Beyond the brick and mortar — two years later
Two years ago, I was invited to write an article about the growing trend of independent garden centers looking to increase their revenue and relevance within the convenience economy space of e-commerce.
I am a fan of “Shark Tank” and have always enjoyed the “where are they now” updates, so I figured it would be a great idea to do the same with L&GR. Over the past two years since the article published, much momentum has occurred with both vendors and retailers as they now embrace new, innovative ways to improve sell-through rates and drive inventory reduction after a few soft years in 2023 and 2024.
Who carries the inventory is becoming a bigger question for the industry? The vendor or the retailer?
In essence, it’s “musical plants” — and who will be left holding the plant when the music stops?
The Challenges
The 2024 IGC consumer survey conducted by Proven Winners shows that, according to the consumer, over 40% of the time, the retail store did not carry all of the items the customer was searching for during their visit, and nearly 70% of the consumers shop between two and five IGCs annually with 24% stating they visit five or more. How can an IGC create better loyalty and better availability to drive higher customer engagement and repeat purchases?
An IGC carrying everything “just in case” is neither practical nor profitable, drives higher labor and carrying costs, and increases the dump rate — not a healthy outcome for any retail brand.
Expecting a vendor/supplier to grow “just in case” varieties is equally problematic. Oftentimes, the grower ends up carrying the burden of unrealized sales — not a fair outcome for growers at all.
Borrowing from the musical “Hamilton,” “Son, buying is easy … selling is hard!”
So, the $64,000 question becomes, how does an IGC expand its inventory offering to the customer and improve the overall buying experience without growing its physical footprint or increasing its costs, while at the same time, how does the grower find a new sales channel to serve IGC customers and move more material to reduce expensive inventory?
The Solutions
Some of the brands mentioned in the original article are now offering white label, off-brand sites to move their inventory. A forward link to a virtual plant store is added to an IGC’s website, which drives their customers directly to the vendor’s e-commerce platform, which then fulfills the order directly to the IGC customer.
Like anything, there are pros and cons to this model; however, it is a solution that works well for some. Kudos to the brands who launched their own solutions early in the game and swung for the fences! Those industry-leading early adopters are producing some great early-inning runs.
Another model offers a cookie-cutter approach to IGCs’ e-commerce platform without freedom of choice on customized site design, vendors, products or pricing — a one-size-fits-all approach. As with the example above, there are pros and cons (and kudos) as well.
However, one vendor from my 2023 article saw the vision, put a plan together and is now changing the game — Willoway Nurseries.
Tom Demaline and team leveraged an existing order management and integration platform, OrderEase, and are now reshaping the industry by partnering and collaborating with IGCs to offer endless aisle, drop-shipping solutions.
Willoway has also partnered with another participating vendor, Plant By Number, to create awesome e-commerce garden collections. IGC customers can search nearly a dozen unique garden designs and have the plants (and a customized garden template from Plant By Number) shipped straight to their home for a weekend project, with care cards and instructions, on behalf of the IGC.
This is the future of the industry: Collaboration and partnerships with IGCs, vendors, suppliers. And the future is now.
Connecting the Dots
Willoway and Plant By Number have joined forces to create themed gardens for IGCs to offer their consumers to implement at home, including a Zen Garden and a Deer-Resistant Garden.
What would be even better? Imagine having a “display only” garden at your retail store, which a customer could want to purchase, so you walk them over to your garden center’s e-commerce site and show them all of the garden collections. They order the one they want and then have the materials drop-shipped directly to their home from the team at Willoway Nurseries.
One simple display. Reduced inventory. No more, “We don’t have all of those plants in stock.” Just a short walk, a click of a button, payment completed and the order is on its way. You simply load the soil and mulch into their vehicle and let the E-Commerce Connect Program do the rest.
This approach enhances the customer’s experience, embraces the convenience economy, improves your units per transaction/average transaction, lowers your inventory costs, improves your sales/labor ratio and allows you to compete directly with the big box stores — David’s slingshot to slay Goliath.
