Sell plants online and offline from one shared inventory
Plants are sold by week, size, pack and customer, not by a fixed price and a stock number. ECOM connects quotes, preseason bookings, standing orders, wholesale portals, the website and drop-ship channels to the same inventory, pricing and credit rules, and carries each order through to picking and delivery. ECOM can build the storefront or integrate the one you already run.
Conceptual diagram, not a product screenshot. Bookings, portal, retail and online orders pass availability, price, credit and allocation checks in order management, then flow to pick waves, drop-ship orders and invoices.
Overview
What is nursery ecommerce?
Nursery ecommerce is online and portal selling that reflects how plants are bought: by variety, size and pack, for a delivery or ship week, at customer-specific prices and terms, against availability that changes as crops grow and are lost. It extends from wholesale ordering for retailers and landscapers to storefronts for consumers and drop-ship orders from retailers and marketplaces, all connected to the ERP.
Sound familiar?
Why selling plants online is harder than selling boxed goods
Plants differ from boxed goods, and so do their buyers. These problems appear when the store and the ERP are not connected.
Customers see stock that does not exist
What you see. The website shows a count that was uploaded yesterday, and the greenhouse has since lost, held or reserved plants.
What it costs. Cancelled orders, apologies and customers who stop trusting the catalog.
Every wholesale customer has a different price
What you see. Program prices, volume tiers, promotions and terms live in the heads of the sales staff and in spreadsheets.
What it costs. Quotes that differ by who answers the phone, and invoices that need correcting.
Bookings and open orders drift apart
What you see. Preseason bookings, standing orders and new orders compete for the same batches without a common allocation.
What it costs. Double-promised plants and late discovery of shortfalls.
Online and wholesale draw from different inventory
What you see. The storefront and the ERP each hold stock, kept in step by uploads.
What it costs. Overselling during peak weeks and manual reconciliation afterward.
Live-plant shipping rules are tracked by memory
What you see. Weather holds, species restrictions by state and packaging rules for parcels are handled case by case.
What it costs. Dead-on-arrival claims, returned parcels and preventable replacement shipments.
What the operation needs
Three areas that sell the crop
Order management, the website and drop shipping share the same item, price, inventory and customer records, so a rule is set once.
01
Sales and order management
Capture orders from every channel and fulfil them against availability, price, credit and allocation rules.
Quotes
Preseason bookings
Standing and recurring orders
Allocations by week and customer
Substitution rules
Backorders
Customer-specific pricing and programs
Credit limits and payment terms
Orders from EDI, email, portal, phone and POS
Retail and POS integration
Multisite fulfillment
Order status and acknowledgments
Pots, trays and packs
Quantity multiples
Minimum orders
Delivery days
02
Website and ecommerce
Product-rich storefronts and B2B portals that read from the ERP and write orders straight back.
Product-rich pages with photos and care information
B2B and B2C on one platform
Customer accounts, ship-to locations and order history
Catalogs by customer or program
Availability by ready-to-sell week
Customer pricing and promotions
Cart, checkout and payments
Order tracking
Search by plant attributes such as size, light and hardiness zone
SEO-ready product pages
ERP-connected orders, inventory and customers
Existing storefront integration
03
Drop shipping
Serve retailers and marketplaces that sell your plants without holding them, and ship parcels the way live plants need.
Channel integration
Inventory synchronization
Order routing
Packaging rules for live plants
Parcel labels and tracking
Weather holds
Ship-to restrictions by state and species
Cancellations
Returns
Replacements
Dead-on-arrival claims with photographs
Storefront options
An ECOM-built storefront, or integration with the one you have
ECOM supports two paths. The right one depends on whether your current store works for your buyers.
ECOM-built storefront
ECOM designs and builds a wholesale (B2B) portal, a consumer (B2C) store or both, on ECOM order management and the ERP's items, prices, customers and availability. Customers see their own catalog, prices, terms and ship-to locations after sign-in, and orders enter the same flow as every other channel.
