November/December 2021 - 36

TECHNOLOGY
CONSIDERING E-COMMERCE?
Here are some tips and advice for how to make e-commerce work for your business.
By Liz Hughes
A
re you considering e-commerce for your plant
business? For many growers and retailers, website
construction and maintenance is a daunting task,
let alone the tedious management of an e-commerce
platform. I thought I would share some of what I've
learned about e-commerce to help guide others in their
decision-making process.
Over the past six years I have built, implemented and
managed a successful website to sell plants online. I have
learned how to best represent products, ship live plants
and manage inventory. Groovy Plants Ranch is a fullservice
garden center in central Ohio known for our large
selection of harder-to-find plants; we are especially known
for our excellent selection of perennials, houseplants and
succulents. Our site, www.groovyplantsranch.com, sells
plants for seasonal pre-orders and curbside pickup, and we
ship plants to customers in all 50 states.
In-House Advantage
When we started www.groovyplantsranch.com in 2015,
we decided to keep all website building and management inhouse,
which has proven to be an excellent decision. When
major changes need to be made, we are able to do it in a
timely fashion instead of requesting that someone in an offsite
office adds our task to the bottom of their to-do list. We
also like that the person managing our website is part of our
team. We feel that it helps share our story and translates
Groovy Plants Ranch to the web more authentically.
Our website keystone is excellent photography. There
is always a push and pull between taking a picture of the
best plant in a crop and making sure it is representative of
36 | LAWN & GARDEN RETAILER | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
what a customer will receive when shipped. A picture of the
biggest, most beautiful hanging basket in perfect condition
is for marketing and social media. The product listing needs
to be the best-looking medium-sized plant from a crop.
Online customers are very discerning and have let us know
if they think a picture is not a good representation of what
they've received. We would rather have a customer be
blown away by how big the plant is than be upset because
the plant they received is slightly smaller than the one
shown in the product listing.
Managing Packaging, Shipping and Inventory
Shipping live plants is not an easy task, but after several
iterations of packaging we have landed on the best packaging
for us. A video of our packaging can be found on our YouTube
channel: youtube.com/groovyplantsranch. Packaging a
plant takes time and extra supplies. When pricing our plants
for our website we include the cost of packaging into the
equation. As a result, we charge on average $2 more per
plant online than we do in store for plants that are shippable.
Shipping plants in the winter requires a heat pack. We are
shipping from Ohio and require all orders to have a heat pack
if the temperature in Ohio is 35° F or lower.
Shipping plants across state lines has a lot of red tape,
and we work closely with our APHIS USDA agent to make
sure we are in compliance with all relevant state laws. Many
of the laws are written with large wholesale shipments in
mind and are hard to navigate when shipping a box of two
plants to a consumer. I have talked with plenty of confused
APHIS agents over the past few years. The laws in every
state are different for exporting plants over state lines.
http://www.groovyplantsranch.com http://www.youtube.com/groovyplantsranch http://www.groovyplantsranch.com
November/December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of November/December 2021
