The future of SWAPnSELL

[Torsten]

In light of the discussion in another thread about community support (or lack thereof) for events and facilities provided, I wonder what is happening to SwapnSell. It's been aabout 3 weeks, quite a few things have been sold on there and yet today there are just 6 auctions and 5 of them are mine.

I created that site for two reasons.

1) for small traders like gomaos, planthelper, etc to have an easy to use webstore at their disposal, and

2) for everyone else to be able to swap and sell items.

Now, I know that it takes a little while for enough people to sign up to make it exciting and competitive, but like so many things people just sit back and watch where it will go rather than actually become part of where it will go. Well, at the current rate the site will be dead in 2 weeks and you folks would have missed a great opportunity. I'll be kicking myself cos I wasted a few hundred bucks and several days work and certainly will have learnt my lesson about providing a free service for the community.

This is not a whinge, because I kinda expected this. It's just a real pity.

[Tripitaka]

Come on people!!!

Hopefully with Spring there will be more plants available. My germinations are a little behind unfortunately.

I will add some more plants ASAP however.

Personally I will shorten the duration of the auction as I learnt from the last auctions that bidders generally wait until the last few days and more furiously over the last few minutes. Just beat cha Green Ninja!!

[Amulte]

ive taken a few cuttings i waiting to root (that doesnt sound right). when they have roots i should have a few up.

ONLY just hit spring

[apothecary]

Yeah I would hold off the dark thoughts for a little while at least T, wasn't Ed going to be putting a bunch of Eileen up soon?

That'll surely generate a crapload of interest.

Plus, if I even had one dollar left every paycheck after buying ethnos (SAB is the main culprit! ) then maybe I would have some money left over for bids. Serves you right for having such a tantalising catalogue.

[dqd]

Bid what I can, when I can. Will swap/trade when spring's finished helping

Don't give up hope t, early days yet!

[prier]

Yes, I'm waiting for the end of spring to put up so things. I think it'll kick off well over time.

Putting Eileen on there is a great way to generate overseas buyers, maybe we should be offering more aussie plants for everyone else in the world too.

[Dirty Old Man]

I will be putting up stuff too, just not quite ready yet.

[naja naja]

I've put up wat I can for now.

I rekon it will start going great T. Spring has just arrived and plants are getting ready for transport.

[mark80]

I took some cuttings a while ago and are just waiting for the time there big enough to sell. Got about 50+ a. nervosa cuttings.

[sobriquet]

I think that it's true that many won't have much to sell at the beginning of spring but towards summer even I'll have some things worthwhile.

I'd much rather swap / barter things though especially when it comes to plants and I think many in the community would agree with that.

In order for it to take off you'd really have to get buyers in. The small number of sellers aren't going to sustain the site by just buying off each other. Advertise the site heavily on other sites and put it into all the directories no matter how small.

Also consider other types of auction such as Dutch auctions where prices are put at higher levels and then reduced progressively till it finds a buyer.

Finally how about things like long stem poppy pods for flower arranging? Will they be saleable amongst overseas members or to people overseas?

[sobriquet]

Torsten maybe this can be put up for further discussion but why don't you move all plant sales to the swapnsell site by disallowing the offering for sale on the discussion boards.

There is a seed & plant 'exchange' which implies swapping and non financial settlement.

Perhaps it would serve the site better to have financial transactions for all plant sales offered go through the swapnsell site exclusively and allow only swapping and exchange on the boards?

What say you?

[Evil Genius]

Yeah,

it´s pretty sad that the site isn´t frequented very much. I will definately use it in the next time. At the moment i have a pretty difficult time ( once again :-) and i´m not yet prepared to sell seeds or plants through swapnsell but i definately plan to do in the future. It´s very cool that we aren´t dependent on the ebay swamp. I´m absolutely for keeping the site.

What sobriquet wrote makes sense to me. If people want to trade plants for free they could make a figurative price of a few cents on their plants. SwapNSell could substitute the Trades Forum, what would bring some more life in the auction system. But there are some things that just don´t match any category at swapnsell. I don´t think there is a perfect solution for this. But i´m absolutely for keeping the site.

PS: Guys, Please always think twice about international shipment I collect all kind of stuff.

bye EG

[Green Osiris]

Someone want to post some red savina or tezpur chilli seeds and let me know via PM, I'll happily play the avid buyer on Swap n Sell.

[Green Osiris]

Hey Torst, what gives ? I thought ide register on SnS and put some (genuine) bids in to stimulate the site (and quite frankly to exploit the situation that if no-ones using, I'll get some absolute bargains!), but it's a strict pain in the ass for the following reasons:

1. No hyphens can be used in the username

2. a 6 digit numerical PIN isnt accepted (EDIT: unconfirmed, site may be referring to rego PIN)

3. Won't accept @hotmail.com domain extensions.

On that last note, I only have a hotmail acc and a work address, the latter of which Im not keen to receive emails of an ethnobotanical nature. SO Im stuck ! Surely I wouldnt be the only one with these issues....

