• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Library
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » How a Seattle Nursery Survived the Shift to Online Business
CASE STUDY

How a Seattle Nursery Survived the Shift to Online Business

Millennials Rekindle Demand for Plants, an Industry Ripe for Disruption
House plants hang in a window. Photo: Shutterstock.
August 1, 2022
Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain

The pandemic forced Plant Shop to transition quickly to a delivery model. A software application was the solution to optimizing the daily routing plan.  

When the “walk-in” experience is no longer feasible, even small neighborhood businesses must adjust.

Founded in 2017, the Seattle-based Plant Shop spent its first three years relying almost entirely on foot traffic and personal visits by customers. Then came COVID-19, and like virtually every retail operation of any size, it had to shift to online sales to survive 

“In the span of a week or so, we had to go from being 95% in-person to 100% online,” recalls owner Ryan Tansey. “It was the only opportunity we had to keep the lights on.”

In the early months of the pandemic, few customers were interested in ordering online and picking up at the nursery, so Plant Shop had to gear up its delivery service. The operation was limited in scope, involving just two vans staying within Seattle city limits — but that didn’t mean it was easy to pull off.

Tansey calls the shop’s early efforts at fulfilling online orders “a nightmare.” The process was entirely manual and paper-based, and “it was taking us the better part of an hour every morning to figure out a roughly optimized route.”

Tansey struggled with the improvised system for two or three weeks, before deciding that he needed a technology solution to figure out the most efficient routing. After researching the possibilities online and soliciting user recommendations, he settled on Circuit, a vendor of route-planning software.

Other options were either too complex and expensive, or couldn’t accommodate multiple vehicles. Circuit, says Tansey, “hit the sweet spot.”

Circuit wasn’t that much older than Plant Shop; it was launched in the United Kingdom just five years ago. The focus from the start was aiding in last-mile deliveries, says chief executive officer Jack Underwood.

Even the smallest fleets can run into complications when trying to serve multiple customers, Underwood says. Information needs to be served up to drivers on a timely basis, including drop-off points, time windows, location of packages in the vehicle, and special instructions.

Circuit’s software is largely self-service, so there wasn’t the need for a lengthy person-to-person sales process. Plant Shop needed to ramp up quickly to hold on to its customer base and compete with other businesses that were also going online.

The software allows the user to create a daily route plan that calculates the best order of deliveries in support of businesses with fleets numbering in the low thousands. Plant Shop was far from being in that class, but it faced its own set of challenges because it hadn’t relied on deliveries prior to the pandemic, and was essentially “starting from scratch,” Underwood says.

Tansey says the software was “pretty much functional day one, minute one of trying it out.” Even so, the business struggled to meet customer demand in the early days of implementing the application.

At the beginning of each day, Plant Shop inputs all order data into the application, which then auto-generates the best route for making multiple deliveries. The system takes into account the relative proximity of customers, as well as recommended detours around potential traffic blockages. In addition, Plant Shop can see where drivers are at all times — information that comes in handy when customers enquire about the status of their orders.

As the pandemic subsides, Plant Shop has been able to return to servicing walk-in sales, although up to 20% of its orders are still placed online. Tansey expects to keep using the Circuit software to handle the delivery portion of its business. “It’s a service that not a lot of other shops in the area are offering,” he says. “It’s a very helpful advantage.”

Read more: 100 Great Supply Chain Partners of 2022: Weathering the Storm Together

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Last Mile Delivery Logistics Supply Chain Planning & Optimization Supply Chain Visibility E-Commerce/Omni-Channel Retail
  • Related Articles

    A Diamond Is Forever. How About the Online Diamond Business?

    Grand Alliance to Shift from Seattle to Tacoma

    Podcast | The Price of Success: How Xero Shoes Survived the Pandemic

Robert J. Bowman, SupplyChainBrain

Watch: Modernizing EDI to Scale Freight Procurement

More from this author

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter!

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • DOCUMENTS BEARING THE INSIGNIA OF US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION LIE ON A TABLE

    New CBP Regs Call for Greater Diligence by Brokers in Reporting Security Breaches

    Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
  • A WORKER IN A WAREHOUSE, SUPERIMPOSED WITH GRAPHICS SHOWING SUPPLY NETWORK

    Enabling Intelligent Visibility With Supply Chain Analytics

    Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
  • GSCMS-Promo.png

    Watch: Introducing the Global Supply Chain Marketing Summit

    Education & Professional Development
  • A HAND TURNS A LARGE, LIGHTED DIAL WITH THE WORD RISK ON IT iStock-NicoElNino-1364371014.jpg

    Measuring KPIs and KRIs for Comprehensive Supplier Performance Management

    Technology
  • DEEPLY CRACKED EARTH UNDER A BLUE CLOUDY SKY

    Why Maritime Supply Chains Must Adapt to Sustainability Regulations

    Ocean Transportation

Digital Edition

Scb nov 2022 sm

2022 Supply Chain Innovator of the Year

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • New Revenue for Cloud-Based TMS that Embeds Orderful’s Modern EDI Platform

  • Convenience Store Client Maximizes Profit and Improves Customer Service

  • A Digitally Native Footwear Brand Finds Rapid Fulfillment

  • Expanding Apparel Brand Scales Seamlessly with E-Commerce Technology

  • How a Global LSP Scaled its Security Program and Won More Business

Visit Our Sponsors

Orderful Yang Ming Alithya
Barcoding Blue Yonder BNSF Logistics
CoEnterprise Data Capture Deposco
E2open GAINSystems Generix
Geodis GEP GreyOrange
Here Honeywell Intelligrated IFM
Infor Inmar Keelvar
Kinaxis Korber Lean Solutions Group 2H
Liberty SBF Locus Robotics Logility
LogistiVIEW Lucas Systems MCA Connect
MPO Nvidia Old Dominion
OpenText ORTEC Overhaul
Parsyl PMMI QIMA
Redwood Logistics Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash Saddle Creek Logistics
Schneider Dedicated Setlog Holding AG Ship4WD
Shipwell Tecsys TGW Systems
Thomson Reuters Tive Trailer Bridge
Vecna Robotics Verity
Verusen
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright ©2023 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing