It makes me a little nervous when I win something at an unusually low price on the LA. The last two times it happened, the sellers "mysteriously" couldn't fill the order due to problems beyond their control. Weirdly, one of them was auctioning the same plant a couple of months later, but at a much higher starting bid.
MrKGDickie said:What does a buyer do if that happens? I've only dealt with three sellers thus far (I'm pooling shipping expenses on my bids). So far, so good.
You get a refund or a substitute plant, whatever you can work out with the seller, but that doesn't mean the principles of the auction system were upheld.
An auction is a sales format which systematically preys on the greed and competitiveness of buyers. No auction ever closes below the asking price set by the seller, but almost every one closes at a higher price, some are driven to astronomical levels. The unscrupulous seller is not satisfied with this inherent imbalance, and will take every opportunity to work the system to their best advantage.
When the occasional "low auction closing price" occurs, a person of character would ship the plant to the buyer, accept that things like this happen, and perhaps modify their auction strategy and parameters to minimize it.
The unscrupulous seller can pull the "crop failure" card, offering a refund, or some substitute plant "worth more". In reality, it may be "worth more" than what you paid, but it's never "worth more" than the plant you won.
I may be alone in this, but paying for things months in advance and only being able to hope for delivery of high quality product is NOT my modus operandi outside of LA.
It makes me uneasy too, particularly in the case of blooming plants, which, a year after purchase, may turn out to be mislabeled. Things get hazy with the passage of time, introducing factors such as mishandling by the buyer into the situation. A few years ago I received a mislabeled plant, and by the time it bloomed, the seller was no longer in the Lily Auction system.
I have a situation right now which will be more like 20 months from auction close before I will see blooms, thanks to a seller who took 9 months to deliver a mere slip of a plant measuring 5/16" at the leaf base. A couple of months after I received my plant, the seller put another one up for $100 starting bid. It's pretty obvious what the seller was doing.
Other than those two instances, (and one crop failure situation) I've been more than pleased with the many purchases I've made from the Lily auction.
