Rip off

[jeremy]

I was at a pet shop in brisbane today and it was obvious that they took a lot of care of their birds but the prices were downright ridiculous
H/R Sun Conure $995 each
H/R Green Cheek Conure $950 each
H/R Green Peachface $90
H/R Blue Quaker $1200
Just to name a few, i think pet shops are taking advantage of new bird owner by putting these sort of prices on birds

[SunConure]

That is a rip off some pet shops just like to rip off new time bird owners and thats just wrong. I bet they would have gotten the sun conure for $600 the green cheeked for $450 and for the blue quakers probably around the $400 mark. Well i'm not sure on the prices as i'm only going by the breeders here in victoria. The blue quaker i just had a guess but i'm sure it wouldn't be much more then what i have said. The pet shop 30 minutes away from me was selling just weaned sun conures hand reared for $800 when people can just go to the breeder and get one for $600. This guy on this website sells his for $850 www.parrot-haven-aviary.com.au/Sun-conures.htm.So i think some people like making people pay more.

[jill]

Petshops double the prices..I just picked up a sun conure, they origionaly wanted $1500, then dropped the price to $1000, because I bought a cage he cage me a deal for $800..But there is one bird shop here that sells budgies for $60.00...

[iwantmore]

i agree about pet shops.
i have previously sold suns to a pet shop.The price they paid me $450..and later on they put an $800 price on it.
and they sold within the week.
it is hard enough to sell spoon fed babies at the time to the public for $600 (the going price )so i don't sell to p/s
anymore.then there are the others ,
shop; you want $600?.how much for wholesale.
me:$600.
shop: i can get them down south for $325 ea
me: ok can you get me 3 pr.
shop: dirty look and walks away.. so funny

[hillcresttiels]

Thats pretty ordinary considering breeders like Birdworld
have them advertised here on our forum for $475! just goes to show!

[jill]

Oh I Just saw that Hilcrest tiels..I've been too busy with work to get onto the forum..I just paid $800 for this little guy today...I would never have paid the $1500 that they were origionaly asking though..

[SunConure]

I wouldn't pay that either Jill you could buy a breeding pair of sun conures for $1500. Just goes to show pet shops try and rip people off. The pet shop here is quite good Julie is going to be the one to go pick up my baby when he is ready as i don't have a car and my parents won't take me and julie knew that. She isn't going to charge me any money for her to pick up my baby. I just have to pay for the bird and DNA sexing. It is unfair on the new bird owners that don't know how much they should be spending on a bird. Like they would buy a bird lets say for $700 only to find out that they where riped off. The pet shop 30 minutes away from me there hand reared birds have never came out of there cages which is just wrong. Then you get good pet shops which have a big play pen for all the hand reared birds. You get your good pet shops then you get your bad pet shops. Some just want your money where some just want to know the animal is going to have a good life.

[jeremy]

I was trying to sell a Red Collared Lorikeet once and i couldn't sell it so i went to my last resort, the pet shop. I was offered $40 and they were sellling theres for $120. Another pet shop offered me $80 and they probably would've sold it for $150. I ended up finding someone that would buy it and i got a good price for it

[indy]

OK OK Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and i guess nobody has stopped to think how a business is run. I know the pet shop that has been metioned in a previous post and yes some of their prices are ridiculous but they do have a lot of overheads to pay out e.g Wages, bird food for their birds to eat, bird toys for them to play with, vet inspections which aren't cheap, costs of running a pet shop is phenominal. If they were to buy a... lets say... sun conure for $450 and sold it for $600 then how could they afford the up keep of this particular bird if it is still their after a week. I guess some people have been stung by breeders before and to buy a bird from a pet store you know you will get that back up service if needed. And yes i am a breeder and i know there are some shonky ones out there who breed birds for money, not because it is their passion, and these are the people who give us good breeders a bad name. My sister had bought a H/R King parrot from a breeder , she had it for 3 days and it passed away, when she took it to the vet for an autopsy they had said it had a mega bac infection as well as psittacosis which is common in king parrots. She had phoned the breeder and they wouldn't help her out at all and denied that any of their birds were ill. so i guess each person to their own, whether you purchase from a pet store or a breeder as long as you are happy and comfortable with your purchase it really doesn't matter, and knowing you have provided the most lovable home for your pet bird is worth every cent you paid for him/her.

[iwantmore]

indy business is all about buying/making for the cheapest price,and in return selling it to make a profit.
and there is nothing wrong with making a living out of it
either. but in todays society greed is the number one thing.. there is a big difference in keeping a market stable for long term profit,for all
than selling too expensive/cheap and collapsing the same market for all involved.

[josiedownunda]

Indy,
I agree with what you say regarding pet shops making people feel more comfortable about getting backup service. It is those like you describe that sold the king parrot that make it hard for the rest of us breeders. I personally always offer people the opportunity to return a bird if they are unhappy with it and if ever the situation arose where a bird died after sale then i would certainly be offering a replacement or refund if the cause of death was found to be orginally present at time of sale. The problem is that money rules with some. These people only want the money from that sale and don't care about the birds or the repercussions a dead bird can cause. I feel that eventually these people will go out of business. Their reputation will precede them and no-one will want their birds. I sell a lot by word of mouth from happy customers. It is the best advertising private breeders can do. How else can we educate the public and let them know we love our birds and want the best for them as well as charge less than pet stores. It is a never ending battle to educate those that don't want to hear our side of things.
Regards
Jo-Anne

