Totally out of the blue we had two visitors arrive around noon to look at the alpacas and the alpaca farm.

It was very interesting visit as the gentleman who was interested had clearly done his homework and was able to ask some highly relevant questions.

Sometimes the more clued up visitors ask how do you know what an alpaca is worth?

Q. Whats an alpaca worth? A. What someone will pay.

I would put good money on the fact that most new buyers go shopping with a budget in mind say $25k they browse only the alpacas around that price, the unspoken assumption is that it’s a perfect market and that prices reflect quality. Not all buyers are this way by any means but a good many are.

What complicates this picture further is that many go shopping with a budget of $25k in mind to buy one alpaca then discover that with finance they can buy 3 or even 4 alpacas for that down payment... now there is an even bigger disconnect between price paid and perceived quality. The very offer of finance has value associated with it.

What people pay is largely driven by emotion and justified later by whatever objective measures are available. Overtime buyers become more astute....and I am sure those who read my alpaca Blog only every make rational buying decisions based on the hard facts .

However if you take the predicted growth in the national alpaca herd and make some assumptions about the typical growth of an existing alpaca farm and the typical size of a new farm, we will need to attract new breeders to the alpaca industry at an ever increasing rate......assuming of course that the National Herd continues to be bred at maximum capacity each year.....or maybe AOBA should pay subsidies to encourage breeders to leave 10% of their females open - only joking !

What this means is that we will always have a large number of new buyers who use price as a guide to quality...their experiences will vary depending who they buy from.

The price picture is a subtle one and much more complex than it would appear at first glance.

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