Initial construction has been completed on a Web site that will bring together every provincial Nursery Trades Association across Canada.
Buyers sourcing plant material or other industry related products or services can now do this from one on-line Web location www.canadanursery.com
Visitors to the site will be able to search for plant materials or growers or landscape specialists in several different ways, by plant, by province or by grower.
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Quill Services Completes Web Site for New York Based Seed Distributor
Quill Services Ltd., has completed the construction and design for the World Wide Web site for Sheffield's Seeds Co. Inc. of Locke, NY. The Web site allow buyers of horticultural seeds to quickly locate specific seeds from a variety of unique attributes. The URL for the site is <http://www.sheffields.com/>
Richard Sheffield, President of Sheffield's Seeds commented "We wanted to build a Web site that was easy for our customers to use, and that provided them with the most up-to-date information. The site needed to offer our clients the ability to perform sophisticated searches using attributes such as seed source, germination, hardiness and availability. These were particularly important to large institutions and grow operations."
The Web design and implementation utilizes Quill Services' unique G.A.M.E. Plan© methodology to ensure site value is optimum and to keep the site easy to use and intuitive. The site is based on extensive database information developed in-house by Sheffield's Seeds, which in turn is used to create a new Web page "on the fly" for each search item requested by a visitor to the site.
Trevor Inkpen, Quill Services President commented "This was a unique site for us to build, our client knew exactly what they wanted and it was up to us to create it. We are very pleased with the end result, we have provided Sheffield's with the most valuable Seed-Related Web site on the Internet today. It is easy for them to up-date their information, which means their clients will have access to the latest pricing and extensive details on all seed purchases.”
Inkpen went on to say that "Our specialty is designing data-base driven Web Sites for organizations that currently use catalogues or distribute volumes of printed information to their clients. Our solution provides up-to-date information to the customers and seamless means for buyer/seller communications, all in a cost effective manner.”
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How to Know What to Grow
One of the eternal questions on every growers mind is ‘what should I be growing for next year ?’, and probably the most important. The answer to the question can often lie in historical records. What this means is that if we know the history of something we can often detect new and future trends.
It is the new and future trends, combined with the historical knowledge of our own businesses that help to guide us in making future business decisions. The USDA spends a lot of time and energy polling different agriculture sectors to determine what productions are like, and comparing that to previous years figures. All this information is what helps determine trends that are invaluable for future predictions of knowing what to grow.
For example we know that flowering material and foliage materials gained 2% in 1997 over ‘96 to recording $701 $501 billion in sales respectively. But what were the growth products. Bedding and garden plants, according to USDA, drew a value of $1.57 billion in ‘97. This accounted for 47% of the wholesale price for all floriculture crops. The states which lead this production were California, Florida, Texas and Ohio, which accounted for 42% of the production.
The Winners; plants that did well were Impatiens, I. wallerana grew 9% and New Guinea slightly less. Also very strong were Hanging Baskets, which accounted for $186 billion, or an astounding 12% of the total bedding and garden total. Other plants that did well were Orchids and Azaleas, and close behind them were Cyclamens and Kalanchoes.
The Losers in ‘97 were Standard Chrysanthemums, down 31%, and Carnations, down 28% over ‘96. Easter Lilies were off, as were cut foliages.
Based on only this small ‘snap-shot’ of what is happening in the industry we can still see some trends, even at the plant level. Given a full report, industry wide, it would go a long way for any Grower to help predict the future and knowing what not (and what to) grow.
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Companies Abandoning the Internet?
This was the title of a News Article published across North American Newspapers recently. Some companies that have invested huge amounts of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, have found that in some cases their investments have not paid off. Why? Because they have failed to plan properly. Some have put too much information on their Web sites, made it hard to find, not updated it regularly, and have lost all touch with WHY anyone would visit their Web site in the first place. Even with all of this, most of these organizations are NOT abandoning their Web sites, they are revisiting them to make them more effective and useful, and doing what they should have done in the first place, developed a plan for their sites.
