Payment plans

Anyone have any advice/tips for payment plans? I've been thinking about laying a solid policy out but I can just see it causing problems. Has anyone had much luck doing this in the past? What are you guidelines? Thanks.

In my opinion, one should be able to save-up the money to purchase a reasonably priced animal. If you're selling $5K and up animals, then perhaps a payment plan would be worth it.

I don't have a problem with payment plans. But you need good rules.... Like how long to pay it off, do you allow for extinction... If so how much should be payed off before a exception is given. There should be a I changed my mind clause... Ie... 20 percent is none refundable upend your claniatzion of said deal. And also what you want to do for feeding on a long time layaway. there should also be thing in there to protect the buyer if snake becomes not avabale.

I do payment plans. 25% non-refundable deposit. It is non-refundable because I take the snake off the market and have to continue to feed and care for it. Balance due in 60 days, unless other arrangements are made in writing.

When someone sends me a deposit, I immediately send them an email outlining the terms of the sale (non-refundable nature of the deposit and the date that final payment is due, etc.).

I've had very good success with it and have several snakes on deposit right now. They are fine as long as everyone understands the terms and what is expected. Make sure that everything is in writing.

Right now, I've got a Killerbee on deposit and I modified the agreement. I agreed to switch the snake over to f/t (three feedings) before deposit becomes non-refundable. Then all terms as normal. If I can not get it to switch, I will refund the deposit and put the snake back on the market.

I think payment plans allow for flexibility to help buyers get snakes that they would not otherwise be able to obtain and builds a good relationship with customers. There may come a time when I change my mind, but for right now, it works for me.

Nothing more frustrating than writing a long detailed post and then hitting backspace twice (or some such) thus deleting everything . Thank you Google Chrome! Take two:

We do payment plans and the above is sound advice. Especially getting it in writing. We usually do a 25% non-refundable deposit with full payment due in one month. I don't care if the customer pays 25% each week or in full at the end. If they paid anything more than the 25% and back out, we refund anything over the deposit. Don stated it well for why a non-refundable deposit is both fair and necessary for you.

Quote :

I've been thinking about laying a solid policy out but I can just see it causing problems.

This hasn't been addressed yet so I'll take this one on. I purposely do not have a payment plan policy stated on my terms section. The first reason is that I don't always know how much I'll want down and I may want to extend the time period. The 25% and one month is more of my self guideline that varies.

The second reason and most important reason to me is that there may be potential customers that after talking with, you do not want to extend them a payment plan. It makes it harder to do this if you have a plan written into your terms. It blows my mind that someone will negotiate a lower price and then request a payment plan (not telling you during negotiations that the don't plan on buying the animal upon a deal). JW also makes a good point about selling animals to people who can't afford to reasonably care for them. I once had a customer request a payment plan for a $100 animal. How they expected to house and feed it properly, I have no idea! Needless to say I refused to sell to them (politely) as my animals always come first over any buyer.

I think something related and just as important is your "Hold" policy. We generally hold animals with no deposit for a few days as a show of good faith if we have a good feeling about the potential customer. They may just need a couple days to get their funds together and then often pay in full. I feel it develops a better relationship then the "first one with the money gets the animal" that many others use. We have lost sales by holding animals and turning away inquiries but I still it's worth it in the long-haul both for the animals and your buyers.

Thanks guys. Really good advice!!

I agree with Brian's 'hold policy' as well. I have a female normal on hold right now for someone who I've never met or done business with before and there is no deposit, since it is a $20 purchase. If they do not show up on Sunday, it goes back up on the market.

Brian brought up a good point about the TOS. However, I think no matter what your TOS says, if they buyer beats you up on price, you can say "Sorry, this deal would be cash only, Terms of Service are not for this kind of deal."

