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Products and Sources
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What makes PlantScout unique?For starters, it's the only free plant-finder in the U.S. (A few books and websites exist, but they require readers to purchase the book or pay an annual fee to access the website.) In addition, PlantScout is the only finder that:
PlantScout is based on a solid foundation of two extremely popular and informative features: PlantFiles and the Garden Watchdog. The ever-growing PlantFiles contains more than 150,000 different plants, accompanied by tens of thousands of images and comments submitted by real-life gardeners. The Watchdog has established itself as the industry leader in providing the largest directory of mailorder gardening companies combined with a public forum for gardeners to share their buying experiences. More than 70% of the comments are accompanied by a positive rating, making the Watchdog the place to turn for the inside scoop on the best-rated gardening companies. The ratings also give you the track record of each vendor that offers the plant you want, so you can make an informed buying decision. Do I have to be a subscribed member to use this feature?No! PlantScout is open to any user who visits our site.However, if you wish to interact with the Garden Watchdog or PlantFiles you need to register for a free username before you can leave feedback or comments. Subscribers also have the ability to conduct unlimited searches throughout PlantFiles while non-subscribed members have limited searching ability. I am not getting any search results - help!Plant names are listed in singular tense, so a search for "sunflowers" won't work, but a search for "sunflower" will.Also remember that PlantScout is designed to help you find vendors selling a specific plant. Searching for "tree" or "groundcover" or "flower" isn't going to yield results, but a search for "Poplar" or "Sedum" or "Daffodil" will give you many search results to look through. If you're looking for Salvia farinacea, using the full species name will help you target in on what you're seeking, but if you don't know how to spell "farinacea", then try searching for "Salvia", which will allow you to browse through the various species and cultivars until you find the one you're looking for. How can I find a plant if I don't know its name?PlantScout lets you search for plants by common or scientific name. You can also browse through each vendor's list and perhaps seeing the name will jog your memory.The Advanced Search feature of PlantFiles can help you locate a plant by its characteristics (height, bloom color, etc.) We also have a terrific ID forum where gardeners can post a description or image of their plant, and others will help them identify it, usually within a few hours. These features are available to our subscribed members. Are these the only companies selling this plant?Probably not. But finding other sources is a bit like looking for a needle in a huge haystack. Some vendors have their catalogs online; some don't. A few catalogs have been indexed by search engines, but many have not. That makes it nearly impossible to comparison shop or even know who's selling a particular item.One of the most frequent questions our helpdesk receives is "Where can I buy this plant?" and years of trying to answer those questions one-on-one led us to develop PlantScout. Now everyone can get the answer to this question at their fingertips. If your favorite vendor hasn't joined PlantScout yet, encourage them to sign up soon! I'm a vendor; why should I join PlantScout?PlantScout is the single best way for customers and mailorder companies to find one another, and can have an immediate impact on your ability to reach customers.After more than four years of building and maintaining one of the largest databases of plants in the world, along with creating the single largest world-wide directory of mailorder gardening companies, we focused our creative energy on combining the information from each, to create the best possible way to answer the age-old question of "where can I buy this specific plant?" It's a question we hear quite often from the millions of gardeners who visit our site each year. When you join PlantScout, these motivated buyers will be able to immediately reach you for their seed, bulb and plant purchases. As with the Garden Watchdog, PlantScout is open to all users (there is no subscription required for customers to access Plantscout.) Once you sign up, your entire inventory can be entered into PlantScout quickly and easily. We will be happy to upload the data you provide to us in a simple spreadsheet format or we can extract and upload your data for you. We also offer a user-friendly company interface, which allows you to:
We provide ongoing support to participating companies:
Based on the success of PlantFiles and Garden Watchdog, we anticipate PlantScout will be used by hundreds of thousands of users during the 2007 buying season. The annual cost to enroll is based on the number of products you wish to list (you may choose to include your entire inventory, or a portion of it - whatever makes the most sense for your business.) The following chart shows the price for each tier:
Signing up for PlantScout is quick and easy - you'll find a link on your company's Garden Watchdog entry or contact us for assistance. You may also telephone us at 1-615-896-0961 for more information. I'm a small vendor; will PlantScout help me reach customers?PlantScout is designed to level the playing field for large and small vendors. When a user searches for a plant, they are provided an alphabetical listing of every vendor who carries that item. For the large companies, their customers are spared the frustration of thumbing through a huge catalogue or searching around a vast website. For the smaller vendors, the customer doesn't know (or probably care) that you offer just one cultivar of this plant, as long you're offering the one they're seeking.By tiering the pricing, (see above) vendors are given the opportunity to participate in PlantScout for a nominal fee relative to the size of your offerings. We believe all vendors will find this is the absolute best value for your marketing dollar, whether you're a small vendor filling a unique niche in the horticultural trade or you offer thousands of species and cultivars. What should my spreadsheet of products look like?The spreadsheet format is very simple. It consists of five columns - one each for genus, species, cultivar name, the product(s) you're offering (seed, plant, bulb and/or cutting.), and an optional field containing a direct URL to the product itself on your website. Here's an example:
If you have any problems providing your data in this format, please contact us and we'll be happy to provide technical assistance to get your data loaded quickly and easily. |
