Selling Labrador pups is a lucrative business, with purebreds commanding as much as $2,500 or more in the United States. However, mixed-breed Labrador puppies don’t cost as much, particularly to potential owners who place a premium on pedigree. Knowing the right price to sell your mixed-breed Lab can help attract potential buyers and seal the deal faster, but how much money can you sell a Lab mix pup for?
You can sell a Lab mix pup for as low as $100 and as high as $875. Based on a recent analysis of 120 ads, the majority of sellers sold their Lab mix puppies for $475. Another noteworthy figure was the average price across all listings at $527, which suggests the seller may have an upperhand.
The rest of this article will discuss some of the factors to consider when pricing your Lab mix puppies, including total expenses per puppy, the level of demand for your puppy, your customers, the age of the puppy, and the price of other puppies in the market (competitors).
Factors Affecting the Price of a Lab Mix Pup
Numerous factors will influence the price at which you sell your Lab mixed puppies, but these five factors are highlighted as the most significant. As I’ll explain below, there’s a healthy market for mixed Labrador breeds in the United States, and you can fetch a pretty penny for your puppies if you bring the market exactly what it wants.
The Level of Demand
As a seller, you have the option to price their pups either higher or lower than the median or average price of similar offerings in the market. However, this is affected by the level of demand. To provide context, Fortune and the BBC draw attention to the high price of puppies driven by increased demand for puppies during the pandemic.
Within the above context, the growth in demand for Labs — purebred or mixed-breeds — will drive the price up. On the flip side, when the demand for these dogs drops, the price you can sell them at also drops. The demand for purebreds also influences the demand for mixed-breed Labs, as aptly discussed below.
According to CNN Money, purebred dogs attract a much higher price in the market than mixed-breed dogs due to factors such as pedigree, novelty, and greater demand. The average price of a purebred Labrador retriever is $800. Accordingly, it’s arguable that pricing your puppy away from the median price and closer to the ceiling isn’t supported by the relative demand for mixed and pure breeds.
Recent studies, however, suggest that there’s an existing market that prefers mixed breeds. According to this research by Borbála Turcsán and her colleagues, mixed breeds have specific characteristics that appeal to some dog owners, such as higher trainability. The pricing of mixed-breed Labs will therefore be affected by their demand in the market, and you could see the average prices rise in the future.
Your Customers’ Wants and Needs
Like any product or service, your selling price will depend to a certain extent on your target customers. Do your customers value getting the cheapest or highest value product available? By evaluating this question, you can determine the extent to which pricing affects their purchasing intentions.
For some breeders, keeping the costs as low as possible is essential, providing more flexibility in pricing. However, some breeders value quality, which translates to comparatively larger expenses. Appreciating that total costs will influence pricing, as discussed earlier, your costs will also affect market selection and pricing, as follows.
If your total costs of raising, training, and vaccinating your Lab mix pups are low, you’ll enjoy more pricing flexibility whether your customers value quality or price convenience. This is as long as you can break even. However, if your total expenses are high because you value quality, I recommend targeting customers who appreciate quality over price convenience.
According to Breeding Business, this approach helps to minimize financial loss while at the same time simplifying budgeting for your next litter.
The Puppy’s Age
Your puppy’s age will influence your selling price because older puppies will generally fetch a lower price in the market than young puppies. The American Kennel Association recommends selling your puppy at eight to nine weeks old because this is an optimal age to create a strong bond with the new owner.
Younger puppies as low as eight weeks fetch a much higher selling price than older puppies. As explained by the CDC, the puppy market has a preference for younger puppies, and as a result, profits from puppy sales will decrease significantly with every month that the puppy ages.
Therefore, adjusting your puppy’s price while keeping age in mind to maximize sales is essential. On the same breadth, this also suggests that the peak week of eight to nine weeks offers the most opportune time to sell your puppies at a higher price if profit maximization is your goal.
Your Competitors’ Pricing
The price point at which buyers are willing to buy similar puppy offerings, coupled with the publicly or privately pricing offered by the competition, will ultimately affect your selling price. For instance, if you sell your puppies via a website or common platform, you can gauge the price range based on competitor prices.
Your desired profit and your sales objective will also come into play. For instance, while you can go as low as the competition, the price level you can drop to will depend on whether you’ll be making a profit or a loss. However, if your objective is to quickly sell your current litter regardless of price to focus on the next one, you can go lower than the average market price to maximize sales.
Evaluating Total Expenses
Underlying virtually every sale is the profit-making objective. Thus, your pricing should consider the total costs associated with raising the cub. According to Pup Central, some of the expenses include:
- Medical supplies
- Veterinary visits
- Feeding
- Training
- Miscellaneous rearing and caring costs
In addition, it’s essential to record all expenses to make total or average expenses easy to compute. If you’re selling more than one puppy, you should divide the total costs by the number of puppies you have on sale. This will help you determine the average costs associated with raising the puppy to that point.
Determining a Price for Your Lab Mix Puppy
To get a final selling price, add the profit you want to generate for each puppy to the average expenses associated with raising the puppies:
Selling price = Total expenses + Profit goal
This is the best way to ensure a selling price for your mixed-breed Lab that guarantees a return.
Conclusion
But when it comes to selling your puppy, finding the right price point is crucial. You cannot just set an arbitrary price without considering the key aspects discussed in this article, such as total expenses and prevailing prices in the market. A good balance is critical, especially if you do this to generate money.
Keeping these aspects in mind, you should be able to quickly and easily get your puppy a new home while also ensuring that you get a return for all the hard work you’ve already put in.
