Monrovia’s Move To Online Sales Brings Response From Some Retailers

monrovia logoMonrovia has announced that it will launch an eCommerce portion of its website, selling its Secret Gardener Collection. The company says it plans to ship the plants to the customer’s local garden center and credit that garden center with the sale. You can read the full article from Greenhouse Grower’sister publication, Today’s Garden Center.

The feedback on the story was mixed, with some supporting Monrovia’s new plans and some questioning how it will affect the industry. Here’s what we heard from our readers on this story:

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“This program unfortunately will drastically decrease the perceived prices on all woody plants for all IGCs. Taking blind specialty inventory items and keystoning them is a shame. It will facilitate a competition to the lowest prices.”
– Brad S.

“The retail price of Monrovia plants sold online will vary by region and will be priced higher than the local IGC. This is in no way meant to ‘undercut’ our customers’ established retail price.”
– Pam Wasson

“They don’t get it. The IGCs, especially here in the Northeast, have moved on from the Monrovia Brand. They’ve lost their way.”
– Jake Pierson (on Twitter)

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“I love it! Monrovia is striving to keep up with the times and eCommerce is where it’s at. Also a win-win for the IGCs.”
– Ahmed Hassan (on Twitter)

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Avatar for Ryan Ryan says:

This is horrible for IGCs! Plants are not widgets. We are going to have to unload, water, answer questions, call the customer when their plants arrive, load, and take care any problems the customer has with these plants. They may say just refer the customer back to Monrovia if there is a problem, but that makes us look very bad. A single customer will think jeez those jerks don’t want to take two minutes to help me out, but in realty if we take two minutes (which is way less than we will actually take) for every sale Monrovia makes it is going to add up very fast. Not worth the credit we will receive to our Monrovia accounts.

Also, thanks Monrovia for not getting our input first and just telling us what we will be doing. Even in the letter you sent to garden centers you never once explained how we will benefit. Credit on our account does us no good when you are trying to take sales away from us. Eventually we will have more credit than we could ever spend, its like burying money and forgetting where you buried it.