Silk Road forums

Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: b999 on March 17, 2013, 08:01 am

Title: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: b999 on March 17, 2013, 08:01 am
The Australian domestic weed deals are pretty shit right now.  Anyone know what's going on?
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: arutha on March 17, 2013, 09:58 am
There seems to always be a shortage around christmas and over summer.. Happens every year. I thought things would have been recovering by now though. Hopefully it all starts picking up again soon, or I might look to the risk of ordering from OS again.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: b999 on March 17, 2013, 08:31 pm
ok so it is definitely shit on SR Aus Domestic weed then.. $500 to $600 / ounce, WTF??????

lets hope it picks up soon... I would rather go without than get f'ed up the arse like that.

So there are idiots who actually pay these f'ed prices?

And there is a shortage of domestic dealers??
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: xpsbud on March 17, 2013, 08:56 pm
Interesting, I assumed more home grow operations there for weed than what it sounds like. Especially considering how large and remote some of the areas seem to be. I understand customs there is a bit tricky for imports but regular old weed wow?
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: sundhara on March 17, 2013, 10:14 pm
ive long realised that you're better off finding a shady dealer in a car to buy a few grams/day.

Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: MDUK on March 17, 2013, 10:42 pm
ok so it is definitely shit on SR Aus Domestic weed then.. $500 to $600 / ounce, WTF??????

lets hope it picks up soon... I would rather go without than get f'ed up the arse like that.

So there are idiots who actually pay these f'ed prices?

And there is a shortage of domestic dealers??
It'll sit at whatever demand supports.

If you think it's crazy, buy a couple of pounds yourself and set up a vendor account ;)
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: b999 on March 18, 2013, 01:58 am
Supply is the issue, not demand. It's been this way for.a.while now.

Did.something happen or is this just a normal dry period?
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: someoneelse87 on March 18, 2013, 04:43 am
Ah I wish I never closed my little grow op a couple years ago. The prices are crazy but the only way you could offer RRP weed on the road is if you were growing it yourself. Let's say you get a really good price on a lb of what SR would consider good weed, $3200 or $200 per ounce. Most people can easily move that IRL amongst trusted friends without too much risk or effort anyway so you need more incentive ($) to be working on the road where you have to spend at least 3 hours per day dealing with shitty customers asking 3 questions about tracking on their lil stick'o'weed, packaging product and posting the shit out. Every day.

Costs to move 1 oz:
$200 per oz. purchase price
$20 SR fee (estimate 5-10%. )
Post (inc materials) costs $10 per item.
Being an illegal op let's call the hourly rate at $50 so you need $150 per day to pay yourself for the work you (or your partner) actually do & the "Business" profit is whats left over..
Let's say a SR vendor moves a QP (4 oz's) per day so add roughly $40 per oz for time costs. So we're already sitting at an actual cost of roughly $270 per oz. Let's add 10% on top of that to cash out your BTC. We are now at roughly $300 p/oz cost to the vendor (I like to round things off for simplicity, I swear I can actually count). I think any real business wants to make at least 40% markup on product after paying all their costs sooo.... $300 + 40% = $420 per oz

Now compare the markup the SR weed vendors are getting compare to their chem dealer counterparts and it's easy to see why so few come to the road to sell weed & also why they feel justified in charging top $. On top of all this, the buyer usually has an extra 10% costs to actually get BTC so let's just rough it out at a $450 per oz when all is said & done.

Just go chat to your local stoners & get the shit at a real price... Or better still, grow your own!
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: Ron Swanson on March 18, 2013, 04:44 am
supply and demand are 2 sides of the same coin. to put it simply if they don't have the supply to support current demand they raise the price which lowers demand as it prices people out of the market. many other factors come into play like lack of competition and busted grow ops. if it's silk road specific then afaik quite a few of your vendors are resellers and your customs being so notoriously tough increases the risk and losses that vendors have to take into account when pricing.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: resalesam on March 18, 2013, 05:04 am
Ah I wish I never closed my little grow op a couple years ago. The prices are crazy but the only way you could offer RRP weed on the road is if you were growing it yourself. Let's say you get a really good price on a lb of what SR would consider good weed, $3200 or $200 per ounce. Most people can easily move that IRL amongst trusted friends without too much risk or effort anyway so you need more incentive ($) to be working on the road where you have to spend at least 3 hours per day dealing with shitty customers asking 3 questions about tracking on their lil stick'o'weed, packaging product and posting the shit out. Every day.

