Everything Leads to ECommerce

The old media model was all based on advertising. Companies created magazines, newspapers and broadcast programs as a sort of bait - all that tasty content was meant to lure eyeballs. Those eyeballs could then be sold to the advertisers looking to get just a few minutes of attention. But the web turned this model on its head. No longer could sites depend on ads alone. What the web made possible was a new model, a model that depends on merchandising ease. If a site writes about something, it can sell it too. It's as simple as that. Does the site feature a certain printer? Offer a one-click link to buy that printer. The beauty of this system is that it works for anything you can buy, from books to cars to vacations. The key is to make this model work for what you're selling, and Garden.com has done that with consummate grace. The largest web gardening supplies and content site has turned a good idea into a multimillion dollar brand in just five years. How'd they do it? By integrating commerce opportunities into every possible place on the site. CEO Cliff Sharples explains how.

Eke Out a Percentage

Like many other web businesses, Garden.com keeps costs down by never dealing with inventory. "We buy products wholesale, sell them at retail, and we don't hold inventory on the 20,000 SKUs that we sell," Sharples says. "We have what we call a virtual warehouse model." Garden.com has created its own system, called Trellis, which automates distribution of lawn and garden products. "We now have over 85 suppliers linked in electronically where we do all of our communication and the whole order management side of the system," Sharples says. "So suppliers can do everything. They can upload new products. We have realtime inventory and availability with all the growers and suppliers. They download on a daily basis what shipments they should do that day. They even print out the packing slip and the printing label that goes on the box." Meanwhile Garden.com gets a percentage of every sale made on the site. Nice, huh?

Put Ecommerce Everywhere

Don't make your customers hunt around to find what they want to buy - integrate content and commerce. "We have a tight blending between content, community and commerce, where we actually develop a tremendous amount of content," Sharples says. All that content attracts plenty of visitors - Garden.com then makes it easy for them to buy. The site is divided into four areas, each with its own commerce strategies. "The first is shopping," Sharples says. "The primary way people buy plants on the website is a system called Plant Finder where basically you say, 'Here's my ZIP code. I have full sun. I have blue and yellow flowers and I would love it if hummingbirds were attracted to my backyard.' That generates a list of plants that you can now shop from and know you'll be successful with." The next section is garden design. Garden.com offers applications where users can plan out their gardens onsite. "You can lay out a garden graphically, drag and drop plants, pull up standard design templates and customize it to your needs, and then hit an order button and have that whole garden shipped to you via FedEx in time for planting," Sharples says. In the community section, Garden.com offers further opportunities. "For example, a gardening expert from a certain region in the country may come on and do a chat. People can log on and learn about great plants for that area. Or we have virtual book signing parties where you can chat with a famous gardening author and then buy a signed, autographed copy of their book," Sharples says. The last area, content, is Garden.com's major draw and the main moneymaking area of the site. Why? Everything written about on Garden.com is for sale onsite. "We've created a vast product line now of 20,000 and growing SKUs. The editors are virtually unfettered as to what they want to highlight and publish and write about because we are pretty much carrying everything," Sharples says. Garden.com has managed to turn content into merchandising - could your business do the same? By integrating content and commerce you can draw traffic and make money too. The gardening space is Garden.com's domain - what's yours?