How would you sell live plants on Amazon?

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How would you sell live plants on Amazon?

Asked at Amazon over a year ago

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productmanager1644 · Answer 1 · 2021-01-21T02:18:16+0000

CLARIFY:
1. Do we need to focus on a specific channel? Assume no.
2. Is there a particular market / user in mind we need to focus on? Assume no.
3. Is there a goal / business strategy we should focus on? Assume no / my choice.
4. Am I assessing how to improve how live plants are sold on Amazon now or implementing a new strategy? Assume my choice.
DESCRIBE AMAZON: Amazon offers a range of goods that a customer can purchase. Amazon Prime offers 2 day delivery. Amazon's partnership with Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh offer expedited delivery for food delivery. The importance of expedited delivery is important in the live plant shipment (more later).
AMAZON'S GOALS: Amazon has a focus to help customers buy anything. They also want to help businesses maximize their success. In regards to being able to buy anything, purchasing live plants is aligned with Amazon's goal to allow someone to buy anything.
USER GROUPS: Within the purchasing space of live plants, there are three main user groups we need to think about.
1. Buyers: Individuals or companies who purchase the live plants on Amazon.
2. Sellers: Individuals or companies selling live plants. They may or may not be growing them themselves.
3. Delivery: The individuals / companies shipping the live plants.
  1. I would like to focus on 1 user group for this live plant strategy because delivery of live plants is very important to ensure the plants stay alive during the process (an extra aspect of delivery we need to think about v. delivering non-perishable goods).
DELIVERY JOURNEY: To think about the delivery of live plants strategy, I'd like to iron out the details of the delivery journey.
1. STORAGE: Assuming that the live plant is not necessarily picked up directly from the seller (i.e. Amazon has warehouses they store their goods), the live plant is stored somewhere that allows the plant to stay alive. There are many types of plants to consider and the environment of these plants will be different. For example, hydroponic plants v. cacti v. large trees all require different storage.
2. DELIVERY REQUEST: Delivery gets a request to pick up a plant.
3. PICKUP: Delivery picks up the plant.
4. TRANSPORT: Delivery transports the plant.
5. DROP OFF: Delivery drops the plant off with teh customer.
STRATEGIC THEMES OF JOURNEY: Of this user journey, the live nature of the plant makes "Storage" and "Transport" of particular importance.
1. Type of Storage Environment: Environment the plant is stored in must work for that specific plant. Factors may be temperature control, water amount, sunlight, size (if storing trees, etc.).
2. Speed of Delivery: Because plants are perishable, the transport must be fast.
3. Careful Transport: Because plants are live, it's easier to damage them in transit. They require extra care in transport.
STRATEGIC CHOICES: Given the important strategic themes of this delivery journey for the plant, below are a few strategic choices for Amazon:
1. STORAGE ENVIRONMENT:
  1. Plant Storage Facilities: Amazon builds storage facilities for specific plant types (ex. hydroponic farm or greenhouse).
  2. Rooftop Gardens: Amazon grows rooftop gardens and sells the plants they grow to local residents. (Also allows for fast speed of delivery.)
2. SPEED OF DELIVERY:
  1. Local Flower Shop / Garden Partnerships: Amazon partners with local shops / gardens to sell live plants locally to customers within a select radius.
3. CAREFUL TRANSPORT:
  1. Storage Trucks: Amazon builds special trucks that allow for transport of certain plants. For example, cactic would be transported in a special dry / hot truck with high UV lights.
  2. Hire Gardeners / Plant Experts: Amazon could hire gardeners / plant experts to deliver the plants and ensure they are cared for in transport (i.e. specialized delivery servicemen).

EVALUATE STRATEGIC CHOICES:

Choice	Impact to Delivery	Cost to Amazon
Plant Storage Facility	High	High
Rooftop Garden	High	High
Local Flower Shop / Garden Partnerships	High	Low
Storage Trucks	Medium	High
Hire Gardeners / Plant Experts	Medium	Medium

Based on the analysis, I'd focus on partnering with local flower shops / gardens that grow plants. I'd sell their live plants to local customers within a designated radius (ex. 90 miles) to ensure the fast transport of the plant to the customer / minimimize potential damage to plant in transport.

METRICS:
1. BUSINESS:
  1. Number of customers who purchase live plant
  2. Number of local businesses who sign up for live plant selling
  3. Number of live plants sold
  4. Revenue from live plants
2. DELIVERY SPECIFIC:
  1. Average time / speed live plants are delivered
  2. Percentage of plants delivered undamaged (i.e. no customer complaints / returns)
TRADEOFFS:
1. Certain areas may not have many live plants grown in the area.
2. Customers may not want to buy the type of live plants grown close to them.
SUMMARY: To sell live plants on Amazon, I'd focus on selling local live plants to customers within a designated radius to ensure these plants are delivered quickly. Given that Amazon already delivers fresh produce quickly, it is in line with their business to expand this service to live plants and should not require too much of an uplift to build this service.

Abhishek Karan · Answer 2 · 2020-04-15T12:32:59+0000

A framework for answering this Amazon product strategy question. Feedback is welcomed.

Objective: Selling live plants on Amazon to a: Maximize revenue or b: Increase customer's switching cost c: diversification of product portfolio

Clarification questions : Does live plants include plant parts such as flowers, seeds.

                                   Is planting pot and soil included

                                 Does amazon have a constraint on dimension of plant?

Customers : Who are going to be the customers, is there a market for it?

Customers's Requirements : What kind of live plants does customers want

Georgraphy: Which areas will it be served

Products : What kind of live plants are we talking about. Small plants, shrubs, weed, or trees?

Supply Chain: Is third part vendors available to supply the products

  Delivery partners : Is delivery partners capable of handling live plants, if yes, how quickly could they deliver.

FC Requirements : Is fulfilment centres equipped to handle and store live plants

Use case : I would be interested to understand if there's any use case of e commerce business selling plants. If yes, how's their operation, customer and supply chain different from ours

Competitors : How will the competitiors react to the business expansion. Do they have additional value proposition that we could not provide.

Financial consideration : Can we make profit by selling live plants?

Regulatory consideration : Does transportation of plants across state borders have regulatory implications.

Recommendation : Given a market for the product, we could approach selling live plants in a phased out plan. Initially, we could explore plants that are within our logistic capability to deliver. We also need to select and prioritize the plants to sell based on the customers requirements, vendors available and channels committments. In addition to it, we must develop an exit criteria and an expansion criteria to decide the next steps after the pilot run. Given that amazon already sells small potted plants on its website, an expansion in product range would require us to think about it from a customer centric approach. We need to develop understanding of customer requirements and include/exclude products

Nusrat Fatima · Answer 3 · 2020-04-15T14:26:21+0000

Narrowing down the question

1) What is the purpose of this?

a)Is this for revenue generation?

b)Is this for category expansion?

c)Is this for customer retention?

With this being answered as applicable to all points, second narrowing question would be

2)What sort of plants are talking about here?

a) Seasonal plants.

b) Fancy indoor plants

c) Outdoor flowery/non-flowery plants/trees.

With this being answered as b) Fancy Indoor Plants, I'll go ahead with third question

3) Would that include

a)pot

a.1) fancy pot with diffrent and extra cost

a.2) generalised pot

b)soil

b.1)with organic manure

b.2)with non-organic fertilisers

b.3)only soil

Takking points 3.a.2) generalised pot and 3.b.3) with organic manure, next question would be

4)What is our supply chain? do we include local vendors in that geographical area?

With this being answered as YES.

5)Who are delivery partners and are they well equipped for handling plants? Is storage space available according to the plant size.

Summarise

Taking local vendors as the suppliers and amazon owned delivery but the pain points will be

a)close relation with the vendors to check the availability of the product with all the specification

b)health of the plant(is it fit to be delivered/pest/broken leaves/discoloration whatsoever) which may cause higher return rate.

Shruti_K · Answer 4 · 2021-01-29T19:37:46+0000

Clarifying questions:

By live plants, I assume we mean anything ranging from small succulents to large/XL house plants (both indoor and outdoor)

I assume this is in retail format i.e. for individual customers

When we say 'how' will I sell live plants on Amazon, I assume we mean end to end delivery model including business model/customer experience

Framework:

Here's how I would approach the problem:

understand strategic context/goals
user: customer segments served /key needs
business: strengths / risks / constraints
solution - short/long term

1. Strategic context

I assume customer engagament and revenue are Amazon's top goals with this idea. Amazon's current customers might already be buying many gardening supplies on Amazon, adding plants to that mix creates opportunities for customers to engage more frequently, helping them meet their needs holistically. I also see opportunities for incremental revenue generation through the addition of a new category/also cross sell. It will also enable Amazon to compete with the likes of Wallmart and Home Depot head on in the live plants category.