Integration with your existing storefront
If you already run a store you like, ECOM keeps it and connects it. Inventory and availability, prices, customer and ship-to data, orders and shipment confirmations move between the store, ECOM order management and your ERP through API, EDI or file exchange.
Marketplaces and retailer programs
Marketplace, drop-ship and retailer orders use the same order flow as storefront orders, with inventory feeds and ship confirmations going back to the channel.
Either way
Order management applies allocations, substitution and backorder rules, then sends orders on to picking and delivery. Which data moves in which direction, and how often, depends on the interfaces of your store and ERP. Not every update is instant.
Pots, trays and packs
Sell plants in the units your buyers order
Retail buyers order cases and carts, landscapers order pots and flats, and growers sell trays. The item record carries the sales units, the conversion between them and the rules that go with them.
Illustrative rules and examples, not recommended settings
Sell plants in the units your buyers order
Rule
What it does
Example
Sales units
Sells one item in more than one unit and converts between them.
A 4-inch annual sold as a single pot, a tray of 10 or a cart of 60 pots.
Quantity multiples
Accepts only quantities that make full trays, packs or layers.
A tray of 10 is ordered in multiples of 10, so a request for 25 becomes 30, or is declined, as your rule says.
Minimum orders
Sets a minimum by quantity, order value or item, by customer or program.
A minimum of 200 pots per delivery, or $500 per order for a landscaper account.
Delivery days
Offers only the delivery or ship days that fit the customer, route, order cutoff and ready-to-sell week.
A store delivered on Tuesdays and Fridays, with orders due by noon two days before.
Mixed assortments
Sells assortments in set mixes, or lets buyers choose within the tray or pack size.
A tray sold as a mix of 3 or 6 colors.
Your own units, multiples, minimums and delivery days come from your price lists, programs and routes.
Disconnected or connected
What changes when the storefront and the ERP are connected
This compares a storefront whose catalog, stock and customers are maintained separately from the ERP with one that is connected to it, whether ECOM builds the storefront or integrates yours. A storefront that is already integrated may avoid several of these issues.
What changes when the storefront and the ERP are connected
Area
Disconnected storefront and ERP
Storefront connected to the ERP
Availability
Stock is uploaded on a schedule and can drift from the greenhouse count.
Availability comes from batches and weeks in the ERP, with allocations and holds applied, and reaches the storefront at the interval the connection is set to.
Pricing
Wholesale prices and terms are maintained again in the store or handled by phone.
Customer prices, programs, credit and promotions come from the ERP records the sales team uses.
Customers
Online accounts are kept apart from the ERP's customers and ship-to locations.
Accounts, ship-to locations and order history come from the ERP and are shown to the customer.
Orders
Orders are exported or keyed into the ERP, then picked.
Orders enter the same flow as every other channel and go on to allocation and picking.
Product content
Descriptions and photos are kept in the store apart from the labels and retailer data.
One item record feeds the storefront, labels, catalogs and retailer feeds.
Other channels
Marketplaces and retail programs each need their own feed and process.
Drop-ship, marketplace and retailer orders use the same inventory and order flow.
This comparison describes architecture, not a measured result. Timing depends on how each connection is set up.
Typical selling situations in a nursery, not customer stories. Your own rules decide how each one is handled.
A landscaper orders at night
The situation. A landscape contractor needs 120 shrubs and 15 trees for a job next week, and wants to see what is available at the price agreed with you.
How ECOM helps. The portal shows availability by size and week, applies the customer's price level and terms, reserves the plants and sends the order into a pick wave.
What you gain. The order is placed without a call, and your team does not have to check a spreadsheet to promise it.
A store orders by the tray
The situation. A garden center orders 25 pots of an annual that is sold in trays of 10, on a program with a 200-pot minimum per delivery.
How ECOM helps. The portal applies the tray multiple, asks the buyer to choose 20 or 30, checks the minimum across the whole order and offers the next delivery day that fits the store route and the ready-to-sell week.
