Another No-Brainer Moneymaker

Ellen C. Wells

About a month ago, I had some really fun conversations with industry folks about their go-to methods for making money. The results ended up in the May issue of Green Profit.

Actually, that’s not completely true. I didn’t have room to fit one strategy, related to me by Valerie Nalls of Nalls Produce (and coincidentally the Young Retailer Award winner from 2015). Valerie had a suggestion for creating packages:

“When I had asclepias come in last summer, I sent out an email that said, ‘Asclepias are in, here’s what’s so cool about them, etc. Click here to order your Monarch Package.’ I wasn’t interested in taking pre-orders for one-off sales or single plants, but I was taking pre-book for packages.

“I’d put together four or five plants so that it was a $50 to $75 package instead of $15. And I didn’t have so much work to do keeping track of the one-off pre-order sales. I was able to move more product at one time. I could move more incarnata instead of tuberosa. If they came in and picked it up off the shelf themselves, they would have taken all tuberosa. I’m able to control my margins; maybe I’m able to find incarnata for a little lower wholesale price and I can keep my margins up when I bundle it all together.”

Another benefit of these packages is something I call the “Hey, wait—where’s mine?” factor. Turns out that when these packages were lined up and set aside with the customers’ names on them, other folks walking by would be intrigued about the offer. So Valerie was able to sell more! GP