On Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:04:19 +0000, BobWalsh
wrote:

After locating cuttings, plants or seedlings one likes, the buyer should
take a look at the *vendor's positive feedback* which is shown as a
percentage. It should be *close to or at 100%*.

So, something's wonky if it's 110% ?

Directly below the positive feedback is the *feedback score* which is
the number of actual positive responses the vendor has received from
buyers.

JFTR, virtually all eBay transactions involving "power sellers" and
anyone else with multiple hundreds of transactions or more have the
seller witholding feedback until the BUYER has provided feedback. I
call this "hostage feedback" - it's the seller's way of ensuring that
they'll get positive feedback from buyers who may be disappointed with
the transaction, but would also just as soon NOT get a negative on
their own record (as a neg for some buyer with a few score
transactions will have a greater percentage impact than a neg on
someone with hundreds or thousands of transactions).

The entire eBay feedback mechanism really is a bad joke. eBay will
almost always side with vendors (as they're the ones generating the
sales - the buyers may be paying for it, but if nobody was selling,
there'd be nothing to buy). eBay will also nix one participants
feedback - the neg, the comment, and the affect on the feedback
percentage - while leaving the other in place (versus nixxing the
record of the entire feedback exchange, or say, publising that "x"
feedbacks have been redacted, which would at least tell prospective
buyers that there have been a lot of bad exchanges that have been
wiped, while not sharing the details of them).

When some shady sellers get enough negative feedback, they simply
create a new account and proceed to do business under that with a
clean slate. Sort of like somehow walking away from a bad credit
history, except that the way eBay does things makes it really easy for
the bad sellers to do this and stay in business.

This number reflects the number of products sold to customers
who provided positive feedback per items purchased.

No offence, but a lot of your article sounds like "the idiot's guide
to eBay". It applies to ANY transaction on eBay, and even a bunch of
your commentary on plants does as well (photoshopped images and
shipping issues for instance).

UNFORTUNATELY, SOME VENDORS FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA HAVE GIVEN A BAD
REPUTATION TO THE REGION IN GENERAL AS THEY WERE SELLING POOR QUALITY
PLUMERIAS TO EBAY CUSTOMERS. BUT THIS SHOULD NOT KEEP ONE FROM
PURCHASING FROM VENDORS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA AS LONG AS THEY SHOW A
POSITIVE FEEDBACK CLOSE TO OR AT 100%.

I haven't purchased plants on eBay - seems silly since those of us in
the USA could very well run afoul of US Agriculture Department and
Customs regulations, and the seller isn't going to credit you when
your shipment is destroyed on arrival in the US.

Unrelated to plants, but Customs intercepted a shipment products which
were counterfeits of stuff the company I worked for at the time made.
I did some comparisons for them, but still remain astounded that
they'd have even known that the product wasn't a legit shipment - you
inspect a crate from somewhere, how do you know they're not
legitimately behing shipped from abroad? Anyway - TSA are bumbling
fools, but I've got some respect for Customs Inspectors.

Only buy if you're able to see a [b]picture* of what is being offered to
the buyer.

Caveat: many outfits selling things use stock images. This is
especially true when it's not an individual item (say, some collector
item, etc).

Showing a *tennis ball* or *shoe* next to the plant offered gives the
buyer a clearer perspective to the actual size of the plant he or she is
thinking about buying.

This advice seems geared towards sellers. Why not say, "if size
matters, look for auctions providing a scale reference in the photos -
such as a ruler, or common object of known size." IMO, a shoe would
be a poor scale reference, esp as Asians tend to be much more slight
of build than Westerners, so their shoes would be substantially
smaller, and therefore, the plant would appear to be larger. Asia,
US, and Europe all use different systems for shoe (and clothing)
sizes, so "size 11" (or whatever) won't translate consistently either.
If the seller has a clue, they should be using a ruler.

One has to be leery of purchases that offer *free phytosanitary
inspection certificates* and *free shipping* from *overseas*.

I can't speak towards shipping costs for plant material, but I've
ordered specific electronic devices from Sinapore and Hong Kong over
the years (hey, if the stuff is manufactured there, why suffer the
markup of buying it from a domestic vendor?), and often the shipping
is rolled into the item cost (which is a bit surprising, since the
seller would be paying eBay a smaller cut if they didn't), or is like
US$1 (even on a sizeable order). Chief issue with Asian origin stuff
is how long it takes to arrive, and the inability to track the
shipment because it's not coming via a common parcel carrier with
tracking services.

Phytosanitary certificates may be worthless if the customs agency
doesn't recognize the authority of the issuing inspection agency (that
technically merely being the plant seller). If there's reason to not
allow soil or plants in from a specific region, the certificate will
be meaningless.

Some foreign vendors include a *disclaimer notice* on their Ebay page
stating that they are not responsible for any cuttings or plants
confiscated by Customs agents.

What a surprise.

Note that even BETWEEN STATES in the USA, there can be Agriculture
department issues, particularly in states where Agriculture is a big
business. California for instance can get really picky, but adjoining
Nevada quite probably doesn't care.

The buyer may come to the belief that the flowers of the seedling will
look the same as the mother plant. This is not the case. *One unique
characteristic of plumeria seedlings is that they never grow and develop
to look exactly the same as the mother plant.*

Assuming that they've been propogated from seed. What about rooted
cuttings? Anyone who needs to be told about eBay feedback, etc,
probably would easily categorize a small start as a "seedling" even if
it was a propogated cutting.