Secrets To Growing Cactus And Succulents: November 2019 Cactus Update: Parcel Full Of Echinopsis Variegata Babies

Buying Cactus Online

Another Echinopsis Variegata Bought This Week

Today topic is about buying cactus online, may sound like an old news but my countrymen are badly struggling with cactus sale lol.

Long story short, people still mentally restricted to buying cactus locally or though nursery walk-in and distrust online sale especially international sale platform.

How did this happened?

I'm not a specialist in market studies and economic analysis but it is kind of obviously part of these reasons:

1. Insufficient knowledge on setting up account and buying online using Paypall and Western Union, the two methods are the most common in Asia at least.

2. Felt that foreigners very likely to scam, we all have been there where our Yahoo mail was spammed with scam investment email right? But that was 10-15 years ago.

3. Language barriers are obstructing any communication with outside world. Heck, even English proficient buyers are still scared to try eBay too. Cuz even eBay have German or Dutch seller who cant write in English.

4. Law requirements in export also hinder them from buying outside. Sad truth is, many countries come with lazy import customs and small cactus parcel get through easily, especially my country. So whats the big deal.

5. Price can be another reason too, depending on what you are looking for; it might be out of range. But if you look enough, eBay and Amazin offer cheaper options shipping included compared to local sellers.

6. Fail to win a bid. Failing too much made some of them reluctant especially when you lose right on the very last second.

7. Last reason I could think off is bad past experience. It is same whether you buy through eBay, Amazon, Lazada or Facebook, getting scammed obviously going to leave a bad aftertaste.

Is it ok to buy cactus online through eBay, Amazon, Shopee and etc?

If you ask me, everything is ok as long as you put some effort reading sellers term and condition, check seller's customer feedback and only buy through proper platforms. I always go with eBay due to their larger cactus selection.

Bidding is very common and I only put what it really worth to me, dont succumb to the temptation of winning too much. There are always another cactus for sale later on.

Same with all other platform, if you are new then do 'Acid Test' by buying cheap things first. You should do the same to test your import custom too lol.

But beware, international trade usually takes from 2 weeks to 5 weeks to get the parcel from payment date. This is no where as fast as buying from your Facebook seller that live 100km from your backyard. Having said so, cactus could withstand 6 weeks with no problems unless it was already half toasted or sickly rotting.

How come my cactus bought from Taiwan and China rot in shipment or 1 weeks after repotting?

Now that is a crappy luck to be honest.

My oppinion is that you or your sellers might be buying a big ass number of cactus through proper channel and the parcel is sent by sea channel instead of air freight. Take longer trip than what you really need to, and the cactus inside will get 'toasted'.

If you bought from someone who get mass shipment from China or Taiwan (yes, they are closer to us than Poland but I get my stuff under 4 weeks lol), they usually sort out healthy and rot cactus. The healthy one might in the risk of delayed rot issues due to overexhaustion from long journey.

Now, no wonder people are scared of buying online.

My advice, buy it your self in small number unless you are a trader. You get better price and they are healthy. If you are a trader, smuggle from Thailand at your own risk.

I thought the cactus bought this time was with healthy root, sadly it doesn't has any root but weirdly cut off a different stump.

This is the case of buying grafted cactus. Not everyone equip themselves with knowledge about agriculture, heck even agronomist doesnt learn about cactus because it wasn't in the main stream.

Grafted cactus grow faster because it was grown using a fast growing cactus as a rootstock. Thus they are cheap. Some seller sell degrafted cactus and other will reroot them first. Some classical grower sell own root cactus, but they are expensive and not as tolerant as grafted one.

My advice is to buy grafted cactus with rootstock if you can. If you know how to take care of them, buy degrafted unrooted one. I always buy degrafted cactus and know well of the risk. If you can't think much, buy cactus with roots

Back to Echinopsis variegata that I just receive, is it healthy? How much is it? Where do I get it from?

Simple answer is I bought that Echinopsis (tons of them lol) online through eBay from a Thailand grower for RM40-50 Including shipping and arrived in 3 weeks.