Everyone loves a bargain

As that saying "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys", you need to invest a bit to get good stock. We've known so many buyers who are strapped for cash (or so they say) and therefore they negotiate heart and soul over every little things. Perhaps in some ways they save that extra $$$ and on the same time felt good about the deal, but what they ought to remember is that the sellers typically don't make much money over the stock they're selling, therefore the buyers' win is nothing more than imposing the sellers to consume the lost.

Most betta sellers are no difference, they sell their stock (or sell other's stock) with little margin. Squeezing the price isn't helping, particularly if the bulk of the cost is not on the initial price of the stock but rather on other associated costs such as importation or shipping. Sure, there are greedy sellers who'd charge an arm and a leg for their stock but that's what a free market is about, you have the choice to get whoever offers the most cost-effective and yet appealing bettas to you.

Why do we mention this? Well, not because we frequently challenged in such situation, which we do, but because a couple of sellers from o'seas are complaining on this issue too. Bare that in mind when you do your bargaining, don't over do it, or at least don't impose too much. Demanding too much from the sellers is simply a turn off and giving bad image to the rest of us.

If you really must bargain, at least you need to know whether they are a breeder or a reseller. Some have a clear status but the bulk of them are difficult to guess. Statement such as "from our farm" doesn't mean they really have a farm! These are common misconception since a reseller considers their source as their own farms :) Breeders have tendency to give good deals whereas resellers need to make a bit of profit from their purchases, hence you may not get much bargaining power with them.

Overall, the price of the goods reflect their quality. Most of giants sold for instance are sub-standard within their categories, but that's the way it is, the economy is tough and therefore quality sold needs to balance with what's affordable.

Serious breeders typically only purchase good quality stock. You either need good eyes to spot the good quality ones, or you know the stock quality of the sellers'. We've had our fair share of mistakes in spotting good vs bad quality stock, but over the time we'd like to think that we've learnt from our experience.

When a deal is too good to be true, then there usually is a catch with it. On the same token, when the deal is too expensive, there is a chance someone is ripping you off :) So, either way, you're stuck in the middle trying to figure it all out...

Go, hunt for good bargains, be honest to the sellers and get a win-win situation. When both parties achieve win-win, the relationships will carry on to the future purchases and it eases your trouble on identifying trusted sellers.