Costs to move 1 oz:
$200 per oz. purchase price
$20 SR fee (estimate 5-10%. )
Post (inc materials) costs $10 per item.
Being an illegal op let's call the hourly rate at $50 so you need $150 per day to pay yourself for the work you (or your partner) actually do & the "Business" profit is whats left over..
Let's say a SR vendor moves a QP (4 oz's) per day so add roughly $40 per oz for time costs. So we're already sitting at an actual cost of roughly $270 per oz. Let's add 10% on top of that to cash out your BTC. We are now at roughly $300 p/oz cost to the vendor (I like to round things off for simplicity, I swear I can actually count). I think any real business wants to make at least 40% markup on product after paying all their costs sooo.... $300 + 40% = $420 per oz

Now compare the markup the SR weed vendors are getting compare to their chem dealer counterparts and it's easy to see why so few come to the road to sell weed & also why they feel justified in charging top $. On top of all this, the buyer usually has an extra 10% costs to actually get BTC so let's just rough it out at a $450 per oz when all is said & done.

Just go chat to your local stoners & get the shit at a real price... Or better still, grow your own!

Nicely stated!
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: b999 on March 18, 2013, 05:16 am
Fair points. So $400 ounce is a good value for SR.

How come so few vendors sell ounces then if overheads are so high for each transaction? wouldnt they prefer bigger sales to low maintenance buyers than pokey little deals?

I am talking Aus domestic btw, I would never risk importing.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: someoneelse87 on March 18, 2013, 06:25 am
I don't see anything wrong with $400 p/oz on the road considering all the road dealers seem to be resellers & not growers. Vendors still make much more when selling many smaller deals than fewer larger ones and due to SR anonymity the risk isn't much greater slinging sticks at $600 p/oz then it is flogging elbows at resale prices.

There is an absolutely fucking amazing business opportunity here for an entrepreneurial stoner or mom & pop grow op to absolute dominate the SR market. You would run next to none of the risk that the chem boys do. Your markup would be equal to or greater than theirs. You would likely be working with your passions. Chance of being targeted by LEO for SR weed is slim to none. Product will fly out the door. Your reputation after being the one responsible for bringing down SR weed prices will not be questioned. I could go on... and on... and on... about it but anyone with half a brain see's it and knows they just have to put the bong down & switch the lights on to get the ball rolling.

I don't have the space available to safely run an op anymore and.... *sob* *sob* my main bush crop got flooded this year so I'm just hoping to harvest enough to go a few months without buying the shit.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: MrAnonymous on March 18, 2013, 04:22 pm
Feel bad for you Aussies, the prices of drugs over there are crazy. Would stop using if I ever moved there!

I thought weed was the one thing you could get at a decent quality and a fairly cheap price??
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: Ron Swanson on March 18, 2013, 07:04 pm
crikey i knew you had a small population for the size but the same as LA?! woah
what is it with meth down there? seems a lot of australians come here for meth. completely off topic but do people make it there or is it all imported? it's barely even on the radar in the uk.
i never thought i'd be saying this but i wish the rest of the western world would catch up with (parts of) america. their medical marijuana systems are enviable and it's even fully 'legal' in 2 states now. they started the fucking war on drugs and have been putting pressure on the netherlands for decades because of their tolerant attitude towards soft drugs. crazy times.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: stubbypete on March 19, 2013, 03:01 am
Why don't one of you aussies get some grow lights and some dank autoflower seeds?  You'll be changing the game on SR in like 3 months!
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: arutha on March 19, 2013, 07:54 am
I would be interested to see the opinion of a weed or recent former weed domestic Aus seller in this thread. I won't name anyone until they come forward, but I did talk to a seller recently who had stopped and he said weed just wasn't worth selling domestic anymore due to the cost of buying it, then the hassle of shipping, and the cost of laundering and converting btc. I guess street prices have gone up which doesn't help.

Everything is crazy expensive in Australia, especially compared to the rest of the world. We are often paying double or more for the same products. It will be interesting to see what happens to our economy, clearly people can currently afford the higher prices and overall everything is going well. But I really don't think it can last. The stupidest thing is digital products even cost double here, that is nothing more than a screw Australia tax since it doesn't matter where in the world they are sold to.

I have bought weed from OS before, and generally if you pick a respected buyer with good rep there is no problem. They conceal it well enough that it almost always gets through, and if you aren't importing a huge amount even if it does get detected customs will simply confiscate nothing more. Deny deny. Hopefully our market picks up again soon, but if not... Back OS.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: b999 on March 20, 2013, 05:28 am
yeah pretty annoyed and I may start growing...

the only 14g deals have now gone and I was ready to rock and roll.

I would never sell because I wont risk a record myself..

not happy but hoping its temporary.

Importing is a bit scary... wont that get you in a lot of trouble? For an ounce?
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: Dingo Ate My Drugs on March 20, 2013, 10:14 am
Well, as a weed vendor I thought I'd come and have my input.
I just did 30 random posts in the newbie section, because the admins have taken 3 1/2 weeks (and counting) to upgrade my account to a vendor status account.

What buyers don't understand is that I have to buy my product - I do not grow it myself. I have to spend thousands of dollars to buy the product.
Then on top of that, I have to buy everything necessary to package the orders. Then, the amount of time that goes into orders is a lot longer than you'd expect.

