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Trends in Nepenthes Market
- Thread starter naich
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Many vendors dropped out of the running and imports became scarce. There were issues in culture with BE for awhile and AG3 also halted production of a large number of tc plants. Supply I would say is no less limited than it was before, but demand has exponentially increased as the hobby as grown in popularity. Especially with everyone now hopping on the hybrid bandwagon.
Now what we have is a select group of people who buy en masse from wistuba to scalp prices. It’s business for a lot of people, for hobbyists it’s rather annoying
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You're right that variety has decreased while prices have generally gone up over the past 10 years or so. On the wholesale side Borneo Exotics has decided to focus less on lowlanders and more on hybrids in general. This results in less supply in nepenthes species. Like Kris mentioned there are definitely a few plant flippers out there that focus on buying up plants to sell for a profit. There are also a lot more people in the hobby driving up prices. I've heard it's become popular in Silicon Valley, and those people have the resources that increased plant prices won't deter them. The result is that nurseries charge higher prices for their plants because these people are willing to pay those prices.
Damn good thing I have eddy and villosa going in TC and from seed too. I don’t want to market crash but I want to see prices like they were 5 years ago. No reason a $25-30 N lowii Trusmadi BE clone should fetch $100+ now at 3”
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It's honestly gotten to the point where it's cheaper to just import from wistuba. You only have to pay the 60 euro importation price once, after all, so if you're getting a 30 euro N. tenuis that's basically $100, which is about the same as a $90 N. tenuis plus $10 shipping. If you stick on a few more plants, all of which are way cheaper than those in the US usually are, it's sort of astonishing to me that people can continue to sell at such a markup.
It seems like supply was cut back a lot, then demand started skyrocketing. I honestly don't think nurseries actually want to increase supply again because they enjoy the high prices people are willing to pay. Then the high prices are driving a lot of hobbyists to get into the nursery business so eventually increased competition might lower prices again. We'll see.
I think that many younger growers have lost some perspective. When I began growing, there were but a few common species / hybrids available, at far higher costs than today; and, now, the lion's share of Nepenthes species can be had, for far less than any of us ever anticipated.
Part of the pricing controversy, can be explained by the sheer cost of micropropagation (it ain't cheap); the constant maintenance of cultures; and the ever-changing demands of the market. There have also been recent failures and losses of once common clones, whether by pests; or, even, fire, in one case. When nurseries are auctioning off plant stocks, whether through in-house platforms or through eBay, the competitive pressure is on for any prospective buyers. Decent clones of Nepenthes lowii, for example, are now down a pitiful handful. You couldn't give them away a few years back; and relic clones are now fetching high prices . . .