New olskool here. Used to be a link to Cbay . any news or info for me? A lot has changed since i was last here including. Strains and some terms.
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Isn’t it called seedbay nowadays ?
? . why i ask​:v:
A lot has changed indeed. Cbay, formerly at CannabisWorld (never OG), is gone. Gypsy Nirvana’s copycat auction site, Seedbay, still kind of going at ICG.com (not going to spell out that silly name), but full of the political BS that always followed GN, Old Pink and the rest of their sock puppets around. Currently “restricted due to trolls” to ICG members only: LINK
Can’t recommend it, just providing the info. Caveat emptor.
-b420
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Yea back in the day there was a link to heavens gate. . ? . . and linked from there or something like that , not sure , don’t matter much cause i looked up seedbay and I’LL Be Damned there it was . Don’t. Know if the same, don’t. Care. Serves same purpose. Lil more price on some, great deals on some. They will get my buss. eventually. It’s all good. Thank you for your input.
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I was thinking about rebuilding Cannabis Bay and would love to hear your opinions…
Does anybody miss the site or is using some alternative? Would you use Auction Bids or Buy Now mode to sell or buy stuff?
Nowadays it could be pretty modern with online bitcoin payments and escrow (paypal-like so that there is always tracked package to address). And of course with seller ratings.
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I think it would be a great idea. FDM Seeds would be interested in participating. Just realize what the folks behind Cbay and Seedbay never appreciated until too late. The software is easy to put in place compared to the logistics of taking and sending payments and seeds. It will be someone’s full time job if it takes off at all. Both C- and Seed-bay were victims of their own success. They couldn’t keep up with the orders, turnaround times stretched to a month and longer, orders were lost, etc.
You might want to tie participation to OG member reputation to prevent troll orders from folks who bid up auctions with no intent of paying. Payment processing is a whole other matter, would OG take payments and distribute revenue shares to sellers (distributor model) or facilitate direct payments between buyers and sellers (auction model). Same with seeds, does OG fulfill orders (therefore verifying inventory and payment, providing certainty of trade) or simply facilitate order execution without ever taking possession of stock?
Cbay and Seedbay used the distributor model and took a fee per order. They knew correctly that semi-pro breeders were often lousy businessmen when it came to taking online payments and sending seeds around the world. Different skill sets.
Then also there’s the security and trust issues - sellers only need to trust OG if you adopt the distributor model, otherwise they need to trust every new seller whose seeds they are interested in with their money and their address information.
A lot to consider. But I’d love for it to happen in a competent and trustworthy manner.
-b420
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You are thinking of Heaven’s Stairway.
I never used them.
Back then I purchased seeds from Emery mostly.
Here is the lowdown on the history of HS.
Heaven’s Stairway was an Eastern Canadian cannabis seedbank, supplying around 300 different cannabis strains. Established in 1998, the Montreal-based company imported seeds from New Zealand and the Netherlands and shipped them worldwide, especially to customers in Canada, the United States and Europe. On or around January 31, 2006, the company was raided and their websites were taken down. A two-year investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Project Courriel seized 200,000 cannabis seeds, US $183,000 and three gold bricks. The company’s owner Richard Hratch Baghdadlian, 38, aka Richard Calrisian, from Marsan Street in Montreal, and six other persons who operated the Heaven’s Stairway company have been charged with importing and trafficking in cannabis.[1][2]
The cybercompany Heaven’s Stairway used the Internet sites hempqc.com, cannabisworld.com, overgrow.com, eurohemp.com, cannabisseeds.com, and cannabisbay.com. These sites were used to order cannabis seeds online and obtain information on cannabis cultivation. Topics included cannabis growing, cultivation articles, cannabis seeds, pictures and FAQs.[3]
Overgrow.com, the largest cannabis grow site in the world at the time of it
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Thanks for comment, @Baudelaire. Yes there are lots of questions to consider.
What I know is that I’d like to include bitcoin payments to use escrow to guarantee buyer’s satisfaction. Make bitcoin standard way of fast transacting.
I’m not decided whether to have shipping warehouse and manage reshipment or not… I’m sure best would be to have both options - for direct shipment between parties and shipment from central warehouse (quasi amazon). Its because both have its benefits. Central warehouse offers consistent quality of delivery and allows grouping goods from different breeders into one shipment.
