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Selling plants on the Forum


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A bugbear of mine,

The extra charges that are put on plants through posting and packaging and the added payment that is asked too be paid because the buyer will put money into your Paypal account.

In most cases you are making for nothing.

The plant is a spare plant.

Extra to need or space.

You are making money through the selling of plant.

We are hobbyists, this is not Ebay.

The point is to distribute plants to as many people as possible.

Cover your costs by all means..

But they are spare plants you are selling.

Before you have sent you have the means to, you are not going out to buy the packaging.

You know your market, an too added fee's and such on is exploiting your fellow hobbyists.

If you think me a hypocrite.

Anybody who has bought from me , will know I practice what I preach

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I'm not sure I get what you're saying, but shipping is expensive enough to begin with @ a bare minimum of $4.80 for 2-3 day priority. I doubt many people could get away with making a profit off of it. You also seem to be implying that it's unethical to make money off of a plant. Disregarding the fact that it's hard enough just to make your money back for a plant, I see no problem with trying to make some money off of it. That's how the hobby works. Just because someone has some extra plants doesn't mean they should be obligated to go around giving them away. Without the factor of enlightened self interest, we probably wouldn't even have half the plants in cultivation that we do today.

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Not to mention the costs of keeping many species - heating / lighting, all costs money. PayPal take some of your cash, so why not recoup it ? that's only fair. If someone lives close to you they don't have to use it and so don't have to pay it.

If some one like yourself wants to sell plants cheaply - GREAT.

Those who give them away - BRILLIANT.

But don't critise those who want to 'make a few bucks' to cover some of their costs.

There are a couple of people I would never buy from because I consider them very expensive - but I don't attack them for it.

At the end of the day - if you don't like the cost, don't buy.

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I seriously doubt anybody makes a profit selling CP's on here and if you charged the real cost of packing and postage, including time & petrol + the real cost of raising the plants, then nobody could afford to buy them.

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As long as there are no undisclosed charges then what is the problem? On a very low sum of money, Paypal charges are proportionately huge.

The act of selling a plant is not free. I have a lot of spares but have not often have the time to list them, advertise, carry out the email admin with the buyer, package them up, or send them off. There is also the small risk through posting that they do not make it to their destination (or damaged in the post) and the seller has to refund the buyer.

Most of us are in a free market economy; last line of Phil's comment.

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I have a lot of spares but have not often have the time to list them, advertise, carry out the email admin with the buyer, package them up, or send them off.

Exactly, on some occasions i've thrown several feet of vining nepenthes into the compost bin rather than have all the hassle of trying to give it away for nothing or sell it for next to nothing.

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A bugbear of mine,

The extra charges that are put on plants through posting and packaging and the added payment that is asked too be paid because the buyer will put money into your Paypal account.

In most cases you are making for nothing.

The plant is a spare plant.

Extra to need or space.

You are making money through the selling of plant.

We are hobbyists, this is not Ebay.

The point is to distribute plants to as many people as possible.

Cover your costs by all means..

But they are spare plants you are selling.

Before you have sent you have the means to, you are not going out to buy the packaging.

You know your market, an too added fee's and such on is exploiting your fellow hobbyists.

If you think me a hypocrite.

Anybody who has bought from me , will know I practice what I preach

A bugbear of mine.........is people who whinge about how much others ask for plants.........if you don't want to pay, don't buy....simple.

If everyone gave away their plants for free, then the nursaries and importers would quickly go out of business and the availability of rare or new plants would wane further.

Perhaps you could suggest to Rob Cantly, Matthew Soper or Mike King et al that as we are only hobbyists, they should not charge us for plants either?

I personally treat the money I recieve for plants I sell, as a swapping fund, nothing more.

It sure as hell doesn't cover my heating, cooling and maint. bills!..... not even 10% of it!

I'm off to Tesco to ask for some free food 'cause I'm hungry.

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But they are spare plants you are selling.

Before you have sent you have the means to, you are not going out to buy the packaging.

You know your market, an too added fee's and such on is exploiting your fellow hobbyists.

Davy, yes, most of the time they are spare plants in our collections. But the spare plants did not just appear there out of nowhere one morning. We have spent money on R/O water, electricity (heat,light), worked and cared for the plants. Some come from TC and the hormones, media and other things are not cheap either. If I want to sell a high quality plant, it is going to cost me. If someone wants to buy a nice plant, he is going to pay for it. I have to pay for the plants,too you know;-) The money for such sale are going to serve as mean of getting another plant in possession. I dont believe anyone here has bought a yacht or a house on French Riviere out of money coming from selling plants on CPUK;-)

And yes, I am going to buy new packaging everytime, because I want the plant to make it to new owner in one piece and with as little harm as possible.

I dont think anyone is exploiting anybody here. It is so simple, buy it or leave it.

Of course, I have seen posts here where the price didnt seem very reasonable to me, but who am I to judge? Dont know how much money the person invested into buying and propagating the plant. (Unless he bought from you-then I know it was for free;-)))

My point is: money is just an other means of swap here in the hobbyist community for most of the people, so please dont accuse anyone of exploitation. Thank you.

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