You can join as a buyer in a minute, and upgrade to selling whenever you are ready.

1. Click Join in the top bar and register with your full name, email and WhatsApp number in international format (for example +27821234567). Nurseries also add their business name.
2. Open the confirmation email and click the link to verify your address.
3. Buyers can browse, ask questions, favourite plants and bid straight away from My dashboard.
4. To sell, choose Start selling and complete onboarding: contact and address, seller or nursery details, permits, and banking details for payouts.
5. Banking details are encrypted, seen only by you and platform admins, and confirmed by an admin before the first payment. A 24 hour hold applies after any change.

Listing stays locked until seller onboarding is complete. Buying and bidding do not need it.

A listing is the permanent record of what you are selling, and it keeps its number for life.

1. Go to List a plant and choose what you are selling: a plant, a batch of seeds, or suckers.
2. Pick the species and form from the picker, or mark it unknown if you would like an expert to confirm it.
3. Add clear photos — whole plant, caudex, crown, leaflets and any damage. You can shoot them with your phone camera. The first photo becomes the cover.
4. For plants, add caudex height and diameter, overall height, sex, origin, age and condition. Seeds ask for quantity and whether they are sprouted. Suckers ask whether they are raw or established, and for how many months.
5. Write an honest description including provenance and history. Wild-collected plants may not be traded here.
6. Upload your permit: nurseries attach the selling permit, private sellers attach the possession permit or declare that none is available.
7. Set your price and sale type (fixed price, open to offers, or auction), how long the listing should run (1 to 6 months), plus province, city and handover method.
8. Submit. You get a permanent number in the form CC-XXXXX, and the listing shows under My listings while it waits for review.

Selling cycad-related products instead? Use Cycad Accessories — Cycad Central keeps a 5% share of accessory sales.

Verification is entirely optional. Cycad Central only facilitates a connection to an independent expert — verified plants may sell for more.

1. On the listing, tick Request verification, or open the listing later from My listings and ask for it then.
2. Independent experts with no stake in the sale review your photos, measurements and provenance.
3. The expert records a decision plus a confidence score from 1 to 100 and a short reason for that score.
4. If more information is needed you get a request in your inbox — add the photos or details asked for.
5. Once verified, a Cycad Certificate is issued with a registered number and stored permanently.
6. While a request is open, your plant shows Awaiting verification in My listings and Awaiting verification in the Market.

Verification is free for now. Nothing about your listing depends on being verified.

Any active listing can be pushed to a timed auction — 15 minutes, 24 hours or 48 hours.

1. Open My listings and click Send to auction on the plant you want to auction.
2. Choose the duration, the starting price and the minimum bid increment.
3. Optionally set a reserve price and decide whether the reserve is hidden or shown to bidders.
4. Confirm — bidding opens immediately and a live countdown appears under Auctions, and on your seller dashboard.
5. A bid in the final moments extends the clock (anti-sniping) up to the allowed number of extensions. In the 15 minute high stakes format the clock rolls back to one minute.
6. At close, the highest bid above the reserve wins. Buyer and seller are emailed and notified, and an order is created automatically.
7. If the reserve is not met you can send a second chance offer to the top bidder.

High stakes auctions publish the reserve and do not require verification. Bids are binding.

Browse, ask questions, then buy at a fixed price, make an offer, or bid.

1. Use Market or Browse to filter by species and form, plants, seeds or suckers, province, price and verification.
2. On the listing, use the public questions thread, message the seller privately, or contact them on WhatsApp.
3. Buy now at the asking price, or make an offer the seller can accept or decline.
4. In an auction, place a bid, or set a maximum bid and let proxy bidding raise it for you up to your limit.
5. You are emailed and alerted when you are outbid, when an auction is ending soon, and when you win. Install the app on your phone for the notification bell.
6. Track everything under My dashboard: live bids with countdowns, purchases, favourite plants, messages and money on its way.

The sale price is split in two payments, and the plant is only released once both are confirmed.

1. The order shows two amounts: the Cycad Central fee, which is 5% on sales up to R5,000 or 2.5% on sales over R5,000 — paid by the seller out of the sale price, and the remaining amount for the seller.
2. The buyer pays the fee into the Cycad Central bank account and the remaining amount straight into the seller's bank account, using the order reference on both.
3. The buyer logs each payment on the order as it is made.
4. The seller confirms the money reached their own account, and Cycad Central confirms the fee on the money desk.
5. When the seller confirms the money arrived, the sale closes and the plant is marked sold. The buyer has 14 days to collect (with a reminder after 7 days). Cycad Central follows up its fee separately.
6. When the payments are confirmed, Cycad Central issues two invoices to the buyer: our own invoice for the fee, and the seller's invoice for the plant, using the invoice details the seller supplied at onboarding. Both can be printed from the order.
7. The buyer taps “I received it — complete” once they have the plant (or raises a dispute), and both sides can rate each other.
8. If something is wrong, either party can raise a dispute on the order and it is reviewed before the plant moves.

Sellers must have confirmed bank and invoice details on their profile before they can list a plant.

Ratings, certificates and records stay with the plant.

1. The buyer rates the seller once the order is completed — ratings are always tied to a real reference number.
2. Ownership transfers are recorded against the certificate, so the plant's history follows it.
3. Sold or removed plants are archived with all photos and details, and the certificate page stays viewable.
4. Abusive ratings can be reported and are reviewed by our team.
5. If your account is ever suspended, you can ask for it back from your profile and the request is reviewed.

There is more here than buying and selling.

1. Cycad Community: join public groups or request access to private ones, share photos and talk to other growers. Experts, admins and registered sellers can start a group.
2. Encephalartos directory: every South African species with photographs, habitat, conservation status and growing notes.
3. Cycad Species guide and Cycad Forms: read up on species, and see the recognised forms contributors have documented.
4. Ask the Helper, bottom right on any page, answers quick questions about the app and about cycads.