Transcript:
Hi, guys, welcome back to my channel if you are new here. I am Jess and today. We are going to be talking about succulent scams. This is something that I see an awful lot of. And so I’m hoping that we can kind of talk today. And you guys can be kind of prepared for what’s out there. I’m sorry if you can see my light in the reflection of my glasses, It’s really dark out right now when I’m filming, so I gotta have my light on first off, though. I have my Sipsey box Four sips five. I don’t know whatever for December. I have a hot cup of tea and this one. I’ve been really looking forward to. I want to try. I think this one that’s what we’ll drink today. I get four different teas with my subscription. I will include a link down below. If you guys are interested, hmm? Smells good. I like black tea, so I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Feel free to pause the video and go make yourself some because this is probably going to be a much longer video than normal. And there’s gonna be a lot of information in here. So kind of why. I want to talk about this is because again. I’ve seen more and more scams on line of people like thousands of people purchasing seed packets that I look at the photos of what they’re selling and I’m like well that those are fake and a lot of times people will get weeds as the seeds are like seed weed seeds, and you won’t know the difference because seeds kind of look like seeds, and if you’ve never seen a succulent seed, you’re not gonna know what to look for even if you have seen a succulent seed, they’re all different, so it’s not like you can kind of tell like it’s not like sunflowers where a sunflower seed looks like a sunflower seed. Its succulents, these are very small and they look like dust, and it’s very hard to find or to tell when they arrive and so a lot of people I think can get away with this and they’re very hard to grow. And so if you don’t have any germinate, you might just chalk it up to yourself as not being a or as being a failure at growing these seeds when in reality, maybe they didn’t sell you the correct speed. However, if they don’t grow, it could also be your own fault, so I’m saying it kind of goes both ways, but I do see a lot of scams and I’m kind of going to go over them today and kind of show you what to look for. I guess, so that’s kind of the basis of this video. That’s kind of why I wanted to do this. The places that are kind of common that I would. Have you guys kind of watch for is if you’re buying off of Etsy or eBay or wish calm? I personally wouldn’t buy off of wish for a succulent seeds. Facebook has some groups that sell stuff stuff like that unless it’s an actual nursery that is selling from their store. Chances are you might fall. Find some scams and so. I kind of want to go over those today because there are actual sellers that sell real, succulent seeds on all of those platforms. You just have to be careful of which ones to trust, and I’ll kind of go over each of those topics a little bit with you so just as a disclaimer. This is all of my personal opinion. I’m not trying to discourage you to buy from certain people. I’m not trying to push other sellers on you. This is more of a tool that you hopefully can use anytime you go shopping for succulents or succulent seeds. Most of these tips are going to be more specific to succulent seeds today, but I’m not sponsored by any company or anything and just because a store Does it a different way than what I say is kind of the right way. Today doesn’t mean that they’re not a reputable seller and just because they have it. Be a scammy way. Yeah, it kind of goes both ways, just because they look good doesn’t mean they are and just because they look bad doesn’t mean they are so obviously take what? I say with a grain of salt because really, it can go either way. This is just how I feel comfortable buying my products, and so hopefully you can kind of go off of that because I feel like a lot of people. Just see something they want and buy it, and they don’t give two thoughts about if it’s actually going to be a real product because I think a lot of people just think it will be, and I’ve seen a lot of people get scammed by this, so I’m just trying to help you and save you some money. And have you put your money towards real plants? That are going to give you result. If you find this video helpful, please give it a big like button. It really supports my channel, and if you haven’t already go subscribe down below, so you don’t miss any other videos? Alright, so the very first thing we’re going to talk about. Is the photos so on any of these sellers? I’ll show you some examples in a minute, but on any of these sellers, what you were really going to be looking for is the photos you want to see on one product. Say you’re buying an F of Area seed of some sort. What I like to see is their personal echeveria with different angles of the same plant. So you can kind of what I guess what you’re trying to avoid is the stock photo image of that plant and I personally like it when the sellers post their own photos of the plant, Because then I know that’s something they own. They were able to take multiple photos of it and it kind of just tells me that they were real. Alright, so let’s look at micro landscape design, this is on. Etsy. I just searched succulent seeds And I found her account. This is someone that I have bought from before, so I do really like how they have their store. Set up. So this is the bunny ears, succulent