MorphMarket News

We are preparing to promote a number of new subcategories to top level this year with all the trimmings: trait tags, subcategories, store listings, calculators, etc.

We are conducting a survey of these species and need your input. Would you help us by reviewing our draft and providing feedback on anything we're missing or mistaken about?

The ones ready for you review are:

• Chameleons
• Tree Boas
• Tegus
• Bullsnakes

Thanks! John

Read the End of Year Newsletter for some exciting updates, what's planned, and a recap of all that happened in 2022.

We've made a big rule change which allows for the sale of animals which are born but not yet established. Preestablished animals are those which have not yet established a regular feeding pattern.

We added this use case because it does occur in the hobby and can be performed responsibly. This can be particularly useful for animals which are in high demand which are in many cases selling before they ever hit our market. That said, both buyer and seller should exercise this option with care. We recommend that these animals be established by the breeder prior to delivery. In most cases we believe this is how this feature will be used. This update simply allows the sale to happen earlier.

To utilize this feature, eligible sellers can simply list an animal for sale and set its maturity to "preestablished". These listings will show up just like other listings. When buyers inquire, they will see a disclaimer to make sure they understand the additional complications that may occur, such as a delay in delivery.

In order to carefully regulate this feature, we have only made it available to certain sellers. Current requirements include a selling account which is at least six months old and Basic membership or higher. These terms are subject to change as we seek to find the best balance between freedom and responsibility.

Sellers wishing to use this feature should make sure to read the Default Store Policy and override terms as desired. By default, the maximum time for an animal to be successfully established after payment has been made is 60 days unless otherwise specified before purchase. If the seller cannot establish the animal in this time window, they must be willing and able to provide a 100% refund of all money paid, upon Buyer’s request. Like most of our default policies, this can be customized by the seller in their own policy or documented in writing with the buyer prior to the sale.

The newer version of our search (soon to be default) makes it easier to find these animals by making the maturity filter a multi-select. This means you can filter on multiple maturity settings at the same time, such as preestablished or baby.

All sellers can still prepare ads for upcoming animals. We recommend creating those ads with the inactive setting. After the animal is ready to sell, these ads can be easily activated.

Learn more about this feature:

• Preestablished Animals Support Article
• Rules for Selling
• Default Store Policy

The beautify of these animals is one of the best parts of our hobby. MorphMarket breeders have uploaded more than a million photos of these spectacular specimens over the past few years.

We've just made a big improvement that will help you showcase your animals predictably. We are now using the same aspect ratio (or width-to-height ratio) for photos of animals across the site.

Great photography requires great composition. Fundamentally, that's where you place the animal within the photo. You don't normally want to show buyers a photo with part of the animal missing from the image, unless you're providing multiple photos. In order to make your photos look great on our site, you want to understand how MorphMarket prepares and displays those images.

For consistency and versatility we have chosen to CONTINUE using the same aspect ratio which has been in use on our site since the beginning in the search results thumbnails. This ratio is roughly 6:5 (specifically 45:38). However, various other parts of the site were not respecting that rule.

You don't need to crop your photos to this size because our site will continue to do that for you. But you should be aware that this is a narrower photo than what your phone will take by default (which is typically 4:3).

Here are different places you'll see animal photos:

• When you upload your photos in the Edit Animal page, it'll show you exactly how it's going to look.
• This is the way it'll appear in search results as well as on the new animal ad pages.
• Note that users can still tap to zoom and see the full uncut photos on the animal pages.
• This aspect ratio is also being used on all the other parts of the site including Offspring, Collection, and Morphpedia images.
• This work was one of the important things for us to address before retiring the old search and old ad pages. Almost there!

We recommend animal photos which are at least 1500px wide, but more than 10mb in size.

Store logos are a different matter. We recommend a square format, but it will still show the original format of your logo on your store page.

Let us know if you have any questions!

Over the years we have continued to invest in our technology that helps buyers and sellers communicate.

• Originally, inquiries were email only.
• Later we added messages on our site that were synced with the email.
• About a year ago, we replaced this page with the Messenger which is in use today.
• Then we added attachment support.

At long last, the MorphMarket Messenger now supports “instant messaging”!

• You no longer need to refresh the screen to see if a new message has come in.
• When the other party is typing a reply, you’ll see an animated “...” symbol.
• The “new message” indicator will turn green right away when a new message has arrived.

For messaging on the go, make sure to install the MorphMarket app. It adds push notifications so you’ll be immediately notified of new messages. Faster responses will generally result in more closed sales!

Finding your way around MorphMarket has never been easier! If you’re viewing the site from a desktop computer, you may have noticed a new look.

We’ve added a menu header across the top that includes all the major areas of the site, such as calculators, events, Morphpedia, etc.

• Depending on the width of your viewing window, some of these features may be compressed. If something seems missing, just click on the trio of dots at the right end of the header to find them.
• To further increase your efficiency, your most recently visited Categories are prioritized in that menu for easy access.

If you’re logged into your account, you’ll also see a sidebar of icons along the left side of your screen. These will give you immediate access to all the areas of the site related to your account. This includes the animal manager, offspring, messenger, favorites, account settings…everything you need.

• If you’re unsure about what the icons mean, toggle the switch in the bottom left corner to open it up all the way.
• Once you are familiar with the icons, you can close it to free up more screen real-estate.

We know the site has a LOT of stuff on it, and these improvements should help new and old users alike navigate with ease. Plus, it gives us more room to keep growing!

There's more polish coming, but let us know what you think. We’re always working to improve the site and listen to your opinions.

Have you ever wanted to offer up for sale (or find to buy) that perfect breeding pair or trio? Do you have four or five animals that you'd like to sell together all at once, rather than one at a time?

Well now you can!

We've adjusted our rules for advertising multiple animals — even with different sex or genetics — in a single ad. So long as the animals all belong to the same Category, you can advertise them as pairs, trios, or larger groups. These ads can include animals with different genetic traits, as well as different sexes, ages, size, etc.

A new sex option "Mixed" has been added to support this use case.

There are some simple, but very specific protocols to follow for these kinds of ads, so please review the new rules carefully before you begin posting your ads found in Section 3.13. In particular, you must make sure to check the "Group" option. This is available to Basic members and above.

Buyers can also search for these deals. In filters for the new search, click "More Filters" then use the "Individual or Group" option under "Animal Options". You can run that search right now.

Back in August, we announced a new animal management feature called Collections. This lets you show off all your Not For Sale (NFS) animals to the world.

To use this, just add animals with "Not For Sale" state and "Public" visibility. Prospective buyers can click a link on your Store Page there to browse your ENTIRE collection OR at least the ones you want to make public. From that page you can also click the Share button to drive more traffic to your Store Page.

Here's the new part: At first we had some additional restrictions to try to limit folks from using this feature to actually sell animals marked as NFS.

We changed our mind! While NFS animals won't show up in user searches on animals for sale, and users shouldn't be using this to actively sell animals, why let a few folks ruin this great feature for thousands of others.

So we have relaxed those limitations. Anyone with any paid membership can show off all the animals in their Collection.

Now let's see those beautiful holdbacks!

John sat down this week with Jon Fealy with "Outside the Clutch". They discuss all things new on MorphMarket.

Enjoy this 1 hour interview on Youtube.

Be sure to check out Jon's other videos as well.

Two newsletters in one month? Yea, lots of stuff happening!

Read Oct Volume 2 to stay up to date!