And I'm here to make money, so I'm not going to be spending time and taking the risk to do it for a very small profit.
Outside of SR, ounces would sell at $300 - a reasonable price, and that's pretty much the average price for 1 ounce. However on SR, there are SR fees (about $30 for 1ounce listing). Plus, the cost of the packaging materials. Plus the time it takes for orders. Then, I have to wait for the order to finalise, and there is ALOT of idiots who let it auto-finalise which is very unfair to me, and is why I can't get any more stock ATM. I need to wait for people's orders to finalise so I can access that money. Then there is the bitcoin exchange fees, and the costs of cashing out.
All of that adds up.

You have to remember than outside of SR, a 1 ounce sale can be done in a matter of under one minute. The product gets weighed, put in a bag, and given to the buyer in exchange for cash. Done deal. It is no where near this easy on SR, and I would much prefer to sell 1 ounce outside of SR for $300 than selling 1 ounce on here for $350. It's so much easier. My prices will be going up when my listings are back up. I would like it if I didn't have to do this, but I'm not going to continue doing this for the return I am currently getting. I'm confident people will understand and I will still get sales. If not, then I will simply cease to sell on here. But it won't be worth me doing it if the prices don't go up a bit.

I have had very high feedback and I go out of my way to ensure every customer is satisfied. Also, buy in bulk - it saves you money. 1gm is priced at $24, but if you buy 28 grams, it works out to be about $12 / gram. Much cheaper - It's priced like this to encourage buyers to buy larger packages so I don't send out loads of tiny orders, which all take time to process and package.

I hope I have helped, and i hoe you understand why things are more expensive on SR than on the street. My listings should be up again within a week.

Dingo
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: b999 on March 20, 2013, 11:10 am
yeah all good mate... I get all that.  You'se are all just champ eh  ;D

I'm still don't understand why quantities are small though, I thought fee structures and risk would mean bigger quantities like 1/2 - 1 Oz would be better for vendors?  And was also wondering why it all dried up recently..  Just now there's only a handful of listings.  Maybe it's just an up and down thing.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: Ron Swanson on March 20, 2013, 11:30 am
they can charge more for small amounts. like if you want a 500ml bottle of coke it's 90p or something and a 2 litres is £1.50. well in australia i'm guessing it's more like $10 or something mental but you get what i mean. higher profit margins.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: Dingo Ate My Drugs on March 20, 2013, 12:02 pm

I'd imagine it dried up quickly because there is incredible demand for weed, and the suppliers (including myself) just can't keep up. Buyers have no idea what it is like. Listings go up. Log in 10 hours later and there is 20 orders and the stock is nearly all sold out (thanks to the several large custom & QP orders placed)
Whilst I have access to large quantities of weed, it's not unlimited. If it were unlimited, from what I've seen I could easily sell 1kg+ per day.
When my listings were up last week, I had 1gm, 3.5gm, 7gm, 14gm, 28gm & QP (113gm) listings.

It just sells too fast. In my dreams, I would grow myself and have 5,000 plants set up, creating a pretty much infinite supply, and would sell minimum of 1 ounce per order.
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: Dingo Ate My Drugs on March 20, 2013, 12:07 pm
they can charge more for small amounts. like if you want a 500ml bottle of coke it's 90p or something and a 2 litres is £1.50. well in australia i'm guessing it's more like $10 or something mental but you get what i mean. higher profit margins.

A 600ml bottle of coke (cold) here is the same price as a 2L room temperature bottle, about $3.50.
Everything in this country is insanely expensive.

Love your username BTW!!
Title: Re: Shitty Australian Weed Deals
Post by: Dingo Ate My Drugs on March 20, 2013, 12:17 pm
crikey i knew you had a small population for the size but the same as LA?! woah
what is it with meth down there? seems a lot of australians come here for meth. completely off topic but do people make it there or is it all imported? it's barely even on the radar in the uk.
i never thought i'd be saying this but i wish the rest of the western world would catch up with (parts of) america. their medical marijuana systems are enviable and it's even fully 'legal' in 2 states now. they started the fucking war on drugs and have been putting pressure on the netherlands for decades because of their tolerant attitude towards soft drugs. crazy times.

Methamphetmaine / ice is the new weed here. It's extremely easy to get. A vast majority of the population would agree it's easier to buy ice than any other drug here.
It's because there is so much money made out of it. It sells for $100 / point (0.1gm), and heavy users go through that, or more in a day. And the dealers would be making at least $60 off each sale.

It's locally made and imported. Both are common and it depends on the dealer. I'd say more and more is being imported though nowadays (generally it's higher quality and cheaper to source).

If there never was a "war on drugs," things would be alot better than they are now. If amphetamine was legal, I can't imagine methamphetamine would be very popular. People would just settle for amp., which is no where near as addictive or harmful as ice - it even has beneifts for prescriptions already.