this! I did actually buy this plant in the past. I don’t have it currently, because if they died when I moved, but I need to get some more again. So this is kind of what I wanted to highlight with the photos, so they have their own very specific photos for their products. So this is a very original photo, and if you scroll through, they have multiple angles of this plant, they have it in their hands for a size comparison. They have a picture of the seed. They have the picture of the babies of what they’re gonna look like when they first start growing this. I love this plant essentially are like this seller, so this multiple photo of multiple angles, very original photos makes it very easy for me to trust them. I want to make sure that those photos are original to the seller so a lot of times you’ll see multiple people use a stock image like I said, and maybe they have multiple angles, but if multiple people have that photo, that’s kind of a red flag and then the other thing that I look for is if it’s if the photography is consistent with the other photos on that seller site, So if I’m looking at an Etsy account and they have 10 different succulents for sale. I can expect to kind of see the same pattern of photography throughout a lot of sellers do their own photos or they hire someone to do their own photos, but those, however, they get their photos done. Usually they’re done in the same manner because that’s kind of part of branding, and if they have that done and they’re all consistent throughout each product, That’s a good sign to me that they actually own those plants that they put in the time and effort to branch themselves and get good photos and that they’re going to have those real plants. What you really want to avoid? Are those stock images that show up on every website and that everyone uses those can be kind of fishy and skinny. So here is their page. This is Lily’s page and I really wanted to point out the style of photography that Lily has so as you can see so she does sell a lot of flip-flops. Her liftoffs are all very consider between this photo and this photo, and then she has these ones where she stacks them up and that’s how she showcases her plants. Having this consistency, obviously, it’s not through every single product, but having this consistency on multiple products and having them all be very original photos does tell me that I can trust Bonnie from her, and she has a lot of these necklaces and all of those have very similar photos as well. So that’s just my personal opinion again, but that’s kind of what I look for, And then the last thing is how photoshopped does this plant look? A kind of a good rule of thumb is if it looks fake. Chances are it is or good? P which kind of leads into my next point on this whole thickness. So if you’re kind of concerned about a certain plant, whether or not it’s real, a good example of this is that neon blue, succulent that’s been popping up in my feet, at least. Oh, hot! If someone is selling a succulent now make succulents, that’s going to be different, but I don’t necessarily like buying a bunch of mixed succulents unless I already trust the seller. But if they’re selling a specific type of succulent, they really should have the scientific a name with it or at least a name of some sort and what I like to do Is I like to take that name and then just search it in Google, and if most of the images that pull up are of a similar plant, you can tell when plants look like they’re that plant, Then I would trust it a little bit more, but if it’s if you Google search that name and their photo is the only one that pulls up and all the rest of the photos are of something completely different. That’s a little fishy to me. I would really consider not buying from them, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not a good place to buy from, because sometimes they do have their own plants and maybe only them have photos of them because there’s so many different types like I just am more weary of buying from them. If theirs is the only one that looks like that. I hope that makes sense. Alright, so this one here. I’m not trying to say is untrustworthy, But the photo and what they’re selling is a hundred piece, Lithop’s pseudo, whatever this to me kind of screams scam, and I’m not saying that it is. Maybe it does actually grow succulents. I can’t promise one way or the other. However, I can tell you that this succulent in the middle. I am pretty sure it’s fake and all of these kind of look fake. This one. I actually know who does exist, but it’s heavily photoshopped. Now these are lithops and so again. Maybe these are plants that she does have, but this blue is not a plan and I’ve never seen that sold before so I’m not saying that she doesn’t have plans, but she’s selling all. I’m trying to say is this is something that I would stay away from just because I don’t necessarily trust this and there’s not many photos again. It’s a mixed variety and those kind of alright. So now we’re on eBay. I typed in succulent seeds, And this is one of the results that I found again. I would really try to avoid the mixed, succulent seeds packages unless you’re buying from a very trustworthy seller which I’ll show you a few that I would trust to buy seeds from, but we just. I just showed you this plant in real life. It is not blue like this. It is green and so same thing here. This is photoshopped. It is very easy to Photoshop nowadays into kind of playing tricks on your brain because it can look very