2. Users:

2 main customer segments: Buyers (customers) and Sellers

Buyer Needs:

need for high quality plants
resonable prices
prefer the convenience of buying online but like the ability to look and feel before purchasing to get a sense for size/quality; can be offset by a strong returns process
like to research to find the right plants for their needs
need instructions on care

Seller Needs:

sellers could be nurseries or hobbyists that sells plants on micro scale
want to reach more buyers
want a reasonably priced option to deliver plants home, while ensuring quality

Business Strengths/Risks:

Strengths:
strong ecommerce marketplace
ability for sellers to provide high quality descriptions, pictures, care instructions
strong brand in terms of customer service
ability to offer good pricing
Local / community presence and local warehouse space through Whole Foods
Delivery personnel for prime now where the service exists
since plants are a longer time committment, having this data can help Amazon cross sell other releated products and provide value to customer over a long period of time
Risks:
long distance delivery of plants can be expensive - packaging/care
maintenance / care while in inventory is a lot
supply chain is almost net new and has to be set up from scratch

Solution:

Keeping customer needs in mind across both sides of the market place, I would go with a digital offering, leveraging Amazon's web/app as a way to showcase and sell plants. The USP could be not just to assure quality and service but use it's subscription service to re-fill requirements of each plant every season/as needed.

To assure quality and offer a high level of service while minimizing costs, Amazon can test partnering with local nurseries to sell locally similar to Prime Now. A delivery person will pick up from nursery and drop off the order for a small fee. Customers can browse local listings online and order. Returns can be managed by scheduling a pick up by a delivery personnel again.

If the test performs in terms of conversion and revenue/profit potential (and Amazon understands what type of plants sell), it can possibly gain economics by shipping the right variety of plants from a warehouse by investing in packagining as a next step - this can possibly allow Amazon to waive delivery fee for prime members . It can accept returns possibly through Whole Foods. Using Whole Foods floor space for plants can be a great in-store solution too. And as a final step, it can start to compliment it's online business by also selling plants in Whole Foods stores.

Devi Kottary · Answer 5 · 2024-08-09T03:19:38+0000

Context Setting : Amazon is an e-commerce platform and 2-sided marketplace wherein you can sell and buy products (anything under the sun).

Clarifying Questions - Why is Amazon wanting to sell live plants through the platform? Is it to tap into a new Market and increase the Market Share? Is it to switch users from other platforms ?What is the motivation for users to buy live plants from Amazon over a Nursery or Garden business? What is the gap as an Amazon PM I can fill by selling live plants through the platform? Are there any constraints in terms of timeframes or funding or anything else? Is this on a Web or Mobile App or both?

(Assuming it is to increase in Market Share and launch is in 6 months as a time constraint and Web/Mobile App channels)

Opportunities - Tap into a new market and increase the Market Share.

User Segments - Broadly B2C and B2B. Considering demographics, geographical, behavioral and psychographics which are quite complex and layered, I would like to target an audience in 30 to 49 years old and US (specifically New Jersey) knowing the highest volume of traffic and customers to Amazon is from US and urban region.

Time Constraint - 6 Months to go-live (Short term goal)

Business Goal : Increase in Market Share (North Star Metric or Long Term Goal)

Current Capabilities and systems : Brand , Leading E-commerce platform, Personalisation Engine. Assumption : Tie up/contract with Sellers/Resellers of plants is already in place.

Differentiation : Ebay , Etsy, Shopify tough competitors and are not currently selling live plants. Can they do it? [Nothing is stopping competitors from starting this new category, therefore there is no unique competitive moat. Will they be doing it? Wait and see.

Value Add :Advantage is Saves time and effort and a one-stop shopping with competitive cost over Nurseries/Garden business.

Current State : Amazon doesn’t have this category and a new category to be created.

Alternative Solutions : Nursery and Garden Business

Solutions: Given the time constraints and with a test and see approach, Geographical region - City [New Jersey] will be the testing ground. This is a GTM strategy at a high level.

Tech : Selling Live plants as a Category needs software/tech changes and updates. Content update about description and the benefits of the plants and pricing engine, payments

Logistics - Tie - Up with Sellers and I would sell fast moving and rare species types of plant (based on some evidence collected from Nurseries)

Delivery : Focussing only within New Jersey delivery and free shipping for Amazon Prime members (this can be referral strategy)

User Metrics - Number of New Users engaging with this category and placing the order for the plants - Acquisition to Monetisation

Business Metrics - Increase in Engagement /Market Share - Number of Sales

Krishna · Answer 6 · 2024-07-26T04:38:10+0000

Clarifying questions:

I would like to know why we decided to sell live plants on Amazon, what is the reasonng behind the decision?
1. is it to increase revenue assuming that it is growing categrory?
2. is it to increase number of users ?
3. is it to capture this segment of market ?
4. is it to support any environment/sustainability objectives?
scope: what is the geography covered? worldwide or select countries?
Which type of plants, is it flowering plants or fruit plants or ornamental plants or desert plants(which dont need much water) or better word is succulents?