The most important thing is whatever you agree to, you follow-up in writing so you and the buyer are clear on what the terms of that deal are, no matter what are printed in your TOS.

well i for one like payment plans, as a costumer. i asked for a payment plan on a $300 animal, that may be silly to some of you but when i see one i REALLY like i dont always "have" that kinda money laying around to spend on a new animal. that doesnt mean i cant afford to tke care of it. i have savings, specifically for vet bills and animal emergencies. i take VERY good care of my pets and i like seeing that a seller has payment plans, it gives me the option to obtain something that i would never in a million years be able to afford on E-4 pay. and if you have a good enough policy, you usually cant get screwed over. if you take a non refundable deposit and someone backs out, you just made a little bit of money and you still have the animal..... i see nothing wrong with a payment plan and all of my more expensive purchases have all been made on such plans.

There's nothing wrong with a payment plan on a $300 animal. That's a good bit of money. I've happily given payment plans on $200 dragons and didn't think twice about it.

There has to be a point though where a person either can afford to take care of the animal or not. I think that point for me is a $100 animal. The down payment would be $25 and if a person can't afford to spend more than 25 dollars, they really can't afford to properly care for the animal.

I'm not sure how successful someone selling expensive animals can be without a payment plan, they can be beneficial all around.

Jabberwocky Dragons wrote:

There's nothing wrong with a payment plan on a $300 animal. That's a good bit of money. I've happily given payment plans on $200 dragons and didn't think twice about it.

There has to be a point though where a person either can afford to take care of the animal or not. I think that point for me is a $100 animal. The down payment would be $25 and if a person can't afford to spend more than 25 dollars, they really can't afford to properly care for the animal.

I'm not sure how successful someone selling expensive animals can be without a payment plan, they can be beneficial all around.

i do agree with that..... as a breeder/seller of animals i would be worried about that as well. im woried about it when people can pay in full, im just worried period.... i have no clue what they will do with the animal once its left me, but i guess thats something im just gonna have to get over. i was inquiring about an animal that was a bit out of my price range but the add said "payment plans ok" so i inquired any way. turns out they wanted a 50% downpayment and wanted it paid in full in 2 weeks..... whats the point of a payment plan at that point? i just thought that was kinda funny

No opinion on if Payment plans are good/bad or cause problems, because that depends on the people involved and their mutual understanding on what is expected in their individual roles and whether they are ethical or not.

But for finding a good TOS, I looked at some of the sites available TOS and found one that reflected my ethics and with some treaking to streamline and perfect it...it worked fine. It was similar to Don's but because of the prices of my animals (inexpensive in the first place) I had a limitation, I think, of 3 or 500.00...nothing below that number was to be on a payment plan and 3 months was my time limit (non-refundable deposit, of course, was 25 or 20%.)

When you are trying to move animals, I find it easier to deal with the people that had money, but I also tried to have prices in a range that the average joe could afford without going into debt, too.

I aggree with that last paragraph so much, Ive always said you can produce all the high dollor animals you want but if no ones buying... your feed bill goes up.

That is true. I found that the best business strategy was to offer animals in a wider range of prices.

When my business partner and I were selling on KS I offered payment plans to a few folks who asked about it. Most of the time it worked out fine but there was one incident where the deal went sour. Now our goal is to just setup at Daytona every year. I became so frustrated answering zillions of emails from people who were obviously either kids or otherwise had no real intention of buying anything that I stopped selling online.
Chip

Don't you hate it when you miss out on a sale due to the money from someone else is on the way. But never shows up.

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Yep. Once I held a pair of Eurydactylodes agricolae for this kid for several weeks. I really thought it was a genuine inquiry at first but after the 6th or 7th request for additional pics of shots like the inside of the parents enclosure and so on I called him out. It was at that point that he confessed that he did not have all of the money and started begging me to split the pair up so that he could get the female. In the meantime I had turned away several others. It worked out in the end however because they sold quickly at Daytona.
Chip

Yeah Chip...folks in our area are full of it sometimes or want something for nothing.

As a buyer I stay far, far away from payment plans. If I don't have the money now, there is no guarantee I'll have it in a few weeks or a few months. Life LOVES to throw curveballs. You think you can pay for a snake and then your car breaks down! In the long run, the possibility of losing the deposit is just not worth it to me.