FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Anyone ever bought or sold off of eBay? Anything I should know?

There are a few sellers on eBay but I’d advise not to bother. You can get plants much cheaper and often at a better selection on official websites.

Only bought once personally, and I'm assuming that's primarily what you're asking about here, so I'll say it can be perfectly safe depending on the seller. Dean Cook and Rainbow Carnivorous Plants both have eBay stores in addition to their websites, but there are also some other solid vendors like CCCP and The Heli Drop who deal primarily through eBay. Outside of that I'd just check seller ratings carefully, see if I can dig up anything on the seller on here, reddit, or the FB groups, and personally I would use Paypal with a credit card for a couple more layers of purchase protection - though that may not be feasible for everyone. Never sold on eBay but if I end up with a greenhouse soon like I'm hoping then I may need to look into it.

MaxVft wrote:There are a few sellers on eBay but I’d advise not to bother. You can get plants much cheaper and often at a better selection on official websites.

Sort of agree, RCP is a good example of this. OTOH, you can get some amazing deals if you know where to look. The Heli Drop is absolutely incredible for helis and the closest in pricing to Wistuba I've ever seen in the US, and Cook's does huge weekly auctions where you have a pretty good chance of finding discounts.

NightRaider wrote: ↑Thu Sep 15, 2022 1:14 am Cook's does huge weekly auctions where you have a pretty good chance of finding discounts.

I’ve Bought from cooks and I’d also advise against that. The plants and customer service are absolutely horrible and the prices are also definitely too good to be true. You can read more about my experience here: https://flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/cook-cp- ... 52399.html

MaxVft wrote: ↑Thu Sep 15, 2022 1:18 amI’ve Bought from cooks and I’d also advise against that. The plants and customer service are absolutely horrible and the prices are also definitely too good to be true. You can read more about my experience here: https://flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/cook-cp- ... 52399.html

Yeah I'm definitely not shilling for them, but I have ordered from him at least twice in the past and been plenty happy with what I got. I know some people have had issues with him before and I'm not discounting yours or their experiences, but personally iirc the only issue I had was an order going out a week or so later than expected (which I was able to contact him over easily enough) so I'd lean more toward a "proceed with caution" than a flat "avoid". In short, not the best seller I've ordered from but still far from the worst.

I've purchased a fair number of carnivorous plants off eBay, and I haven't had any bad experiences with the sellers (unfortunately, I can't say the same with the Post Office's handling of the boxes...). Here are some sellers that I like:

beautiflorist
buffalochicken1299
clh8880 (note: located in Hawaii)
flytraps (Cook's Carnivorous Plants)
jeremiahscps
sam1greentmb (hasn't sold much this year)
sjuan_cps
sprouse2006
talberttom
the6stringedty89

I've had no issues with Cook's.

I will add to Mike B's list of sellers that I have purchased from on Ebay.

zsyxcbibi6 - good source of fresh vft seeds.
buffalochicken1299 - decent plant selection
joelscarnivorousplants - decent plants + freebies
ac.hy-69 - has some nice vft divisions
CCCP - Craig is great source for tissue cultures & 6 cell tray lots
flesheatingplants - has a few vft's

I've been selling on ebay for years with no problems. You can make money if you can jump on a trend.