Dahlia Mania

BarryO · 2024-01-14T19:02:54+00:00

Cosey It is indeed a broken system. If you know your inventory will sell out online in an hour or two, should you feed the frenzy by repeatedly announcing...

Juliarugula

blown_dry And I mentioned the supplier that experimented with pricing some varieties at "low" prices and didn't get many takers.

I seem to recall that there’s a known phenomenon where a too-low priced product won’t sell whereas the same product at a higher price point will. Oddly enough, I catch myself falling for this type of thinking sometimes when I’m antique shopping. I’ll see something that catches my eye, and then decide against it when I see how low it’s priced…. It’s weird. I can even be aware I’m doing it and it still happens.

blown_dry

Juliarugula The psychology of it all is fascinating. I've been doing dahlias long enough to see former 'it' dahlias that no one has an interest in anymore yet they haven't gotten any less pretty. I read an interesting article about Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. As a brand its popularity was on a long decline. In the US they began marketing to young people as a brand to consume "ironically" and found new success as a cheap beer so uncool that it was cool. In China, they played off the blue ribbon branding and marketed as a US premium product, pricing it extravagantly with good success.

bloomhjelm

I wish there were a few more instruments readily available to sellers and buyers.

One would be a way for hobbyists to more effectively market and track their inventory to facilitate trading and 1.1 sales. I see a lot of this done through Facebook and Craigslist when those cause topics to get pushed down and lost. It would be great to have a well-adopted trading board centered around a personal inventory manager, the same as any trading card or wine or comic book collector has.

I wish online shopping platforms which small sellers use like Square and Shopify made it simple to set up randomized draws to select committed buyers. Some people will always go home empty-handed, but that would give people without web alerts and extensions a chance to purchase the rarities. I don't love auctions unless they are for non-profits. I think mystery sales are more frustrating and customer-limiting than effective. Subscriber and early access sales just cause me to receive 150 different email subscriptions. 🙂

Cosey

blown_dry

Bulk= wholesale? While there are customers on the farming side that look for those 80% of my customers buy less than three tubers. (I know I'm not an inexpensive option, but given the sales this year I'm not the most expensive either 😂). I was thinking on the value tubers the casual buyer is looking for.

Can anyone comment on what the in person dahlia society sales have been like across the country? What prices are they asking for? Has the demand gone up? Do they sell out? I routinely suggest finding those sales to people. That's how I got started. When I started my business I approached a local society and purchased their remaining stock after their sale.

Juliarugula

Cosey

Our dahlia society (Elkhart Dahlia Society in Indiana) has a great in person sale. Tubers are $5, plants (cuttings or potted tubers) are $8. There’s definitely an intense focus on the part of a few buyers, but it’s still friendly and there are plenty of tubers to go around. We certainly don’t sell out - I’m not sure what happens to the excess at the end! Last year, there were even leftovers of some pretty sought-after varieties.

Definitely my all time favorite dahlia shopping experience.

blown_dry

Cosey Bulk= wholesale?

I mean the 3 and 5 tuber lots of good tuber producers that are very affordable per tuber.

MIDahlias

Cosey
I'm on Michigan. Home to three societies under the Midwest Conference and ADS, as well as Dahlia Hill. All four sell tuber for $5 each. Cuttings are more. I only know the numbers for one society. People do line up before we open. We sold around 800 on three hours last year.

One of the other society's tends to have KA and Coseytown's cuttings for $15 (I think, I went in 2022) there were a lot of one variety and I picked one off the table. A man told me he was buying them all. I was told usually a couple of people get there early to buy all the high end cuttings. True or False? I don't know.

I love society sales.

BarryO

Juliarugula
Our dahlia society on Long Island NY charges $5 per tuber and 3 for $5 if the tubers are unidentified.

Teddahlia

The Portland Dahlia Society private sale for members charges a version of market price for tubers and pot tubers. A $20- tuber may cost you $10-S12-. And remember there are no shipping costs and you know it is a good pot tuber or tuber as you can inspect it. And for the really rare or expensive tubers or pot tubers, there is an auction. The club makes killing on them and remember, you do not have to bid. I would not donate a
new introduction to the club unless I knew it was going to be sold via an auction. The club needs to pay for it's expenses and our show has no entry fees and free admission and costs something like $5,000- to put on.

drewtheflorist

If you want to get to a million dollars in the dahlia business, you better start with 2 million ....

blown_dry

drewtheflorist If you want to make a small fortune in the dahlia business, better start with a large one. 😂

WanderingDahlias

I’m curious on limiting varieties at sales. I certainly understand the reasoning on only having a limited amount and wanting to spread them around so more people can get one. Could it also be if someone comes in and buys all the highly desired varieties at once, there’s not a lot of motivation for other sellers to buy your more common ones? But if they can buy a KA, they’re more likely to spend on others at the same time to take advantage of shipping? Although that concept is out the window when things sell out in seconds. I bought KA’s Coral Sea this morning, and I didn’t waste time browsing. One and done.

Honnat

Would love to hear some thoughts on this from people here. I know Leann is part of this group and hope that any criticism will be done in a spirit of mutual respect as I know other corners of the internet are really raising their pitchforks.

https://coseytownflowers.com/pages/letter-from-leeann?syclid=cnger9j7v77s739591p0&utm_campaign=emailmarketing_159129501859&utm_medium=email&utm_source=shopify_email

blown_dry

Honnat Glad you brought it up. Since Leeann is a part of our community in this internet spot, I think the discussion should be initiated by her or in private discussions (people can invite multiple users to a private discussion, it's not only a sort of DM to one other user. I should also note that I can't [easily] see the contents even tho I am an admin and don't try. This is not because I don't think we could be respectful because I know you all are, or because I don't care about your thoughts because I do, I just don't think this the right forum. But I'm sure statements of support are welcome if you wanted to start a thread for that.

SteveM

Honnat If LeeAnn also participates, I would like to be added to any private discussion thread on the subject.

Krista

Honnat I would like to be added as well. I’ve much appreciated Leeann‘s thoughtful voice in this forum and would like more insight into this shift.

JessieC

blown_dry If there is a discussion of this, may I be added please?

Juliarugula

I too would like to be included if LeeAnn chooses. (If not, no big deal). I’d really like to hear her reasoning as I’ve appreciated her careful thoughts on the business side of things in the past. Certainly I’ve only heard one side of the equation today.

« Previous Page