I agree that semi-pro breeders would be probably use our shipping and handling services. But these two options differ a lot in terms of costs and commission. I’ve noticed that there is standard about 10-20% commission (success fee) for listing items (and management of payments / escrow) but up to 50% commission when using shipment from central warehouse. That is probably as much as receives retail seedshop on current market.
We can limit counterparty risk by defining strict terms and conditions according to which escrow will be released to parties. Use of bitcoin could completely mitigate false bids (e.g. By requiring some balance on account to bid for new users).
There needs to be robust rating / comment system to allow trust to build. Still there could be problems with new sellers (without reputation) in case somebody would like to take advantage of customer and send fake (or non viable) seeds…
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The splits you suggest seem about market rate from my experience - although you might want to consider flat transaction-based pricing to cover basic shipping costs, attract quality breeders and to keep commission-gaming at bay. It costs the same to process and ship 10 seeds sold for $10 as for $100 - do you really want to make $1 or $2 on loss-leaders and freebie deals that build leads for sellers to conduct future off-site sales, while top breeders complain that $20 is too much for what is essentially an online catalog listing?
As for the 50-50 split scenario, that is about the rate for the mega-banks selling dozens of breeders’ stock. Only difference is they buy (and pay) upfront, and hold the inventory risk, which I don’t think your “warehouse” model contemplates.
Bitcoin seems like a great solution until you dig into it. Since most folks will be exchanging in and out of BTC to native currencies, there will be friction points that discourage sales - BTC is hard to buy with cash, so credit cards and bank accounts come into play, and BTC exchanges are wary of online drug-related sites, requiring chaining and such. Introduces more hassles than it solves IMO. Lately, transaction costs for BTC exchanges have skyrocketed to around $6-9 per transaction, making small exchanges (like a $60 seed order) pretty expensive as well. Not saying don’t do it, but I wouldn’t recommend a BTC-exclusive platform.
-b420
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I bought several times back in the day, many others probly too. I will again several more times. Just as soon go thru O.G. Spreading love where loyalties are! Just saying.
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Been there, done that in 2003…site was cannabids, “brother” of weedpost.
It’s a fuckin full time job, and today it poses too many security risks for being a service I’d offer…
That said, I will be really happy if you guys get it up and running again, and will use it for sure!
DS
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Practically all of current auction sites have (or are trying to implement) bitcoin as a payment. It saves costs a lot on all sides. Without it we wouldn’t be able to offer escrow. Currently for example paypal requires paying 2,9% plus $0.30 USD for each transfer. In escrow model there are two payments one from buyer to platform and another from platform to seller. That would cost 5,8% plus $0.60 USD… I don’t think platform escrow is possible with similar payment systems (cards would be exactly same problem, wire transfer is even expensive).
You are right that bitcoin transactions are costly currently, but there is a solution on the horizon. Block size will increase to 2MB and there is also softfork planned later this year. I expect fee for bitcoin transaction to go down by the time we are ready.
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Hello, thanks for comment. Have you gone “the-middle-man” route? Or users paid and shipped directly to each other? What security risks do you see?
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Thanks for the tip… Yeah, Litecoin can be good alternative…
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Done both methods : being in the middle is (if auctions works well) a whole job while letting people do theyr things get you being anyway in the eye of the storm for any kind of problem, delay, whatnot while you can’t do really nothing to fix things…
As for security risks… Well… With lots of unsecure Android peripherals around I see potential problems all around…
DS
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I used to use CBay and I would use yours, if you get the payment thing worked out so it is anon. Until my state gets its heads out of its collective ass, I need there to be NO PAPER TRAIL. 
I’ve never used bitcoin or any other alternative, I’d need some instruction on it.
Edit: last sentence
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bitcoin is fairly easy although tx fees were high last i used it. most large cities have btc ATMs where you can anonymously purchase/sell bitcoins with cash although fees are generally high. there’s also localbitcoin which is a website to find people locally to purchase btc in cash or other payment methods. i’d also sell BTC for just over market rates.
download electrum wallet and it’s fairly straightforward, there’s a list of receiving addresses which you give to someone to send to.
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@legalcanada, thank you for the info. I’ll go there and check it out. I’ve been curious about bitcoin for some time. I always liked the old way. CBay had us send cash or money order. But, times they do change. Where do I find the seedbanks here? I thought they had their own category but, I am always doing something else while I am here and I miss things because of it and I assume that is why I am not finding it. I also assume they take bitcoin as well? Makes a purchase at least 1000X safer…
Edit: removed an extra word
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