new bonsai auction site

A few of us from bonsai nut, bonsai study group, IBC and other forums decided to make a better auction page than what Ebay and Bonsai Classifieds offer to sell higher end trees and pots than you find on most sites. We have two sites Bonsai Auctions and Bonsai Sales. Bonsai Sales is for straight sales, Bonsai Auctions is a weekly auction site using the bidding format most liked in japan. I know Facebook is inconvenient to many of you but this is a closed site, only members of the site can see your posts.

Bonsai Auctions https://www.facebook.com/groups/bonsai.auctions/ our goal is to run higher quality auctions than those currently online, mallsai and other mass produced trees won't be offered ( The first auction for the site starts on 9/30/14 this coming tuesday at 6PM and ends saturday night) we'll have trees collected by Randy Knight and Backcountry bonsai, and several styled by Matt Reel, as well items sold by Owen Reich and several other world class and up and coming potters and professionals. We'd love to have you all join us.

Bonsai Sales https://www.facebook.com/groups/bonsai.sales/ a weekly site for selling and buying on Facebook.


Not sure if this should be in the sales section since I'm not directly selling anything, admins feel free to move this.

If anyone has any questions about it feel free to fire away. There should be some great trees listed this week! Not your run of the mill stuff.

Ben

more shit tied to fakebook and only available via fakebook

everyone line up and drink the suckerberg kool-aid...

(sorry, but fakebook is not just "inconvenient" for some, it is downright nefarious to some of us )

beer city snake wrote:more shit tied to fakebook and only available via fakebook

Yet a worthy initiative..?
Not everyone has the skills or means to put a auction site online, and using facebook is an easy way to get things online, users registered and pictures posted. I say Thumbs up for the new service.

beer city snake wrote:more shit tied to fakebook and only available via fakebook

everyone line up and drink the suckerberg kool-aid...  

(sorry, but fakebook is not just "inconvenient" for some, it is downright nefarious to some of us )

sorry you feel like that no one is forcing you to join. i guess you must like ebay and the fees associated with selling and we have a higher standard for items that will be sold in this group

actually i do buy and sell on ebay and the fees are pretty minimal...
and i'd rather pay a small fee than join the suckerburg army...

but i'm only voicing my opinion and no-one is forcing anyone to listen to it nor join in

well you have a nice day sir

dre wrote:well you have a nice day sir

well thank you very much !
i believe i shall !

Will you still be selling on the other fb auction group, or are you moving completely to your own new group? Just curious.

I'm not Kevin, but we are in the same evil gang and so we fly the same avatar.

I joined both, since the first auctions on the new site are only starting this week I have yet to see if there is a difference. Personally I don't see anything that was wrong with the older site, it is a decent effort. Perhaps the new site was started simply because the scroll down the list format of the older site was felt to be too long when there are a lot of listings. So as a buyer occasionally of stuff, the more sites the merrier. As far as higher end bonsai trees and pots, I would say the new site will have the same problems with infrequent sales of the higher end items, and that is because most of us just don't have the cash laying around for more than one or two high end purchases a year, or less frequently if life expenses get in the way.

I blew my budget for the year back in April. Right now if it isn't almost free, I don't buy. But I have my piggy bank filling for next year's purchase. As it is my orchid collection alone is worth more than my car, (its a 2011). So its not that I don't spend, I just can't spend big very often. I imagine more are in my situation than in the situation where dropping big bucks can happen every month.

But I hope both site will be able to flourish.

I do understand sellers wanting to avoid the fees of eBay. Especially when the price tag gets into the upper hundreds or more, the fee becomes substantial. I rarely sell on eBay because my price stuff won't sell if I mark it up enough to cover the fees, my margins are tight, and my high end stuff tends to sell by word of mouth at the price I wanted anyway. So I seldom use eBay as a seller.

Running a auction site with low or no fees is a labor of love, I truly appreciate those that are willing to do this and thank them for it.

Leo Schordje wrote: As far as higher end bonsai trees and pots, I would say the new site will have the same problems with infrequent sales of the higher end items, and that is because most of us just don't have the cash laying around for more than one or two high end purchases a year, or less frequently if life expenses get in the way.

The other issue with higher end trees is that many of us would rather buy stuff like that only after seeing it in person. It's one thing to spend $50 and get something that needs a lot of work, another entirely to plunk down $500 or more (saw a tree on one of these auction sites for $2700 I think) based only on photos. Now, I'm not claiming that sellers are misrepresenting trees or anything like that, it's just that photos only tell you so much about a tree.

