people in between: people who do it because they love it but would love to make just enough to feed the cattery or to break even.

But the greedy people who try to capitalize on the newest traits and the desperate people that under-price a batch of cats in order to make some quick money for the hair fair or skin fair or whatever the current shopping event of the week is - they will always be around.

I guess my conclusion is that there's not much you can do beyond discussion. People are likely going to reply with mathematical calculations that show how much it costs to breed a cat, sell a cat, run a shop, make a sandwich, etc. And people are going to reply and say that everyone has the right to sell their cat at whatever price they want, and they're right. People will choose to buy or not. A long time ago a lot of breeders used to say something like, "Choose a price you'll be happy with when the kitty sells and it's no longer your kitty." the idea being that you worked hard making this kitty and would love to keep it but you need to sell it to feed the other cats, so pick a price that wouldn't make you sad when you had to give up the kitty, it wasn't meant as "pick a price that will allow you to buy a zillion new starters so you can find more of the best new traits and sell those for really high prices, too".

I will shut up now, but a story, to conclude...

My friends and I visit the wine regions around here occasionally; it's no secret that I do love my wine, cheese, and chocolate I went to this one winery where they had this amazing ice wine. Ice wine in Canada is a big deal and the good stuff is very expensive. You can pay $100 or more for a good bottle of ice wine (and the bottles are really small, they're only 375mL - you can fit the contents of an entire bottle in a Solo Cup, I know that from experience LOL). You can get ice wine that's less expensive and pretty good, but not as good as a lot of the more expensive stuff. So this little winery run by two young brothers, they had this amazing ice wine and when I tasted it, I was dismayed and thought, "This is gonna be one of those hundred dollar bottle ones that I'll just taste and dream about but never buy..." But when I checked, it was only $26 (a pretty good price for ice wine). When I asked about it, one of the brothers said that they felt that you shouldn't have to have a lot of money to enjoy their wines. They loved making their wines and wanted to share them with everyone, not just the elite; they wanted the "average" person to be able to enjoy them. They didn't need to charge $100 per bottle, they got by just fine charging $26, and were rewarded with all the great comments they would receive from people who loved their wines that might not otherwise have a chance to buy them. These guys might not ever be rich monetarily, but they are well-loved in the winery community, have had a few articles in magazines about them, and they have this passion for making amazing wine that is so huge, they feel they MUST share this with everyone. When we first started making them a regular stop on our winery trips, there'd be a few other people there. Now the place is really busy whenever we go there - full of happy wined-up people that turn to the stranger next to them and say, "OMG have you tried their ice wine, yet?!"

[alansaqui Resident]

I think the fault is not only of this guy, it is obvious he wants to destroy the market, the fault is also of the auctioneers who support him when he brings his cats to sell for a high price and will even make patron auctions, and other are the buyers knowing that he will drop prices after 2 or 3 weeks these buyers continue giving their support by purchasing his cats for a higher price, if people do not want this guy continue doing this is easy, do not go to his sim, do not go to his auctions, do not buy his cats. We dont need to drop our prices for compete with him, we only need STOP supporting this kind of stuff.

[Kitten Longmeadow]

I'm going to jump into this thread with the reminder that we ask that people speak to each other with respect. Please leave out judgments about people and what you think of them. If you want to comment on ideas, please do, and please keep it to ideas and not "about people".

So again - debate and discussion about ideas and thoughts is OK. Making judgments, being rude and criticizing others is not.

Thanks.

[Emilia Darkwatch]

One significant problem with traits/pricing of them is that by the time you have made a nice kitty with new traits in it, and invested in doing so... the next new and shiny thing comes along. That kitty you invested in does, most times, quite honestly become comparatively worthless unless you sell it fast enough. Personally, I do not like the pressure of that so I really just breed cats now that I love and not so much for profit

Like Wendi, I also remember such discussions back in the starting days of KittycatS about these things and really much does come down to the flow of new traits from the cats themselves. There are less traits now given by the LE cats than there used to be which for sure has helped. At one time there were a lot more appearing at a given time which was causing quite some instability but, as far as I recall, KittycatS did listen and did then decrease the amount of new traits coming out. I guess it is a very fine line between putting out new traits and keeping it interesting for everybody, and putting those traits out too fast which causes problems in the market

I do think it is great that we can all have a discussion about the market in general as it is not terribly good overall and has not been for quite some time... hence all of the flash sales that can occur when people are discouraged. The flow of traits does affect the market. I personally feel it is still a bit too fast for this flow. However, more so, I would say that like any economical structure, it is certainly affected by all of us the most. What we buy, how much we will pay for it and if we shop around, to name but a few factors. Although it would in some ways be great to think we can all price cats in accordance with somekind of agreed standard, I think that with more and more people having the cats now this becomes less of a possibility as free choice increases. At first, with the cats.. it was working for a time to have an agreed amount per trait and was possible, due to the relatively small number of breeders. Now, with so many, much as I would like it to be possible, I am not sure it is.