Smitty’s Garden Center in Fort Dodge, Iowa, is the very first IGC in North America to participate in this game-changing partnership program. Ellie Baedke said, “Our entire team is thrilled about the possibilities that the E-Commerce Connect Program will bring, allowing us to better serve our customers and expand our reach in the lawn and garden market.”
Allie Bast from Bast Brothers Garden Center in Mullica Hill, New Jersey, said, “We are so excited to have this connection with Willoway now and hope to see additional wholesale growers jump on board so that we can expand our online offering into other categories like houseplants and annuals.” FYI: The Plant Co. and more have already joined!
How E-Commerce Connect Works
An independent garden center can choose a template or use their existing e-commerce site through Shopify or WooCommerce, then set up and price their own curated collections of plants and products. Any supplier that uses OrderEase as its order management solution is accessible for IGCs. In just a few clicks the IGC is set up to sell any of the suppliers available products on their own website. The IGC has full control over all product choices, pricing, branding and vendors — all at an affordable price point and minimal startup effort.
Sunrise Marketing owner Kurt Fromherz, a WooCommerce/web developer, was introduced to the E-Commerce Connect Program at MANTS through Jessica DeGraaf of Proven Winners. Fromherz has always been on the cutting edge of technology in the garden center community and his Sunrise Marketing App Platform is used by many North American IGCs.
“What makes the E-Commerce Connect Program different is the platform,” he said. “Installation is the easiest method I have seen. We were able to onboard a new client in less than an hour. This is a program I can feel comfortable recommending to all of my clients.”
Another early adopter to the E-Commerce Connect Program is Raker-Roberta’s Young Plants, with its amazing new petunia ‘Firefly’ from Light.Bio. Voted one of Time Magazine’s top innovative products of 2025 and grown, among other locations, in Jerome, Idaho, by Jennifer Moss and her team at Moss Greenhouses, the petunia is now available for drop-shipping through Raker-Roberta’s for IGCs participating in the E-Commerce Connect Program.
“IGCs don’t always have abundant resources to pull off a full e-commerce solution to compete in today’s marketplace,” Moss said. “It is even tricky for growers in most cases. OrderEase gives an affordable option for them to still participate in the digital space while helping their actual customer with their garden needs. It is truly a win/win for all parties. Moss Greenhouses is excited to see where this grows and evolves. It is a great innovation and tool for the future.”
Not sure if your customers will be interested in the new plant varieties you see at the shows? Wondering if buying certain plants or products will offer a solid return on your investment? No worries. Your e-commerce site can become your test market with no out-of-pocket expense.
TDI Brands, a trusted partner to the IGC industry for over 29 years, is another super user of the OrderEase B2B platform and is now offering drop-shipping to participating independent garden centers in the E-Commerce Connect program, whether direct to store or to IGC customers.
In fact, to test the program, I ordered a yellow watering can from Sunnypoint Garden Center in Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, and it was drop-shipped to our door in Flagler Beach, Florida, from TDI Brands in Jasper, Indiana — truly game-changing for IGCs.
Holly Mundy, vice president of marketing and business development for TDI Brands, said, “The trend of e-commerce is only going up. There are still consumers who order online like they did during Covid. By offering E-Commerce Connect, garden centers can now provide a wider range of products to a wider audience.”
Offering a 24/7 endless aisle option where customers can buy on their time and on their terms will only strengthen the customer/IGC relationship, offer an innovative way to navigate around bad weather days and create stronger partnerships with suppliers and vendors.
I’ll close with what Rich Christakes of Alsip Nursery and Ship My Plants said. “Being in the plant e-commerce business for the long haul, across multiple brands, it made perfect sense for us to collaborate with OrderEase and Willoway. We love the access to deep and diverse inventory and it’s a ‘no brainer’ to connect with reputable partners who share our vision of getting plants to people who might not otherwise have easy access to them.”
As the music continues to play in the garden center retail space, whether staccato or legato, and the race for revenue and relevance accelerates, the only person who should be left holding the plant or product when the music stops is the customer!
Whether it was purchased the old-fashioned way at a brick-and-mortar store or the forward-thinking approach of E-Commerce Connect, the world is wide enough for both, and the customer is willing to wait for it — and pay for it.
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