Monrovia Nursery's latest scheme

Monrovia Nurseries has come up with yet a new scheme they hope independent garden centers (IGC's) will jump on. According to Garden Centers Magazine,“Monrovia Nursery is launching an e-commerce website by mid-January 2014, and consumers will be able to buy plants directly from the company. But Monrovia won’t ship the purchased plants to gardeners’ homes. Instead, the California-based nursery will deliver the plants to participating independent garden centers, which will then distribute them to customers.”

The customer chooses the plants at the Monrovia website. The plants are pre-priced according to what Monrovia feels is an “appropriate retail price”. The plants are then shipped to the local IGC for pick-up by the end customer. According to David Kirby, vice president of sales at Monrovia,“The plants will be delivered directly to the stores, and the garden centers will receive the normal retail markup from the sale. Once consumers purchase the plants, they’ll receive a message indicating that Monrovia will ship them to the local IGC once they have finished growing and are in prime condition. The plants will be delivered between March and May, have a label with the gardener’s name, a thank you tag and a fresh, clean container.”

Of course Monrovia hopes IGC’s will jump on board with this. It was IGC’s who tried to help Monrovia out of a jam just a couple of years ago, but to no avail. Monrovia threatened to go out of business or into the chain and box stores if IGC's didn't buy more plants. Many IGC’s did buy extra plant stock, but to no avail. Turns out Monrovia had been planning on going into the chain stores all along, and used the IGC’s long standing relationship of support to sell a few more plants. Monrovia eventually headed to Home Depot. These day's they sell their plants through Lowe's.  Why wouldn't Monrovia eventually just sell and ship the plants directly to the end customer, keeping all the profit?

I have followed and reported on Monrovia for years. Monrovia is doing exactly what is to be expected these days as the horticultural trade continues to fragment, and shrink. It's the future, and it would be unwise of them not to at least look into it. However, expecting the (IGC) to help them out again? Seems a bit of a reach. How does that saying go? “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”.

The competition may be hard to spot

It's easy in our trade to point at the mass merchants as the prime competition for smaller independent garden centers. When you go to Home Depot or Lowe's and see the line of people snaking out the door on a sunny weekend, you might think, "That's where all my customers went".  After all, the box stores most resemble our brick and mortar operations in that you have to go to the store and buy stuff.

What we need to notice is not so noticeable. It's the power of The Internet to draw business from your store. You don't see the people who now buy their fertilizer online instead of from you. They might still shop at your store, but the total sale might be smaller since their gardening dollars are being used to buy more stuff online. It will become increasingly probable that the customer will still come to your store to buy some potting soil for the citrus tree they bought online. They might still come to your store for advice, for the succulents they bought online. They don't need fertilizer since the succulent place sold them some. Of course, as soon as they can get real time advice online they won't even need to come into your store and bug you with their questions.

This could be quite depressing for the small garden shop, or it could be invigorating depending on how you look at it. What can I say? I do much of my shopping online now. I buy locally roasted coffee online. I support a local business this way, and get really great coffee beans shipped to my door. This doesn't have to be the end of the small, local garden shop. People do want to support smaller local businesses, but only if they do it better than larger concerns. We worry that we can't compete with the bigger players online. That assumes that those already online are doing it right. What if you could take the the small garden shop concept and offer it to more potential customers online?

Your biggest competitor could be another small garden shop that decided instead of fighting change, to roll with it. They offer the same great service you do, but to a larger audience. They ship quick, offer free real time advice, and enjoy the good will of customers who feel they are supporting a small, well run operation. Sure it would be nice to have that fertilizer customer come into your brick and mortar store. They would be able to enjoy the ambiance, and maybe see some other stuff they want. You know what? They just want to get that fertilizer. They don't have time to come and visit your store. If you don't make it easy to  buy it from you, they will buy it somewhere else that is more accommodating to their needs.