With over 1,800 products offered on its website, Nature Hills is the largest online nursery in the US.

The collapse of Garden.com is one of the legendary downfalls of the Dot.com bust in the early 2000s. After a $42.9 million IPO in 1999, the online nursery retailer quickly fell apart.

By September of 2000, they announced a restructuring, cutting their workforce by 35%. By November they had announced a phased shutdown of the company.

It was around that time that two brothers in Omaha, Jeff and Bill Dinslage, decided to launch an online nursery business, Nature Hills.

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“We were so naive,” said Jeff Dinslage. “We were making sales, but the industry was tanking at the time.”

How Nature Hills started

Founders Jeff and Bill Dinslage had a background in reselling telecommunications products online–and brother who was selling conifers. That’s how they got the idea to put 15 different conifers online in late August 2001.

Right after Garden.com collapsed, many nurseries who worked for them went unpaid. Nature Hills had a difficult time getting anyone in the industry to listen to them. It wasn’t until 2008 that they were able to bring other nurseries on board to help fulfill orders.

Jeff Dinslage says he has analyzed the failure of Garden.com dozens of times. He recommends the case study “Garden.com – At The End of the Runway” from Tucks School of Business.

“They faced the same challenges we face today,” said Dinslage. “But the logistics and systems are more refined than they had in 2001.”

Instead of building what they thought nurseries wanted in terms of logistics, Nature Hills met with nurseries first and figured out what they wanted in a fulfillment system. Today they have 9 nurseries across the country that ship directly to the consumer, fulfilling orders for Nature Hills across 48 states.

Nature Hills has found its primary niche in shipping larger plants rather than smaller items. Their largest shipments are 7-gallon containers for plants that are 6 to 7 feet tall.

“We used to sell bulbs, and we saw sales decline rapidly,” said Dinslage. “For the segment that we sell to, they aren’t interested in buying that anymore. Why that is, I can only theorize.”

The unique challenges of shipping living things

One of the biggest issues with shipping plants is mitigating parcel damage. They add custom corrugation to every box in order to keep plants from getting loose.

“We fly out to every nursery to help them develop a custom box for each of the plants,” said Chris Link, Ecommerce Manager.

Along with shipping damage, some plants can’t be shipped into or out of certain states, so their system must check ZIP codes to comply with individual state laws.

Weather is another unique challenge for shipping living products.

“We have an eye on the Internet at all times, checking the 10-day forecast,” said Dinslage.

They often have to suspend shipping in July due to high temperatures. They also suspend shipping for their northern nurseries in mid-November due to the cold.

“This year is an anomaly,” said Jeff. “We’ve never shipped out this much material this late in the year before.”

It’s also important to ship products to customers right when they need them. They don’t want to ship plants that the customer has to take care of for months before planting.

“We want to ship our plants to a customer when they plant it,” Jeff said.

Managing expectations

Another issue the e-commerce nursery has to deal with are bad reviews, mainly from customers with unrealistic expectations. Some reviewers say they were shipped a dead tree, when they were shipped a bare root tree in dormancy.

“It does look like a bare stick with branches,” said Jeff. “We address that on our website, what they are purchasing. But if for some reason it doesn’t leaf out, we’ll replace it.”

Link compares it to the floral industry which has stubborn percentage of unhappy customers.

“If you look at 1-800-Flowers, they are big company that everyone knows, and their reviews look the same as ours in terms of positive and negative reviews,” said Link.

Dinslage says they are very sensitive to customer reviews.

“We want to provide a plant to consumers that makes them very happy. We have over 6,000-plus positive reviews through a third-party when people are asked to review our service after ordering [and months afterward],” said Dinslage.

In order to make sure customers are happy, Nature Hills turns down some opportunities.

“We receive numerous requests from a bride-to-be that wants to give a plant to everyone who attends their wedding,” said Dinslage. “We turn that business down because the expectations are so high. They need to go locally and pick out exactly what they are looking for.”

Growth ahead

With over 1,800 products offered on their site, Nature Hills is America’s largest online nursery. It may also be one of the few with their particular business model.

“To my knowledge, most of the other online nursery sites are doing their own fulfillment or the majority of the own fulfillment,” said Dinslage. “I believe we’re the only one out there under this model.”

With over 35% growth in retail sales, NatureHills.com is one of the largest accounts for FedEx in the state of Nebraska.

“[Our growth] can be attributed to new locations we opened in Alabama and California,” said Dinslage.

They’ve also seen success in more conversions and targeted traffic.

“We’re putting the right plants in front of the right people,” said Link.

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Ryan Pendell is the Managing Editor of Silicon Prairie News.