The Certified Shopify Online Garden Center provides local retailers with ecommerce tool

A24 Consulting has announced the official launch of The Certified Shopify Online Garden Center, a comprehensive, fully managed direct-to-consumer selling and marketing platform for all local garden center businesses.

The Certified Shopify Online Garden Center answers the question: “How do I add an ecommerce revenue stream to supplement my brick-and-mortar sales and make the most money with the least amount of hassle?” Through its market intelligence, A24 Consulting offers a unified commerce stack that provides any local plant seller with a solution for a new daily revenue stream from ecommerce.

Created to embrace the business model evolution of a local garden center and designed for product selling in 2025, each online store is turnkey and branded for the local retailer, with features including:

• A fully developed and branded ShopifyPlus store completely merchandised with a 52-week assortment of high-quality gardening products direct-to-consumer fulfilled from best-in-class vendors
• Managed email marketing to the retailer’s email list
• Personalized customer service tailored to each individual store

When creating this system, A24 Consulting Co-Founders Clint Albin and Katie Elzer-Peters realized they couldn’t just provide two or three parts of the ecommerce equation. They needed to handle the entire operation from start to finish.

Harnessing the power of Shopify, a global selling platform, each Certified Shopify Online Garden Center is fully merchandised by top-of-the-line growers, fulfillers and manufacturers, including Cavano’s Perennials, CobraHead Tools, Costa Farms, Easy to Grow Bulbs, Gardener’s Supply Company, Hoffman Nursery, Live Good Logistics, Oasis Forage Products, Organic Plant Magic, The Holland Group and The Sill. This network spans the country.

Paired with managed marketing via a digital marketing conversion platform, Bloomreach, and with customer care handled by A24 through the established customer service platform Gorgias, local garden centers can have access to a year-round weatherproof revenue stream for $3,500 per year plus a 10% transaction fee on sales.

According to Albin, building this commerce stack independently would be a six-figure cost when considering website management, maintenance and buildout.

“We have created a solution that is priced to be within reach of any sized garden center,” Albin said. “During the pandemic, the industry realized that local retail garden centers are designed to be effective as a cash-n-carry model; they are not designed to be co-mingled with a pick-n-pack model. Now they can have the revenue from ecommerce without the internal operational conflicts needed to put a plant in a box.”

Elzer-Peters said the unified commerce stack approach puts their ecommerce marketing tool years ahead of email tools currently used in the industry.

“The type of marketing tool that retailers need now is one that is designed to send personalized recommendations based on a two-way flow of data between the customer and the ecommerce site," Elzer-Peters said. "The Bloomreach tool can convert an email list of 5,000 into $260,000 in top line sales with a 1% conversion rate.”

Visit A24 Consulting and view the flagship demo site, Laurel & Bee Garden and Goods, to learn more.