Product:
Plants are bought for many reasons -- for farming, for gardening, for home decor purposes.

strategic choices:

I would partner with local nurseries to care for plants or even better sell straight from nurseries when orders come in. Mintain network of nurseries and onboard them onto the platform as sellers.
Choice 2: maintain a nursery in amazon fulfilment center and this needs personnel to be appointed to take care of the plants, and this option seems not so scalable, considerign wide variety of plants

Evaluation:
profitabiltiy, scalability, maintenance costs
considerign above criteria, its seems better to partner with nurseries

Challenges:
shipping live plants -- needs special care as they cant be thrown around like normal products and they need to be handled in a fragile way. they cant be completely closed in packaging as they need air.

Recommendation:

I would suggest that go with this option of selling plants only if it makes up for immense revenue as lot of efforts are needed to be put in to deliver this service, wich when kept elsewhere would prodduce equal or better revenues. If numbers make sense then i suggest to start selling plants in local areas rather than interstate customers.

Harsha Bornfree · Answer 7 · 2022-10-16T18:04:53+0000

Because the question is about “how would you sell” and not “whether you’d sell”, I will not delve into the aspects of business viability.

In real life this problem statement can happen in 2 scenarios:

Business team has deduced that live plants are a profitable and high-demand market. They’d want product teams to come up with a solution that takes into account everything involved in execution.
Business teams are still evaluating if it’s feasible to sell plants on an online marketplace like Amazon. They’d want to know what are the limitations/constraints and whether it can then be executed feasibly.

Let’s take case 2.

Typically there are four stakeholders in this scenario:

Sellers
1. Would like to increase sales of their inventory
Marketplace
1. Would like to capture revenue on a popular segment (assumption)
Delivery
1. Would like to carry-out successful deliveries without major modifications to existing workflows
Buyers
1. Would enjoy the simplicity, convenience and choice of ordering wide range of plants

Challenges at each stage:

Sellers
1. Would need to identify SKUs (plants, plants + soil, plants + soil + pots etc)
2. Would need to set guarantees:
  1. Visual variation from listing (size, health, age). How much is ok with end customer.
  2. Return criteria
Marketplace
1. Take into account multiple SKU variations (mentioned above)
2. Set delivery guarantees
  1. Serviceable areas
  2. Delivery times
3. Return and refund policies etc
Delivery
1. Take into account size, fragility, orientation and identify packaging
2. Take into account transport conditions (light, heat, water etc)
3. Take into account delays which could be disastrous
Buyers
1. Would need to understand the product may differ from the listing
2. Would need to understand challenges that come with delivery of live plants etc.

Solutions:

Define a single SKU variation to begin with (plant + soil + disposable pot)
Limit plant varieties by challenges identified in delivery. Shorter than 1.5 m let’s say,.
Limit delivery liability by restricting serviceability to the same city on same day
Incentivize delivery teams to accommodate workflow changes. Borne by the end customer at extra cost who understands this isn’t a regular delivery.
Educate customers on product variations and set right expectations.

These solutions can be presented back to the business teams for them to answer questions on profitability and feasibility.

Answer 8

Clarify the Question

1. What is the Objective, is it to increase user base or increase the revenue model >> Both

2. Are we focusing on any particular type of plant? >> Any plant

Describe the Company/Product

Amazon is a online business platform where users can buy products online and vendors can sell the Products

Strength

Large user base with user information

History of user purchases with their likes

Weakness

Considering this as a new venture, there is an unclear path between users past choice. E.g : User buying home decor plant may not be interested in buying a live plant

Opportunity

Expand to new business arenas, considering this as a seasonal business( Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) every season would need a different type of plant.

Threats

Cyber Security, User information.

