5 Ways Dog Breeders Can Add Value To Their Puppies

How can dog breeders get top price for their puppies and add to their market value?  What sort of value are top buyers actually looking for in a puppy?

If you do a little bit of market research, you’ll soon see that price varies wildly.  Some puppies of the same breed are able to get over $3000, whereas others of the same breed might only be achieving $500 to $700 (US marketplace).

So why the difference?  And what is it that actually adds true market value to puppies?

Everything I’m going to discuss here is from the top-end buyers’ point of view: what are they looking for and how can we give it to them.

1. Be Professional

The first thing is to be professional.  Buyers at the top-end want to deal with a professional.

Some of the things that we need to do to make them see we’re a professional and a good dog breeder is for a start, showing them we are not a scam. Offer either real visits or at least live video visits to our puppies so buyers can see what our puppies are up to.  Post reviews from your owners, and share their stories on your Facebook page.

Also have written policies in place for your waiting list and your guarantees.

And also be a good communicator: customer focused and prompt with your communication.

2. Guarantee Puppy Health 

Now the next thing that is a real worry for top-end buyers is that they’re going to get a puppy that’s not going to be healthy.

When a top-end buyer acquires a puppy they are fully committed.  If their puppy ends up having health issues then they’re not going to give it up. And that means they will be stuck with it.  That’s why they’re so careful about the buying decision. So they are looking for assurances that your puppies have a good chance living a long and healthy life.

A really good example of this is puppyspot.com.  The only thing that they offer that other puppy marketplaces don’t is a 10 year health guarantee with all their puppies.  Even in the depressed market in the States at the moment they’re still able to get three grand and up for their puppies because of the health guarantee alone, which is all they’re offering that’s different.

Just imagine if you offer a rock solid health guarantee as well, what that would do for you to attract the top end buyers.  Of course, you will need to be health and genetic testing your breeding dogs to ensure your puppies are as healthy as possible.

3. Make it EASY

The other thing that they want apart from healthy and dealing with a professional person is they also want a puppy that’s going to be as easy as possible. How can you make their life easier? Some might not have much confidence in their own abilities to, for example potty train their puppy. And they’ve heard lots of horror stories about pups that were hard to potty train. Maybe they’ve even been through that themself. The least we can do as breeders is have our puppies’ potty training started. It’s so easy. So do that and that will alleviate some of the concerns about that issue. We’re making it easier for our buyers when we do that and it’s hardly any work for us, right?

4. Optimize Puppy Behavior

The next thing top-end buyers want is behavior they can live with.  A puppy that’s a joy to live with will be an asset to the family. This is the dog their kids are going to  grow up with. And this is the dog they’re going to be stuck with for the next 10 or 15 years for good or ill.

How do we help our puppies prepare for success here?  One way is family rearing our puppies with lots of socialization and handling. You might also be doing puppy culture, or ENS.   During the critical socialization period (3 to 8 weeks) breeders should be giving those puppies lots and lots of positive human contact, and meeting as many people as possible. This will help that puppy see humans as part of their pack and relate well to humans.

And of course breeders should be giving new owners lots of support so that they get their part of socialization right too.

We should be also trying to temperament match our puppies. The last thing we want is puppies with a boisterous personality ending up with old people or those with little kids in the family.  Households like that are usually better off with a quieter dog.  Breeders should do their best to match the right puppy to the right family and optimize the compatibility between our puppies and their new owners.

5. Build a Strong ONLINE Presence

To attract top-end buyers you’ve got to have a strong presence online. Looking at it from the buyer’s point of view: they’re trying to find the right breeder. While puppy marketplaces might come up on the first page of Google, to the buyer all the breeders look the same on those marketplaces. Typically they will try to communicate with several breeders but often get poor or no response from those breeders, which is frustrating.

If you have a strong website they will come across it and get an understanding of what you stand for as a breeder.  If you pair that with the other tips above, buyer’s will go, “Hurray, we have found our breeder at last.” They’re prepared to not only pay top prices but once they’ve found you – if you’ve done all these things right – they’ll usually be happy to wait for one of your puppies.  Why? Because they don’t feel they can get the same value somewhere else.

FREE Marketing for Breeders Training

Want to learn more about attracting top-end buyers?  Then join my FREE 1-hour Marketing for Breeders online masterclass. [There’s no selling on the master class. Just really good information.]