Ebay seller: sjos_2015
 

Hey there everyone,
I'm eyeing a new orchid from an ebay vendor (sjos_2015) but I have not purchased from this person before. Does anyone have any experience with this seller, and if so how was it? Recent feedback on this seller through eBay seems good, but you never know...

The seller has a 93.4% Positive feedback, which is not good. I would be very leary.

Yes, that is an incredibly bad feedback rating. The seller has relatively low total feedback count and only a couple years on eBay, so a few bad transactions from a rough start can loom large. But the feedback system is rigged in such a way that anything below 98% is meaningful.

If there is something you particularly want see if they respond promptly and well to a question. If they do, give them a try but with only a single item to start.

The negative ratings seemed due to not sending the plant shown in the photo or sending the wrong plant or shipments that supposedly never arrived. People who ordered more than one plant left negative ratings on each plant to increase the number of negative reviews.

I just read through the seller's negatives, seven of which came in the past six months. It's not easy to leave a negative feedback, as eBay makes a buyer jump through hoops to do so. I suspect some buyers don't bother leaving feedback because it's such a pain to leave a negative. But it's what's said in the negatives I would worry about - this seller sounds like bad news!!

I'm not familiar with eBay at all, nor the process for posting reviews. When I tried to read it a few years back it seemed opaque and convoluted, which is one of the reasons I don't trust eBay. I've been surprised that people I know won't do business with people who don't have a 100% postive rating. Anybody who has worked retail knows there are lots of customers who would be unhappy if you filled their living room with gold bars for free.

If it's really hard to leave negative ratings maybe that is a partial explanation.

From my short experience buying orchids I've had some real hard luck with e-Bay vending. Inclusive of one leaf, stunted & scale infested plants.

I have had a much more rewarding time with the private nursery sellers steered to me by some of the members here.

It's a lot more than that, actually, and a good part of it comes from the fact that eBay doesn't want negative postings. I've seen situations where the seller clearly ripped the customer off but eBay put up so many hoops to stop a negative feedback that nothing happened. The eBay corporate policy is to protect the seller, who, after all, pays the bills. Ebay doesn't care if the buyer's OR seller's living room is filled with gold so long as theirs is, and the best way to keep the gold flowing in is to make sure that the sellers keep selling.

That said, there are some excellent people selling on eBay. Two of whom I'd name are John Nelson of Louisiana Orchid Exchange and Peter Lin of Big Leaf Orchids. Both are honest, sell healthy plants, and seem to put the satisfaction of their customers above their personal desire to make a buck. I buy from both regularly, though there are few eBay sellers other than them whom I trust.

As a slight aside, on Amazon you can buy from Andy's, and occasionally there's a plant he has on Amazon that's not on his site; when he gets to about 15 plants left he takes the listing from his site.

Andy's is really great...I took part in his recent bare root sale and everything was very healthy. :)

With all the disappointed stories on the internet about Ebay plants, I would be very careful. First look for the orchid from excellent vendors like J&L, Andy's, Exotic Orchids of Maui, Hausermann's, Al's Orchid Greenhouse, etc. and make certain that they do not have it. I have noticed that when googling for an orchid, sometimes these vendors do not appear in the search results. With Hausermann's, looking through the species list can be very interesting. Then, there is Ecuagerna. You can look up their shows to see when they will be in the country and order orchids to be mailed to your home when they arrive for a show.

There are MANY excellent sellers on eBay too. Most the orchids I have purchased in the last 15 years have been from eBay. It is one stop shopping with more variety than any one (or 10) seller(s) could match, and I can set alerts to let me know when something rare or unusual I want gets listed. Many are small growers, hobbyists really, who sell only a few extra specialty plants from their own collections - extra seedlings from a flask or extra divisions, etc. - that you just will never find in a normal commercial setting.

Looking at the feedback comments for this vendor I see some of the typical complaints of eBay buyers who did not read or understand aspects of the listing. Many sellers have that problem early on until they learn to be painfully precise on those points. Almost half the total comments are accounted for by people who bought multiple plants (even on multiple occasions) and may have left negative feedback on multiple purchases because the were unhappy about 1 thing. Some appear to be the kind of customer who just can't be pleased once they go off, no matter how the seller may try to address the problem. On the whole they are not the kinds of comments that would automatically send me running.

As I suggested before, if this seller had something I really wanted I would first see if they responded well to a question. A prompt, polite, non-evasive answer to a question is a good predictor of how they will respond if there is a problem that needs to be worked out later. Then I would make a cautious purchase if their response was passed the smell test.