The fact is, more and more organizations are having Web sites constructed to ensure their products and services are advertised in as many places as possible. The Internet is a very cost effective medium, but in order to get the most out of it, every organization needs to plan what they will do with it and how.
At Quill Services, we spend over 80% of our time redoing existing Web sites for organizations. Our approach of using the "Quill G.A.M.E. Plan" (goals, audience, message, effectiveness) is the mechanism that focuses business offerings with client need. The Internet business is no different than any other business, good planning brings increased sales and growth, it simply takes an understanding of the business.
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How To Find Plants
(Victoria, BC) Quill Services has acquired a Plant Database containing listings of upwards of 6,500 different commercial plants. This new addition to their lineup allows them even more flexibility in building Nursery Industry Web sites or modifying existing Web sites with "PLANT SEARCH by COMPANY" features. Visit the Demonstration Site to see what can be done.
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Getting in on the Ground Floor
Statistics Approx. No. of Users as % % of Businesses
Internet Users of Population on the Internet
World Wide 23.0M 0.4% .1%
USA 15.0M 5% 2 - 5%
Canada 1.2M 6% 7 - 9%
Garden / Nursery less than 2000 on the Web less than 1%
The above statistics have been rendered down from a number of sources, and represent approximations of Internet usage among various groups.
The good news is that in the Nursery Trades Business, if you were to implement a Web site now for your business, you would be one of the organizations to benefit from being "first onboard". From our surveys of attendees at FarWest and CanWest, we have found that the customers (buyers, retail nursery owners, landscapers) are way ahead of growers in adopting the Internet as a way to investigate their purchases. It's no longer a case of "If we build it they will come"... your customers are already there, waiting for you.
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Quill Services Guest Speakers
Colin Knecht was a guest speaker at the British Columbia Nursery Trades Convention in Vancouver. Topic for the day is "How Can An Internet Site Benefit My Business".
Mr. Knecht is an acknowledged Public Speaker on a variety of topics including "Staff Hiring", "Sales and Marketing Training", and "Building Your Business's Morale", and "Your Company and the Internet".
When questioned about the event, Knecht commented, "Over the past year, we have worked with a lot of the growers in Oregon, Washington State and BC, so I am looking forward to providing them with information they can use in their businesses right away".
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The GAME Plan
If you are a sports enthusiast, you will know the importance of a game plan, and if you are a coach, little league or major league, you know that every game needs some kind of a plan before you start. The reason for this is that you want your team to win, or at least to have a good showing. Having a plan will assist the coach and the players because they will all know HOW to carry out their roles so that they all work in concert with one another and not at odds with each other.
Building a Web site is no different than coaching a team. Quill Services has developed a very comprehensive system to help organizations establish the Ifs, Hows, Whens, and Whos of implementing a Web site. The GAME Plan stands for Goals, Audience, Message, and Effectiveness. These four critical elements are mandatory for any company contemplating building a Web site. Their importance cannot be overstated because they will constitute the foundation on which the site will be built. Just like building a house, the foundation must be strong enough to support the house, AND allow for any future modifications or changes to the house without having to tear it down and rebuild it each time.
Planning is the first step and the one step that most organizations overlook in building a Web site. We can all take a lesson from the Sports Coach; plan our game and work our GAME Plan.
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Public Transportation
What do Transit Buses and Plants have in common? The answer to this question is probably something you would never guess, the answer is ... Quill.
OK, so what's the catch you ask? Well, Quill Services has just been awarded the contract to rebuild the Web site for BC Transit. This is a very aggressive project, and includes developing an on-line database so bus riders can log onto the Internet and decide what bus to take to get to their destinations. This will be among the first of the Public Transport Web sites anywhere in the world that will have such a database search feature.