Allergies for the plant to sensitive users

List Strategic Choices

1. Need a Warehouse Nursery to keep the plants live

2. Categorize and classify the plants into different types based on types e.g : Vegetables, Fruits, Flowers

3. Bundles the plants along with the right manual for manure and materials like watering equipment, pots, additonal information like amount of light needed indoor or outdoor

4. User can create a Filter criteria based on Type of Plant, equipment needed..etc

5. Amazon suggestions when user buys a plant. E.g. If user buys a Particular flower then suggest the ones that gives the equivalent ambience

6. User could choose to pick up or drop the plants

7. Virtual tour to see the plants from the nurserys.

Strategic Choices	Effort to Pursue	Revenue Impact	Cost to Pursue the Strategy	Strategy	Tradeoffs
1. Need a Warehouse Nursery to keep the plants live	High	High	High	Needs to build new Warehouse and differs from current strategy	From cost perspective this is an additional investment for Amazon and might impact the immediate Profits
2. Categorize and classify the plants into different types based on types e.g : Vegetables, Fruits, Flowers	Medium	High	Low	Inline with business Model	Nil
3. Bundles the plants along with the right manual for manure and materials like watering equipment, pots, additonal information like amount of light needed indoor or outdoor	High	High	Medium	new addition to the current business strategy	User might not care about the manual initially and would later want to have the same, mgiht need to think of having this information with the order
4. User can create a Filter criteria based on Type of Plant, equipment needed..etc	Medium	High	Low	Inline with business Model	Nil
5. Amazon suggestions when user buys a plant. E.g. If user buys a Particular flower then suggest the ones that gives the equivalent ambience	High	High	Medium	Inline with business Model	Users taste might defer based on their backgrounds so product recommendations can backfire
6. User could choose to pick up or drop the plants	Low	Medium	Low	Inline with business Model	Nil
7. Virtual tour to see the plants from the nurserys.	Medium	High	Medium	new addition to the current business strategy	Additional storage content for videos and live videos for the Product.

Recommendation criteria

Choose 7,6, 4,2 intially and test the market.

naruto · Answer 9 · 2020-07-02T13:19:00+0000

Goal :

Get more customers
- This can not be the goal
Revenue Generation
- This sounds more realistic reason to enter the category

Also to push for go green and more eco friendly image of the company

Let's define what are plants :

Talking about the small plants which can put in a pot and with life of not more than 6 months (if not maintained well) e.g. Mint
Plants which may produce flowers but again won't survive for years.

Thus people will buy plant again and again.

Why would customers buy plants ?

Traditional Pujas- e.g. Mint
Aware of impact of lower oxygen levels in the world,
- students pushing their parents
- Corporates pushing their employees to keep the plants

Market Size of Plants :

House holds in Cities want to buy small plants
- Not all the house holds assume 30% of the house holds.
House holds not in the cities. have enough space and most of them have some or other kind of plants
- Assume 60% of the house holds.
Few corporate offices donate plants to their employees at desks
- Assume majority of the software companies for all the desk jobs
corporate offices maintain the plants in their office common areas

There seems to be enough market size.

Competition :

No online competition in the India.
- Major competition is only from local vendors who do not have all the selection

Strengths :

Supply chain of the company seems to be very strong, and can potentially support the category
- Need to be innovative about the supply chain
  - Storage:
    - Need separate open FCs to store plants
      - Need to maintain freshness of the plants at the FC
    - Need tie ups with local vendors for localised delivery
  - Delivery and Package :
    - Need special packaging to keep freshness of the plants

To test the market, Amazon can enter category in one of the cities like SF/SV/London/Bangalore with the tie ups with local vendors for the pure market place model and emphasis on special delivery.

Ailar Rahimly · Answer 10 · 2020-04-15T02:56:18+0000

Amazon is leading e-commerce platform where user can buy several types of products. Amazon dosen't have any services to deliver flowers and live plants whicle it has a great potential to do that. To proof this assumption, i'm going to examin Company Capability, Customer, Competitors, Supplier.

Amazon capable to add this services to existing services and build partenrship with supplier because it has a good reputation. as well as it has high visted web site to introduce and promote this new services to existing users and motivate them to use this new services. Or for diffrent occasion, suggest them to send flowers to ...! it's not hard for Amazon to capture the marketshare.

Customers: Many users around the world have used flower delivery services. Many existing Amazon user use this service from other retails while if they inform that amazon provide this service, they jump to amazon and use this service.

Cometitors: There is no potential competotor, there are several retail store in disffrent cities around the world provide this services. they are not amazon competitors they could be amazon partner after amazon running this service.

Amazon has a strong company so, many company are willing to start partnership with amazon to provide supplier for amazon for this service.

I think that the process of selling this product is same as other products. just Amazon should build close relationship with suppliers to update them about the order and its detail immediately. they have to prepare it and deliver it ontime, because all suppliers are amazon representatives.