What you gain. Orders arrive in sellable quantities on a day you can deliver, without a call to correct them.
A preseason booking meets a short crop
The situation. A retail program booked 4,000 pots for the week before a holiday, and losses mean 3,500 will finish in time.
How ECOM helps. The booking is allocated to the batches that will be ready, the shortfall is visible, and substitution and backorder rules offer options before the shipping week.
What you gain. The customer receives a considered proposal rather than a short shipment.
A weather hold on a parcel order
The situation. A freeze is forecast along a parcel route, and consumer orders are due to ship that day.
How ECOM helps. Orders for the affected destinations are held, customers are notified according to your rules, and the shipments are released when the hold is lifted.
What you gain. Fewer dead-on-arrival claims and fewer replacement shipments.
ECOM building blocks
ECOM products for ordering, ecommerce and drop shipping
These products carry the order from capture through allocation, fulfillment, returns and reconciliation.
Product information, product photos and multi-location cloud inventory in one item record. Supports up to 200 product attributes and 20 photos per item.
Connect your existing storefront, marketplaces and ERP so orders, inventory and shipments move without re-entry.
Good to know
Scope and boundaries
How ECOM implements this
In discovery, ECOM reviews your current store, ERP and order channels, then confirms whether to build a new storefront or integrate the existing one, which data each connection exchanges and how often, and your selling units, minimums and delivery rules.
Shipping live plants
Rules that restrict where certain plants may be shipped differ by state and species. ECOM applies the rules you define; it does not decide what is lawful to ship.
What the storefront promises
Availability is as accurate as the production plan and the counts behind it. Weather and biology can still change what is ready.
How is an ECOM nursery website different from a standalone online store?
A store that keeps its own catalog and stock can work for simple selling. A nursery also needs availability by ready-to-sell week, customer-specific pricing and terms, allocations, ship-to rules for live plants and an order flow that continues into picking and delivery. ECOM either builds the website on the same records as the ERP, or integrates the storefront you already have, so those rules are applied once instead of being re-created in each system.
Can ECOM connect the online store we already have?
Yes. If your storefront works for your buyers, ECOM can integrate it with your ERP or with ECOM order management, so that inventory, prices, customers, orders and shipments move between them without re-entry. Your store keeps its own design and checkout. Which data moves in which direction and how often depends on the interfaces your store and ERP provide, and not every update is instant.
Can customers order in pots, trays or packs, with minimums and delivery days?
Yes. Items can be sold in the units your buyers use, such as pot, tray, pack, flat or cart, with the conversion between them. You can require quantity multiples (for example full trays only), set minimum orders by quantity or value, and offer delivery or ship days by customer, route and ready-to-sell week.
Can wholesale and retail customers use the same website?
Yes. B2B and B2C buyers can be served from one platform, each seeing the catalog, prices, terms and ordering options that apply to them after they sign in or check out.
How do preseason bookings work with plant inventory?
A booking reserves a quantity of a crop for a future week, against the production plan. As the crop grows, the booking is allocated to batches, and changes to the schedule or to losses show up as items to review rather than surprises on the loading dock.
What happens when the plants are not available?
Substitution, backorder and allocation rules you define decide whether to offer a different size or variety, hold the line for a later week or split the order. Customers can be notified according to the rules.
Can we drop ship live plants to consumers?
Yes. ECOM's drop-ship support covers channel integration, inventory synchronization, routing, packaging rules, parcel labels and tracking, weather holds, cancellations, returns and replacements. Ship-to restrictions by state or species are rules you define.
Which payment options are supported?
Checkout and payment provider connections depend on the storefront in use, and payment terms and credit limits for wholesale customers are applied to B2B orders.
Will the website help people find us in search?
The site is built with product pages that carry variety names, sizes, photos and care information, and with technical SEO such as crawlable links and structured data. Search results depend on many factors outside any platform's control.
Plan your nursery ordering and ecommerce
Tell us who orders from you, how orders arrive today and what you want your customers to see online.