Basically, I guess I'm saying that you'd have to give me an incentive to purchase a more expensive tree on line, i.e. a decent discount compared to what I might pay in person. I don't know if most sellers are willing to do that (based on some of the prices I've seen, apparently not). Maybe those who are more advanced in bonsai would feel more comfortable making a big $ purchase based on photos, but I bet many of us are not.

The other issue, regarding facebook - to each his own. I resisted joining for a number of years but have found the benefits of membership far outweigh any drawbacks. If that changes I will reevaluate. Those of you who are staying off it for whatever reason, well, that just means less competition in the auctions for the rest of us!

.

The other issue, regarding facebook - to each his own. I resisted joining for a number of years but have found the benefits of membership far outweigh any drawbacks. If that changes I will reevaluate. Those of you who are staying off it for whatever reason, well, that just means less competition in the auctions for the rest of us![/quote]

People love to hate FB but what gave me pause is Wayne Schoech of Bonsai Today and bonsaibark.com fame telling me that he gets most of his material from FB. So I looked around and saw that many world class bonsai artists have FB opening to a photo album with no personal data. Basically a display of their work. A lazy blog if you will. So I talked with a computer scientist friend and he gave me some pointers on how to make FB do what I wanted and avoid the frustrating aspects. So far it works for me.

Bruce Winter wrote:So I talked with a computer scientist friend and he gave me some pointers on how to make FB do what I wanted and avoid the frustrating aspects. So far it works for me.

i'm all ears if you dont mind sharing !!!

the main reason i hate fakebook is that a LARGE portion of our society prefers to filter their entire life through it, for some exclusively...

why???

because it is easy and people in general are getting lazier and lazier as "the machines" are doing more and more of their work and thinking for them... (hell, my college graduate daughter is terrible at spelling and math because they dont stress that in school because "the machines" do it for them )

my other reason is the amount of personal data being mined, which i understand can't be mined unless its provided, but most people stupidly do provide it...

and dont even get me started on "friends"
a friend is someone you can hug, shake their hand, look in the eye or pat on the back.

i did have an account for about a day and it was so intrusive that i immediately wanted out
but cancelling your account was whole 'nother kettle of fish  

sorry... i know this thread isnt about fakebook, but about bonsai auction and sales...
so, to get back on topic - i too would never drop BIG $$$ on a tree based on photos

and bruce - i seriously would like to see some of those pointers as our little collective has debated getting a page

I wouldn't mind seeing those tips as well. I haven't had any problems with facebook. I created a separate "dummy" email address at yahoo to register, so my regular email can't get corrupted. I haven't had any issues with spam, password theft, etc. I don't post stuff that I consider "too personal", won't tell people that I'm about to go away for 2 weeks (so come steal from me), don't post photos that have location information embedded, etc.

For people who are so worried about their "info" getting out there - just do a web search on your name and you'll find out that most of your information is probably already available. I've done that for people I know who aren't on social media sites and in most cases, can easily find their address (and past addresses), ages, phone numbers, names of parents/spouses/children...and for only a small fee I can find their arrest records and other more personal information. It's kind of scary, but what more can facebook put out there? Besides, you can always register under a pseudonym.

beer city snake wrote:
because it is easy and people in general are getting lazier and lazier as "the machines" are doing more and more of their work and thinking for them... (hell, my college graduate daughter is terrible at spelling and math because they dont stress that in school because "the machines" do it for them )

This is all true. My wife is a college professor and over the past 10-15 years she and her colleagues have noted some disturbing trends in the students which are most likely related, in part, to the availability of social media such as facebook, twitter, texting, etc. But you know what, that's the direction society is going and it's not something you can control or even avoid by staying off facebook. The same trends are visible on the bonsai forums, where many people are too lazy to even do basic research before coming on and asking how to take care of their new tree. So why fight it? May as well join facebook and take advantage of the benefits.

thought id pass it along we are doing a give away as well in the auction this week winner will be willing a new nick lenz accent pot. hard to come buy come join the fun

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bonsai.auctions/

here are a few screenshots of items up for auction now come join the action

The IBC is not in the business of promoting other sites, ad infinatum. You all have the web address of this auction site. Anyone who is interested can take a look.