Edited September 20, 2006 by Green Osiris

[Torsten]

1. No hyphens can be used in the username

Wasn't aware of that. Probably a programming issue. Nothing I can do about that.

2. a 6 digit numerical PIN isnt accepted (EDIT: unconfirmed, site may be referring to rego PIN)

what PIN? I didn't have to use a PIN. Just a password I think. You're not talking about the Touring number (or whatever it is called) are you?

3. Won't accept @hotmail.com domain extensions.

This is hotmails fault. They are blocking all mail from thats erver. If any hotmail suer can convince hotmail to allow mail from that server then I will unblock hotmail. Not much point allowing hotmail signups if you can receive any email from the auction site on that account.

Gmail is now freely available and does not need an invite anymore. It craps all over every other email service.

[Torsten]

Torsten maybe this can be put up for further discussion but why don't you move all plant sales to the swapnsell site by disallowing the offering for sale on the discussion boards.

There is a seed & plant 'exchange' which implies swapping and non financial settlement.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense. For some reason I had always thought in terms of all or nothing, but that sort of division could work well. Somehow I just never thought it would be needed. Keeping track of forum sales and auctions is really tedious, but doing it on swapnsell is only a bit difficult the very first time. Anyone who does a bit of ebaying should have no problems though.

I'd really like to see both the forums xchange and the swap site work out. We'll give it a bit of time. Maybe it won't need any intervention.

May I also recommend for anyone who lists stuff on swapnsell to feel free to post about it in the trade forum. That will get more people becoming aware of the site and what is on offer.

[Rev]

So is there a hurry to use it?

an expiry date?

its good to have it there though

whats been said is true

we are only a small community. saturation is easy enough

of supply and demand

it needs promoting offsite to internationals

i mean ebay is frikkin huge by comparison.

and there i only buy non eb stuff anyway

eg. alpaca jumpers ,wierd pineapple species and relatives,Murakami art, Huichol bead masks, Evangelion Hentai dolls

LOL stuff i doubt any member could supply

seems to me the eb market is too saturated already to rapidly respond like it once did

i think its a good thing in general but not good for swap n sell

Edited September 20, 2006 by Rev

[Torsten]

So is there a hurry to use it?

an expiry date?

its good to have it there though

seems to me the eb market is too saturated already to rapidly respond like it once did

i think its a good thing in general but not good for swap n sell

yes, there is a hurry to use it. A few people put in a lot of effort to create a critical mass where enough people visited to actually make it worthwhile to list stuff. The problem is that once people pop in once or twice and there is virtually nothing there, they tend not to go back, even if after a few weeks the place is pumping. I know that from other experiences and in a way it had already happened with swapnsell.

So, to make it attractive for vendors to list stuff we also must provide a certain number of potential customers. Mind you, quite a lot of items have already been sold there. Some have been real bargains, but if a vendors wants to make sure they don't sell too cheap they can also use the reserve price to protect themselves.

There is a shitload of trading going on on SAB. If we can keep 50% of that on swapnsell I think the site would stay viable. obviously more would be better. I just noticed how complacency was causing a drift back to SAB rather than embracing the new site.

The unique aspect of swapnsell is that it allows vendors to efficiently sell one-offs.

Let's keep the momentum going and that way everyone wins. If there are lots of items and a bit of activity we can also start advertising the site outside the community, but again, without the critical mass it would just be a waste of time and may actually cause more damage than good.

[cisumevil]

I think it will all work out and is a great Idea!

I would be using it but everything I have to offer are in my Dreams

[gomaos]

i also think it's great to have it just give it some time many things don't grow overnight.

I have a lot of stuff I'd like to advertise but I always get sidetracked doing other things...

i.e. have been given a huge khat-cutting (half a tree that's been cut off) and just made a hundred cuttings or so.

Also plenty of rivea to pick still.

and the camping trip weekend coming up...

but after that i'll really get into it...

plus I'm a scatterbrain...

[apothecary]

If gom puts Rivea cuts of various sizes up on SwapnSell you'll definitely see me bidding!

[gomaos]

...plus I also got given half a 44 drum gallon full of hbwr cuttings...

the neighbour pruned his woodrose...

i actually don't know if that's a good idea...

but then why not?

hmm... different size rivea cuttings? good idea...

shan't take long...

[Rev]

ill second the move to streamline trade forum into swap n sell

that does sound the best option to take

choice is often an encumberance

[gomaos]

thirded.

if there is such a thing...

[SaBReT00tH]

just wondering where do we send the items to????? In ebay when you've sold an item to someone their name/address comes up, but I haven't been able to find anything like this in the sales process of swap N sell???