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Starting A Mail Order Plant Business , Cheap essay papers
Tony Avent wrote So You Want to Start a Nursery Timber Press, as "a reality check for anyone wanting to start a nursery," drawing on his own experience transitioning from a government job to a full-time nurseryman, starting a mail order plant business. Now the owner of Plant Delights Nursery, Avent shares his expertise on how to start a nursery with wit and clarity; the book is devoted to the business and planning concerns of the nursery owner.
The following excerpt from Chapter 9 deals with setting up a mail order nursery, from deciding what products to offer to shipping and delivery concerns. You starting a mail order plant business purchase this book from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store: So You Want to Start a Nursery. Most mail order nurseries started as backyard operations that evolved into mail order businesses without a real business plan. These nurseries are typically those that grow their own plants. The larger mail order nurseries, by contrast, purchase plants starting a mail order plant business they then offer for resale.
While nurseries that grow their own plants may suffer this same fate, the costs involved are usually much less. Starting a mail order nursery requires that you ask many of the same basic questions you would if you were starting a retail nursery. Will you grow or purchase your plants? Will you sell potted or bare-root plants? What types of plants will you handle and in what sizes? Of course, answers to most of these questions should form part of your mission statement.
Nurseries in the South tend to lean toward container plants, whereas those in the northern zones offer more bare-root plants. The higher cost of overwintering plants in containers often prevents the more northern nursery from competing on price with those in the South where overwintering costs are much lower because of the milder winters. Although starting a mail order plant business crops can be much more easily accommodated into an extended shipping schedule, it is often more expensive and difficult to maintain them in containers during the growing season.
Plants that will be shipped bare root must be dug in the fall and stored in cool conditions, usually in refrigerated coolers. Many deciduous woody plants and perennials are handled in this manner.
Storing plants in coolers is anything but an exact science, and you should expect high losses with certain crops. No matter where your nursery is located, coolers will be a necessity if you are handling bare-root materials.
You will need to carefully examine your target customer base before starting a mail order nursery. Typically, nurseries that grow unusual or specialty plants fare best as they are able to reach plant collectors across the country, even across the world. Plant collectors are often willing to pay higher prices for a specialty plant than what the local market will bear. Locally, however, the same plant might fetch little more than a run-of-the-mill daylily.
Similarly, difficulties exist for mail order nurseries that are trying to compete with local retailers or garden centers. Local nurseries should always be able to offer a larger plant at a similar cost to that offered by a mail order nursery, starting a mail order plant business. The size of a plant that a mail order nursery can ship is limited by the high cost of shipping and the difficulty of packaging large plants.
It is rarely feasible to ship a plant that grows in anything larger than a 1-gallon pot, though obviously there are exceptions with very expensive plants. Plant geeks looking to start a nursery tend to prefer mail order nurseries. These often anti-social types feel they can avoid customer contact by locating a mail order nursery in an out-of-the-way location.
While mail order does allow for more privacy, you will likely have plenty of visitors if you do a good job of running your business. It is inevitable that customers, out of pure curiosity, will search out and find your nursery, so you will have to decide whether to prohibit all visitors or schedule visits in a way that allows you to maintain your privacy.
Since you are operating a remote business where customers cannot regularly drop by, the need for prompt responses to customer queries is even more critical than with a typical retail operation. Communication can, of course, occur using faxes, e-mail, phone, and, to a lesser degree, regular mail. I have found that some who start a mail order business or online plant nursery are often poorly prepared for the actual handling of orders.
There is simply no excuse, however, starting a mail order plant business, for being blindsided by orders when that is precisely how the business has chosen to operate. Doing a poor job of satisfying customers in your start-up years creates a bad impression that is difficult to overcome, so start out well prepared.
Of all the types of nurseries discussed, it is the mail order business that has the most complex process of getting plants to customers, and if you do not have a good paper trail, confusion will reign. At the outset, let me offer one simple procedural rule that can help you avoid disaster.
Always protect the original order in case of unforeseen problems or later confusion. I recommend generating your own separate set of paperwork from which you process orders.
Original paperwork should never starting a mail order plant business allowed to stray from the security of your office. Customers rarely visit mail order nurseries; instead, you deliver the product to them, and this makes your shipping operation of paramount importance.
There are many shipping options for your plants. Be sure to thoroughly investigate each one and choose the one or ones that best fit your needs. Carrier rules, regulations, and prices change so often that you will need to make a special effort just to keep up with this starting a mail order plant business of the business. Also, be aware of the possibility of labor strikes. If you depend on a shipper whose employees go on strike, you will be prevented from delivering your product to your customer.
I will never forget the year our shipping carrier went on strike during a time when cash flow was particularly low and when we had a large number of orders ready for shipping. I learned never to rely completely on one shipper and to keep my options open. You should contact the local starting a mail order plant business regional representative for each potential shipping service and request a quotation of their rates.
Find out about the types of delivery options: overnight, two-day delivery, three-day delivery, or delivery whenever the item arrives, the latter usually being the cheapest option, starting a mail order plant business. Also ask about hidden surcharges, which are increases over normal rates. Surcharges such as those for dimensional weight kick in when a package is too long for a specific set of existing parameters.
Even if the box fits all other criteria for a particular shipment charge, if it is slightly too long the shipping price can go up as much as threefold, so be very careful of this charge.
