USA-based A24 Consulting today 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. It designers say that platform is designed to unburden garden centre owners. “We do all the work so they can make the money”.
The Certified Shopify Online Garden Center answers the question every garden center owner is asking: “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 the market intelligence of A24 Consulting, there is now a unified commerce stack that provides any local plant seller with a world-class solution for a new daily revenue stream without hours and hours of staff input.
Created to embrace the business model evolution of a local garden center and designed for product selling in 2025, each online store is a turn-key, hands-off solution branded for the local retailer.
No average ecomm tool
This isn’t your average ecomm tool, this is a comprehensive system including a fully developed and branded ShopifyPlus store, completely merchandised store with a 52-week assortment of high-quality gardening products direct-to-consumer fulfilled from best-in-class vendors, including ongoing seasonal management and product introductions. Added bonuses are managed email marketing to the retailer’s email list designed to provide a daily revenue stream, and personalised customer service tailored to each individual store.
When creating this system, A24 Consulting co-founders Clint Albin and Katie Elzer-Peters realised that they couldn’t just provide two or three parts of the ecommerce equation. They needed to handle the entire operation from start to finish in order to fulfill their mission: to reverse the loss of local plant retail businesses.
Fresh from the grower
Harnessing the power of Shopify, the definitive 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, Monrovia, Oasis Forage, Organic Plant Magic, The Holland Group and The Sill.
This supplier network spans the country and provides a practically endless aisle for independent garden retailers. It’s a phenomenal way to fill in gaps in inventory and provide on-site special ordering for customers.
Paired with managed marketing via the highest-rated enterprise digital marketing conversion platform, Bloomreach, and with customer care handled by A24 through the established customer service platform Gorgias, any local garden center can have access to a year-round weatherproof revenue stream for $3,500 per year plus a 10 per cent transaction fee on sales.
A fresh approach
According to Albin, building this commerce stack independently would cost $75,000 for the technology, $75,000 in employee oversight, and $125,000 in annual maintenance. “We have created a solution that is priced to be within reach of any sized garden center,” Albin says. “During the pandemic, the industry realised that local retail garden centers are designed to be effective as a cash-n-carry model; they are not designed to be commingled 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, says that the unified commerce stack approach puts their ecommerce marketing tool years ahead of email tools currently used in the industry. “Tools like MailChimp and Constant Contact are good for what they were designed to do—send a one-way message,” Elzer-Peters continues, “The type of marketing tool that retailers need now is one that is designed to send personalised recommendations based on a two-way flow of data between the customer and the ecommerce site. The Bloomreach tool can convert an email list of 5,000 into $260,000 in top line sales with a 1% conversion rate.”
Invitation to explore
The Certified Shopify Online Garden Center invites all retail garden centers to explore how to put the power of this technology behind their local brand and provide their customers the shopping experience they’ve come to expect from their favorite retailers. Visit A24 Consulting today and schedule a discovery call. View the flagship demo site, Laurel & Bee Garden and Goods.
About A24 Consulting
The Certified Shopify Online Garden Center is designed and powered by the market intelligence of A24 Consulting. A24 Consulting was founded in 2024 by retail industry experts Clint Albin and Katie Elzer-Peters to reduce the loss of local plant sellers and to make garden retail a more sustainable business model. “We believe that the world is a better place with a local garden center in every town in America,” says Albin. “And I want the owners of those retail locations to get a vacation,” says Elzer-Peters.
