How Greenhouse Growers Are Overcoming Major Shipping Challenges in E-commerce

Plants at Costa for eCommerce;

The new 90,000-square-foot e-commerce facility at Costa Farms in Miami, FL is packed with plant varieties and shipping containers. The warehouse is cleared out for shipments every week. Photo: Janeen Wright

Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a three-part print and digital series on e-commerce. Watch for an article next month on labor challenges and solutions.

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In a world where technology creeps into every aspect of life, horticulture is no exception. Some growers across the country have engaged in e-commerce sales since 2010, while others jumped on the bandwagon when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. The post-COVID world shows more customers than ever before are interested in buying plants online. They prefer the ease and convenience of having a plant delivered to their doorstep.

When the pandemic began in 2020, garden centers scrambled to sell their plants online rather than in-store and came up with contactless, drive-thru pick-up plans. For the last two years, retailers and growers were forced to revisit how they sell their plants. Many found that online sales are the way of the future, but not without their challenges. Growers note that weather and delivery problems may impact customer satisfaction, so they prepare for the worst before plants are shipped.

“More dangerous than the weather sometimes is the guy carrying the boxes,” says Tom Watson, Director of Marketing and E-commerce for The Perennial Farm in Glen Arm, MD.

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E-commerce Revenue on the Rise

Growers are reporting an increase in their revenue and number of orders through e-commerce platforms. Bert Hucks, Vice President and General Manager of the E-commerce Division at Costa Farms in Miami, FL, says the company’s e-commerce division has doubled its revenue on average every year for the last five years. Costa, which has 48 million square feet of controlled-environment production, sells plants wholesale to retail channel partners and direct to consumer via Shop.CostaFarms.com.

From 2012 to 2020, Bonnie Plants’ e-commerce division has grown 50% to 100% per year, according to Sid Phelps, Director of E-commerce Operations and Fulfillment. From 2019 to 2020, the onset of the pandemic, Phelps reported e-commerce growth of 600%. Bonnie Plants, headquartered in Union Springs, AL, uses a direct-to-consumer business model and drop shipping for its retail partners. Its plants are available on BonniePlants.com. The operation houses 15.9 million square feet of controlled-environment production.

Watson says 5% to 10% of The Perennial Farm’s revenue comes from e-commerce platforms. It ships 500 to 700 online orders per day for direct-to-consumer fulfillment. The Perennial Farm’s plants are available on PerennialFarmMarketplace.com. Watson says all of the operation’s customers who place orders online are outside of its typical delivery area. He says plants are shipped to independent garden centers, landscape companies, and houses in rural areas, offering an alternative to the customer instead of making a long drive to a garden center.

Packaging at Groovy Plants Ranch

Co-owner of Groovy Plants Ranch Liz Hughes says customers highlight their excellent packaging when leaving reviews on Etsy. Photo: Groovy Plants Ranch

Liz Hughes, co-owner of Groovy Plants Ranch in Marengo, OH, ships plants direct-to-consumer. Orders may be placed on GroovyPlantsRanch.com and Etsy. Groovy Plants ships 300 to 600 packages per week. Shipping plants is not a new concept for growers who sell rare plants, Hughes says, because a specific agave or succulent, for example, is not sourced locally.

The growers use the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx to ship their online orders. Costa Farms, Bonnie Plants, and The Perennial Farm also sell plants on Amazon.

Weather Poses Challenges

No matter their size, growers are learning to overcome challenges posed by Mother Nature. Hughes of Groovy Plants Ranch, which has 20,000 square feet of controlled-environment production, says that the biggest challenges regarding shipping plants are weather-related. The easiest way to overcome these obstacles is to prepare in advance and mitigate the risks to the plants. She mentions the wide range of temperatures plants may experience in Ohio, noting a recent change from 17°F on a Monday to 70°F on Wednesday.

It is commonplace for growers to use heat packs that last for one to three days in boxes to keep plants warm until they reach their destination. They are to be used sparingly, however, so plants do not overheat.

“If you ship with a heat pack and it’s too warm, it cooks the plant in the box,” Hughes says. “They arrive looking like wilted spinach.”

Growers report only shipping Monday through Thursday, so plants are not left sitting on trucks on weekends. This minimizes their exposure to cold temperatures, and they are less likely to dry out.

E-commerce teams also look at the weather in advance. Growers like Costa and Groovy Plants Ranch use software to review the temperature of different regions by ZIP code to determine if their plants need heat packs. Watson notes that his team uses cold packs to keep plants cool in hot, dry regions. His business has 500,000 square feet of controlled-environment production.

Prep Plants for Transit

Aside from the weather, there are a myriad of other obstacles growers avoid when shipping their plants. For example, plants are left in a box for several days during shipping but need to be exposed to air. The Perennial Farm uses boxes with airholes to allow the plant to breathe.

“There are a lot of things you have to watch out for when it comes to the weather and taking a live good and putting it in a box, essentially sealed airtight, when your product wants to breathe,” Phelps says.

Despite the care growers provide at the greenhouse, growers cannot control what happens to the plants during delivery. They prepare for the worst by packaging as best they can. Companies reported going through multiple iterations of packing for several years until finding the right combination. To protect the soil, roots, and foliage, growers wrap their plants in plastic wrap, surround them with crinkle paper and leave no empty space in the cardboard boxes.

Watson discussed the shake test used at The Perennial Farm. Packers are required to shake the finished box. If the plant moves, they must pack it again. Bonnie Plants uses a drop test to refine any weak areas in the packaging. Phelps says Bonnie Plants’ customers call their boxes a mini greenhouse because it works as a protective clamshell for their plants.

One of the most important concepts to consider in a growing e-commerce market is invasive plants, diseases, and pests. Hucks says Costa is careful not to ship plants to states where they are not permitted because they are dangerous to the natural habitat. Growers must be diligent about only shipping properly grown, inspected, and certified plants into other states. Costa’s Senior Brand Marketing Manager Justin Hancock notes that the list of invasive plants changes every year.

“We don’t want to put a state’s ecosystem at risk. We also don’t want to make life hard for the agricultural inspectors across the country,” Hucks says. “It’s a new thing for us to ship plants one or two at a time into states. We don’t want to abuse that privilege as an industry.”

Mason Day, Director of Growth and Development at JR Peters, partnered with Seth Reed to create the GrowIt! App in 2014, which offered consumers information on potential plant purchases. Day says shipping plants is easier than expected and customers are willing to pay for a high-quality product.

“Consumers will pay for that convenience. Sure, they’re not going to spend $20 on shipping for a pack of petunias, but they may pay $20 on shipping for a $150 houseplant in a beautiful pot,” Day says. “It’s not something that’s out of the realm of possibilities.”

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