[mirrebwaypark]

breeders are more commanly now offering a 100% money back or replacement guarantee. you cant go wrong with these guys!!
i myself am not a big fan of petshops - the ones up here give you bugger all and sell at ridiculous prices, yes they do have to make a living out of this business but if they were smart a bird wouldn't be in a shop for more than a fortnight - easy come easy go - a quick turn over would be better than a delayed larger profit i would reckon.
i put a h/r grey ringneck on consignment to a petshop here for $300. which is good money but then the petshop puts $580 on the same bird. and hence the bird did not sell!!
this is only from petshops from where im from - which probably is 1/10th of the size of your petshops.
so this is not a generalised comment
cheers

[chickabee]

my bit for what it's worth.........I had a pet shop ;D ;D

Yes you do have high over heads but that depends if you're a stand alone shop or you are in a busy shopping centre. Birds that you get in and this is what I used to do was to turn the bird over as quick as possible,....and for two good reasons 1. the bird if hand raised moves on to its new owner as quick as possible and two you can charge a lower price so that the bird sells quick. My rule of thumb was to make a profit that I would be happy with and not over the top as it would take longer to sell the animal, which in turn is no good for the bird and the cost factor for having the bird for weeks goes up.
I also had a replacement policy for the birds but as I was very picky about who I purchased off, I never had any problems, I think in all the years that I had the shop I stayed with the same breeders and they stayed with me, so we looked after each other, they got to sell their birds and I turned them around quick at a good price.

I have a shop near to me that is over the top with their pricing and I know for a fact that his overheads would not be much, so he is greedy, I will not sell to him , I'm lucky in that people come to me for my tiels and if I find that some one has lost their bird I would rather give them one ;D

[mbme123jonny]

Theres a pet shop here in perth i went to em to sell them a H/R budgie and they would only pay $8 for em and i thought that was a rip off well i went to another one and they would only pay $5 how 'how much worse can it get' So i took it to the one who would pay $8 and i found out later in the week that they were selling em for $45 dollars what a rip off. i know even if my life depened on getting a budgie i wouldnt pay that much

John

[AcaciaWattle]

Yes you do need to make a profit but isn't it better if your known as the cheapest pet store in town?? More people will purchase from you because they have seen the competition's prices. I Saw my first Quaker parrots the other week and the pet store wants $705 each. They are green and are not friendly, not trained and run away! Why would I spend top dollar for a bird that will be so much work and may not stay hand raised. The same store (where I purchased Dougal) has his sister, she has been there for over 5 months. These birds aren't handled that much are in a room closed off from the public and you have to ask to see a bird.
Your all forgetting that pet stores get things like seed, fruit and veg etc at Wholesale prices. Much less than what we pay. But I think what makes a pet store is their turn over. If anyone is like me and you practically LIVE at the petstore you don't stay very long or purchase as much if it's the same birds every week, for months. I've seen the same over priced supposedly H/R green ringnecks for so long now and I don't think they will ever sell. They are grouchy and at $300+ Nah uh.
I paid $60 for our H/R budgie, and $25 to $30 for cage budgies and my english was $35. I couldn't sell my budgies for $16 and ended up taking them back to where I bought them and got $10 each. Their needs to be some sort of regularity.

PS why are sun conures so expensive?

[billspets]

well i also use to own a pet shop and it was my experance that if i could not sell a bird in a week it would be harder to sell the next week so what i use to do was try to buy quality birds at a good price that i could at least break even if i had to send a bulk order to one of the bigger bird places in Adelaide but you also must be able to drop prices for your customers to show good faith as well and well i never had a proble
but in todays market it all goes on the profit margin not the customer and not the quality or the love of animals
regards
bill

[kim1]

I guess there are a lot of issues that need to be looked at,I personally have bought a bird at a pet shop for twice as much as another shop had the same sort of bird for, because the dearer shop had clean cages and healthy happy birds, whilst the other shop had smelly dirty cages and an obvious lice infestation, it's not all about the price the shop sells for, they can sell for whatever they want, but they need to give the breeder a fair price, and the only way this would happen is if the breeders all refused to sell too cheaply, some breeders cut their own throats and they ruin it for us all by selling so cheap. Also there is pros and cons to haveing handraised birds in a large open pen that people can have access to, the birds can be handled more that way, which is the only pro I can see, but the cons are that they are handled by heaps of people each day, many of whome are inexperienced with birds, the birds get pulled around too much and get grouchy, they then begin to nip, and because they get no training, they learn that biteing gets the result they want and they get put back in the pen. I've also seen a group of 6 kids start picking up birds and laughing excitedly at the local pet shop, they started grabbing at the birds and one little tiel was dropped and stood on, finally the owner chased them away, and one of the parents had a winge about not buying a bird from the store ever again. Don't know if the tiel survived but if I owned a pet store, I'm afraid my birds would not be on display after seeing that.

[AcaciaWattle]

One pet stoe I went to In Melbourne had an open room for their H/R birds which was off limits to children under the age of 16. They also had a member of staff at a counter near the door to police that rule. All the birds were friendly and well trained living in a happy clean environment. What I object to is that you have to wait for a free employee to come and help you if you're interested in meeting a bird. I had to wait 30 minutes just to see Dougal without a glass window between us. All their birds are behind glass so you can't really hear which cockatiel is whistling a funny tune, if one of the canaries is a male etc. A big part of choosing a pet for me is how they initially interact with me. If I want to choose a goldfish I put my hand up to the glass, If one immediatly comes to me I take that one home. I spend alot of time listening, watching and observing and it's really difficult to do that with glass in front of you. I have seen lots of people teasing the birds, thats some people for you. That's why bird rooms work, especially if one of the staff is assigned to it ALL day. You'll never stop the idiots but having someone there all the time will help remove them a little quicker.