There will always be that person selling kitties for 100 or 200L each. What I would say is that then it is important to breed good cats which... like the ice wine, are worth more comparatively from those who value that in a cat but are priced FAIRLY and not greedily by any of us. Sure, we want to make some profit sometimes but also for people to enjoy what they buy and feel it was value for money. The ones floating around for 100 or 200 are not terribly good in pedigree, generally... so for those who like a good pedigree there will (I hope) always be a fair market where we can ask more, and a fair price for such kitties. However, in all honesty such buyers are getting less and less and it is harder to sell cats for good prices for a variety of reasons

[Devilness Chant]

I love all the things Wendi said. And the brothers sound like wonderful people.

I have always said, if someone spends big money for a trait, then they deserve the chance to breed it and make their money back. People that spend a lot of money on a kitty, do it because 1) they may love the trait 2) it's an investment.

The first breeders of said trait should respect each other and not flood the market or cheapen the trait. Let it ride out.

These are just my opinions. (and we know what they say about opinions) lol I would never tell someone how to run their business. But one thing to take into consideration is your reputation. After a while people won't want to pay the bigger money for your kitties knowing they can get them cheaper, for one. And for two, if it's a waste of their investment, they won't want to spend that money.

If the idea is to share a beautiful new trait with others, then it would be a good idea not to sell it for a high price.

Maybe this person doesn't realize what people are thinking or how the market should work. Maybe it would help to try and talk to this person and explain how you feel about what they are doing? They may not even realize how they're affecting the market and the buyers.

[Nino Heartsdale]

First of all, kudos to Terror for having addressed this issue and I agree with all she says.

I also know this is not the first time this issue has reared it's ugly head. Maybe we cannot stop the desperate/greedy breeders, but if we stop discussing the subject, does that mean we just comply with their greedy bully-boy tactics?

Having been breeding for a respectable amount of time now, I know that reputations are very important in our community. I would rather buy from someone who has a good reputation in the community and considers other breeders in their pricing policy, even if I have to pay a a slight premium.

Personally, I never pay attention or even bother to check out the flash sales of 100L kitties, because as far as I am concerned, I do not support the tactics of those breeders and I refuse to taint my cattery with their genes! (LOL)

Plus, if someone is underselling their kitties for those prices, I imagine the kitties have not been bred with care for things like pure lines - hence they are only in the market for a quick buck. So there is no point in me having their sub-standard kitty contaminating my lines with spurious results. We all know how much work and effort it takes to breed decent pure lines. I would not take on their kitties even if they offered them to me for free, because breeders like that are only ruining the market for everyone else, and I will not participate in that process.

Pricing is hard at the best of times. I believe in a fair price and try to keep my kitties in that kind of ranges.

At the end of the day it's up to each person to operate with some kind of integrity and regard to the bigger picture and how it affects everyone else. Ego sometimes needs to take a back seat when the greater good is under consideration!

That's my penny's worth!!

P.S. Wendi - the 700L figure comes from the KittyCatS Breeding Classes which Liriel Garnet held and which I attended. She gave the breakdown of how she arrived at the figure and it seemed to be appropriate to me! I believe it covered the period of the entire process from birthing a kitty to breeding with it.

[Winter Phoenix]

L$100 for a seven trait mew?

You see these garage sale prices once in a while.
You see L$25 menagerie fodder as well.

But I've seen L$7000 megas sitting on shelves for eight months a lot more

I tend to stick to the L$50 a trait guideline.
Your newb cat-sumer doesnt want to spend $L1000 for a pixel cat.
But I'll crank the price up on something UBER COOL!

You cant compete with the bargain basement sellers by price.
you can only succeed by creating interesting kitteh that the buyer
would enjoy owning at the price you are requesting.

Me, I'll be standing in front of their shoppe with a THIS GUY SUCKS sign.