The shipping company will ask you for information on how many boxes per week you will ship, the sizes of those boxes, and other related questions.
Shipping rates are based on volume, so the more you ship, the better your rates will be. Another factor that impacts shipping rates is location. If your nursery is in a very remote location, it will be very expensive for the delivery service to visit your business so you will be less likely to receive a discount.
On the other hand, if the shipper wants to build up business in a particular location or has a competitor business nearby, it may find it cost effective to give you a much larger discount than any it would give a customer in an established service area. A number of computer-based shipping systems are available to choose from, their versatility increasing with the number of packages you ship.
Contact the various shippers for information on their systems, but also check the phone book for shipping systems that are manufactured by independent companies. If you ship a large enough volume with a particular shipper, you will usually be provided with a shipping computer and system at no charge; at the very least you should receive a label printer and software.
Be sure and ask the shipper to help you integrate its system with your own database so that order information does not have to be reentered into the new shipping system. Several states have imposed agricultural restrictions on bringing soil or potting mix across state lines unless the soil or mix has been treated with an array of chemicals.
While these restrictions certainly make it difficult to ship plants during growing seasons, it is not impossible although many nurseries refuse to ship into those restricted states.
If you decide to ship into these states, you should first determine the time it takes to wash the soil from the roots or to treat each plant and then calculate a standard charge possibly as a percentage of the order that will cover the extra cost of shipping to these states. Be aware that there is a big difference among plants in terms of how easy they are to bare root and that their survivability also varies with each species, starting a mail order plant business.
Regulations involved in shipping to starting a mail order plant business countries can also be overwhelming to a small nursery, and for that reason many nurseries opt out of that market. Something else to consider is the kind of box you will use for shipping. When getting started, most starting a mail order plant business nurseries opt for recycled boxes, starting a mail order plant business, and many of their owners can recall staking out Dumpsters at the grocery store or the local recycling center.
While we are confessing, I will admit that during the early years I spent far more time than I care to remember waking up drunks or being terrorized by wild-eyed cats while prowling through restaurant Dumpsters for the perfect shipping box. I had a very hard time getting used to the concept of purchasing boxes.
Once you make this leap from wanting only free boxes to being willing to pay for them, you may still want to consider box overruns.
When you require large numbers of boxes, however, starting a mail order plant business, it starting a mail order plant business become economical to purchase new boxes with your nursery logo and name printed on them. Alternatively, you could purchase rolls of tape they are usually 3 inches wide with your name and logo printed on the tape. With tape wrapped around the box, its identity is very clear to the recipient. I recommend that you use only a few standard box sizes, as not only is having too many sizes quite confusing to packers but it is also uneconomical.
By choosing a limited number of box sizes and noting how many plants will fit in each, you will save lots of time by being able to match box size to the order size. You must also consider the weight of your shipment: you want to make the box manageable for your customer while at the same time ensuring that you avoid shipping surcharges for sending out overweight boxes. Now that you have your boxes picked out, think about the packing material you will use. As much as we in the mail order nursery business wish for it, there is no such thing as the perfect packing material.
Regardless of which packing material you choose, it is critical that it keep the plants from being tossed around in the box and not be so heavy as to increase shipping costs. While you may take great care in handling and packing the order, rest assured that this level of care will not be given during the rest of the journey. I always recommend packing starting a mail order plant business test box that your staff tosses around for a couple of days to determine if your shipping material and packaging methods are sound.
When plants are shipped with bare roots, some form of media must be used to keep the roots from becoming excessively dry. Although plants are most often lost during shipping because they were packed too wet, it can be just as damaging at the other extreme.
Root-protecting materials include peat or sphagnum moss and starting a mail order plant business. These regulations are sometimes a nightmare even when they are followed. My favorite packing material has always been the universally accepted shredded sphagnum, which is soaked and then squeezed free of all excess moisture before use, starting a mail order plant business.
Materials used to hold the root protective media around the roots include aluminum foil, plastic, and of course the containers themselves. If you ship plants in containers, it is critical that the soil media remain in the pots during the shipping process.
There is nothing worse that receiving a box of plants with all the soil in the bottom of the box and the plants at the top. Good packing can keep the soil in the containers but it is more typical to use some type of breathable seal over the soil surface of the pot. Remember that plant foliage should be allowed to breathe during shipping but not be sealed or kept moist. Starting a mail order plant business recommend you experiment with various preparation methods to find one that produces the best-shipped product at the lowest price and with the least labor.
You must also decide which time of the year to ship. Several different ideas about shipping schedules can be considered. Some nurseries ship from fall to early spring, while others ship from spring through fall.
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, time: 23:18So You Want to Start a Mail Order Perennial Nursery | Article by Plant Delights Nursery
Business profile a mail order nursery specializing in japanese maples, conifers, and other new, unusual, and rare trees, shrubs, and perennials Spalding plant & bulb company - mail order houses in Welcome to our comprehensive guide to starting a business in france How to Start a Mail Order Service Business Online from Home in 17 Steps 1. Understand the Industry Companies that operate in the Mail Order industry basically make use of mail catalogs or TV 2. Conduct Market Research and Feasibility Studies Demographics Estimated Reading Time: 9 mins Starting a mail order plant business Rated 4 stars, based on 24 customer reviews From $ per page Available! Order now! To assist you in finding the appropriate permitting information for your business, the calgold database provides links and contact information that direct you to. This will be the most important factor in your success or
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