real and deceiving because this one is real and this pink one probably is real and all these purple ones. But these two plants are unrealistic and they aren’t that in nature so. I just wanted to really clarify that. This is kind of where it gets fishy and where I would not trust the seller. So please be aware of this. These mixed succulent seeds are not a good idea, All right, so let’s see if I can find anything else again. Here’s our lovely blue friend that I would avoid like the plague. All right, so looks like this one a little bit, So this one is lips, Optica, rubra, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Now it does have a few extra photos, which is kind of nice, they’re not consistent, They don’t look like they’re from the same photographer. Which kind of makes me feel like they took photos from someone else. So if we just Google Optica or let’s see with op Opteka Rubra. This is kind of the way I would go about this to try to see if I trust it. So this one does indeed actually pull up kind of a trustworthy result, so they’re all very similar. They’re all very purple again, you know? I still don’t know if I would buy from the seller that I showed you just because they don’t have their own photos and it’s not their own plants. I kind of prefer to have a seller who has their own photos, but I’m not saying that they’re untrustworthy. And they did get the scientific name rate of this plant, so if it shows up with one photo of this purple one and then all the rest of these are of a completely different plant, that’s kind of a right. The other thing is attention to detail so a lot of good sellers that I’ve bought from have really detailed instructions on how to grow succulent seeds, succulent seeds are hard to grow and they are not like typical other seeds. You have to do different germination temperatures, and if the seller that you’re buying from has those detailed instructions and a lot of times, they’ll even have it under the product listing. That’s kind of a good idea that they’re going to be willing to discuss care with you if you reach out to them and have that personal connection A lot of people on Etsy. This is really easy to do it because you can just send them a direct message and they can respond back to you and you can ask them. Whatever questions you want before you buy the product and with other places. I don’t know if the customer service is that available, but that is something that you can keep in mind and do they if they have really good attention to detail, and they seem like they’re very willing to help you have success with this plant. That’s kind of a good sign that they might actually be selling a real product now. Let’s talk about reviews a little bit, So reviews are kind of iffy for me. They work best for real plants. If you’re buying a real live plant, that’s already formed. Then reviews do really well because they’ll show you how the seller kind of shifts the plant and the quality that they got, but for seeds, it’s really hard, and I never look at the reviews when I’m looking at seed products and this is because a lot of times on selling sites like Etsy and eBay and wish. If you want to leave a review, you only get so much time to do so after you buy the product, So I think on Etsy last time I was given six weeks to buy the product and succulent seeds, like I said, take a really long time and are very hard to grow. And so I wanted to make sure I did it right, so I did. My research and the six weeks was not a long enough time for me to verify that I actually got the succulent that they said that they were sending me and so a lot of the reviews. If there are reviews on those sites are of people saying. I got my seeds. Have it germinated. Nothing’s happened yet, but I’m sure they will. I wish like I said sometimes. They can send weeds. It’s not a good indicator of the actual quality of the product, so I don’t like listening to the reviews. I would rather go over the photos and the name of the plant and do my own research on it before I spend money on that. The micro landscape on Etsy. I really like I also have a place called rare succulents, da Mãe that I’ve bought from before, and they do take forever to get to America at least just because I think they’re selling them from Ukraine or I don’t know somewhere else completely, so they take about a month to actually get here through the mail for real succulents. There are three places that I recommend That’s ferry blooms, com leaf and clay and Mountain Crest Gardens. All three are very trustworthy places. If you want to buy succulents, kind of the end goal of this video is to be safe with your money and have fun shopping, but you really do have a few things that you should look for when you’re buying these because I think the rate of scams is increasing and that it’s not going to go away anytime soon. So this is just kind of a good rule of thumb to follow and kind of something to keep in mind when you’re looking for these. If you ever question the product, try to reach out to the seller and ask them a few questions. I’m sure they would be happy to respond. If they’re legit, and they know what they’re doing, let me know. If you have any questions, feel free to leave anything down in the comment section below. I would be happy to answer them and find out the answer. So go ahead and do that. If you have not already, please go ahead and click that like button if you found this video helpful and don’t forget to subscribe to our channel below. Thank you bye.