Quill Services was selected out of a market of well over 100 Web companies from all over the Pacific Northwest. So why was Quill awarded the contract? The determining factors were price and expertise. We were one of the only companies who understood the project, and the ONLY company who could accomplish putting the site together. We came in at a price that was less than many of our competitors, because we could implement the site quickly and so save time and expense. (note: You can now see the new BC Transit website at <http://www.transitbc.com>)
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What Business Does a Grower's Association Have on the Net?
The fundamental purpose of a Grower's Association is to help get members' plants onto buyers' orders. Buyers of wholesale plant material ask one important question: "How can I find the plants to fill my order, in the fastest and most convenient way?"
Associations help with this process by publishing catalogs, undertaking industry advertising, trade shows, supporting member growers with shipping, training and marketing programs, and other group services.
The next step in putting buyers together with members is to get plant availability information right in front of the buyer. This is a job that is well suited to the Internet, as the World Wide Web does not have the cost-of-distribution problems of printing, mailing and faxing.
In order to give buyers effective access, the buyer must be able to search for plants by name, and search for growers by different criteria. This is done through the use of a database driven Web site.
An association site is the lowest-cost way for a grower to participate in the Web - both in terms of the growers' share of the Association site development costs, and in the advertising and listing services that the grower can access through the Association site at a much lower cost than setting up individually.
Business-to-business commerce on the Internet is expected to grow to over 200 billion dollars per year by 1999. The Grower's Associations who enter the Web now will be giving their members an affordable entry into this business.
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I'm Not Connected to the Internet - What Good is an Internet Site to ME ?
You probably don't own a printing press either, but I'll bet you advertise in the newspaper from time to time? The point is that at its very basic usage, the Internet is a place to advertise your business, in full colour, 24 hours a day, to potential buyers all across the country.
At a more advanced usage the Internet can be used to communicate with your buyers, receive orders, promote specials, provide information, and let new customers find YOU. And, unlike any other advertising medium, the distribution cost is negligible -- whether 10,000 or 100,000 potential customers see your site, the cost to you is the same.
If you don't have a computer, or are not familiar with the Internet, you'll need a partner who can build and manage an Internet advertising presence for you that fits with your business goals, and accommodates the types of customer contact that works best for you. One option is an Email to Fax gateway -- your customers can send you Email, and those messages will appear on your office fax machine.
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What If I've Already Got a Web Site?
There are several questions to ask about an existing Web site:
1) Is it making you money, saving you money, or costing you money?
2) Does it effectively put across the message that you want to your audience?
3) Is the site easy for you to maintain with fresh information weekly?
4) How are buyers locating your site?
Our customers hire us to make their Web sites more effective. We do this by redesigning the site, making it friendlier for the buyers to use, and ensuring that Internet searches result in the site showing up in the upper group of listings.
A Web site must operate as an integral part of your marketing and communications plan. We can work with you to make sure that you are getting the most out of it.
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1998 US Floriculture Estimated to be $4.8 Billion (Based on USDA data - Washington DC)
The wholesale value of the floriculture (ornamental horticulture) industry is estimated to be approximately $4.8 billion in 1998. These figures are based on projections from previous years, and year -over-year gains.
The ten states which account for over 66% of the output of greenline stocks are: California, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, Oregon, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and New York.
One interesting note is that the other states actually had a much higher growth rate year-to-year than the top ten.
Figures also show that production has gone up while the number of growers has seen a net decrease nationally, putting more pressure on the remaining growers. The actual number of growers is down by almost 400 (net) in the latest available reports, leaving the grower count somewhere around 9,750.
The US continues to be a net IMPORTER of greenline materials, with imports estimated in ‘98 to be $1.2 billion while exports are expected to reach $260 million according to USDA sources.
Employment in the horticulture industry continues to climb in both full time and seasonal jobs, which probably accounts for the fact that there are fewer growers, yet production has increased.
In general, floriculture continues to climb in gross value, employment and net output, with future years looking increasingly bright.
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