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As the market of plant-care grows, so do opportunities for new brands to emerge and try to succeed while competing with many others.

One of the main goals for brands is for their products to be displaced at retail stores and supermarkets, this way they have more opportunities for people to get to know them and gain more customers.

But how does a retailer know what brands to choose from when there are so many?

They can’t just go for those who are currently trending, because tomorrow the trend peak might end and people won’t buy it anymore, same happens with flashy products, the package might draw people’s attention but if the product doesn’t work as expected, customers won’t buy it again.

What Retailers Should Take Into Consideration

Choosing a plant care brand to go into your store is not an easy job, but there are certain specifications that may help out retailers to choose from the ton.

The Royal Horticultural Society talks about how in Europe, certain governments like the one of Great Britain are starting to announce legislations to help out gardeners into making better decisions while buying plant care products.

“All fertiliser labels have to display the same basic information. This allows one garden-fertiliser packet to be compared with another and should show clearly what is being bought,” they mention.

Since in the United States those legislations are not available, it is encouraged for plant care brands to have their data available for customers to access it and investigate more deeply into the product they are buying.

Olya Romaneko, CEO and founder of GroSuccess, a plant-care company offering organic fertilizers that contain humic and fulvic acid formulas for indoor and outdoor plants, explains how for her and her company being honest to their buyers is vital, because transparency is not just about describing a product as natural and organic, it also means giving customers access to information about its composition, explaining how the product was developed, and providing a way to ask questions to the brand under any situation needed.

GroSuccess shares its founder’s initial observations with Plant Wonder, on its web page it is shown the way in which Olya discovered the benefits of eco-friendly lowland black peat and tried it out on her own garden before putting it out for sale:

“I bought strawberry plants, tomato plants, and green peppers from a local nursery.

One side was watered normally, the other side was watered with Plant Wonder every couple of weeks.

Within a month, the difference was hard to miss. The Plant Wonder side bloomed more, grew stronger, and produced more fruit. The untreated plants did fine, but the Plant Wonder plants thrived,” she mentions.

The brand also publishes details about the formula, and invites customers to contact the company with questions about its products.

What Kind Of Questions Should Buyers Ask Plant Care Brands?

 

Customers may not be aware of it, but they hold the power to decide whether a product is really worth being in a retail store or not.

Think for example in this situation: if a client goes into a retail store and instead of buying its regular plant care product buys a new one, one he or she has never tried before, and the product is disappointing or the result don’t match what’s promised by the brand, that person is not going to buy the  product again, and not only that, they might put a bad review online or spread the word not to buy the product.

That’s why before buying just any product, customers may want to ask certain questions like:

What is actually in the product? What evidence supports that it actually works? Are the instructions clear enough for me or others to know how to use it? What happens if the product fails or doesn’t deliver the promised results?, among others.

This way, people now know what they are actually buying for their plants and what to expect from the product.

What Can Plant Care Brands Do To Help Their Customers?

 

Apart from the obvious transparency that brands should always deliver to their customers, they can also start as mentioned, by having key information of their products on their web page.

Studies, experiments or any other way to verify that what the product is selling actually works is a great step for brands to acquire credibility and confidence.

Retailers should also look into the brands they are deciding to make a part of their stores and verify not only the sales numbers of a brand and product, but also how efficient they are, if they are trustworthy, their client’s opinions, how much information they share with the public and evaluate with all this information if it is a smart decision to include the brand into their retail shop.

One of the biggest retailers, Amazon, explains on their Trustworthy Shopping Experience Report how they try to maintain customer trust by evaluating sellers, checking products, enforcing safety and compliance requirements, and responding to customer feedback.

Amazon uses product reviews, customer complaints, refund requests, and customer service interactions to identify potential problems for their customers.

This information can help lead to investigations, corrections, or to even remove a product or seller that does not meet Amazon’s standards.

In the end, a retail shop’s reputation also comes from the brands they are working with.