Yes, the several price ranges reflect entirely different markets, but what they have in common is the basic "how many buyers exist in a given range verses how much product is available". There's a whole bunch of both sides of the equation in the mallsai market and not much discrimination. Sellers only handle what moves fast in their market, and the buyers are only interested in low prices.
In the highest price connoisseurs' market there's not much that comes to the open market. Most often, a dealer is consulted, he shops it around among his clients, and other dealers if he has to, and only people who can afford the very best ever see those goods. High prices in this market are not deterrents. Rich people would almost prefer to tell their friends that they paid big bucks for their possessions, rather than miss the opportunity to own something special. There's always a willingness to pay some price that is too small to calculate as a percentage of your own net worth. A person with $10,000,000 net worth doesn't need to differentiate between a $100,000 or $125,000 car, he just chooses what he wants, but he likes the idea of his neighbor mentally calculating how much his car costs when he drives by. He is buying prestige, and getting it to some extent.
The middle market is where we see real disjointed pricing. People skilled in bonsai to a greater or lesser extent buying from each other. For the most part neither is well-practiced in pricing goods & services. It can cost $20 plus $15 shipping for a sapling of an exotic species that is not locally available. It's not worth $10, but it's a question of do you want it or not? Scale that to the Ebay model of a 5 year old nursery plant with perfunctory training in a bonsai pot and again not locally available. Do you want it or not? And there's not a lot of people in bonsai anyway, so the market is small to begin with. Many people on this forum are 200 miles from anyone at all that does bonsai. No sellers or buyers. It gets worse. Trees worked by us, the amateurs, are often pretty nice after 10 years or so, but how many real buyers out there will pay more than a couple hundred for anything? Not many, as we know from our club auctions where there is often very good deals and above $200 and very few real bidders. A $35 nursery tree in a $50 pot tended for 10 years for $10/yr should be cheap at $200 assuming it was appealing. There are very few buyers even on this forum for $500 trees, and they are hard to ship because they are heavy and resist packaging for rough treatment, so adding 25% for packaging, shipping & insurance is even on the low side.
I sell my surplus trees to a local dealer one mixed load at a time. I give him a bunch of trees, he takes them and the next time we see each other at a meeting he gives me money. I don't ask how much for the individual trees. They are trees that I don't like as much as others and have too many to care for properly, so I have to reduce the herd and I hate auctions. Nothing is worse than working on tree for 5 years and seeing it go for the price of the pot when the number of interested bidders is low. I would rather sell it to someone who will give me some percentage of the market price. He knows what he can get for it in his shop and treats me as a supplier. It works for me. I buy at auctions, happily.