How to Sell Gardening Tools Online Successfully
Gardening tools, from trowels and hoses to seeds and compost, are in high demand. After the COVID pandemic, many families have found that spending time outdoors and discovering peace in nature is very important! So, as you’d expect, more and more people want to improve their gardens into beautiful outdoor spaces.
Here’s the problem people are facing – they don’t want to risk going to their nearest gardening centre where there might be a crowd. Luckily, this is where you can step in with a great online gardening tool website. In this guide, find out what the website should be like and how to attract customers to it.
Creating a Gardening Product Business
The first thing you need to do is set up your supply chain. Many gardening supplies will be seasonal. You’ll need to work out what seeds should be sold when and work out what to do with your leftover supplies.
This also applies to tools. Plant germination trays, for example, will be highly popular in the early months of the year, as gardeners get ready to plant their seeds in the spring. During the rest of the year, however, you’ll find that these products rarely sell at all.
This is your first task. Finding a range of gardening tools that you can sell all year round. While gardeners might stop buying seeds after the growing season, your business costs (product storage, website hosting, marketing budget, etc.) will keep going 365 days a year.
We highly recommend that you create a business plan so you know exactly what your margins are and how your website needs to perform so you can turn a profit.
Furthermore, don’t be afraid to start small! Creating a bespoke website that only sells very niche products – for example, all the tools you need to grow orchids – will be easier to manage at first than a website that tries to sell everything a gardener could need.
What Your Website Needs
To sell online, you need a website. The first step in building your website is choosing a website building platform, buying a domain, and setting up hosting. The most popular website building platform is WordPress. As for the domain and hosting, that’s entirely up to you.
The next step is selecting a theme.
As an example, check out Alt for Haven. This Danish website has everything gardeners need to know about gardening tools. Look at the blog layout, the clear menu, and attractive graphics. This is the kind of high-quality website design you should aim for.
Other features that are integral to a website made for selling gardening tools:
- E-commerce compatibility – popular e-commerce tools like Woo-Commerce are important. They allow you to organise your gardening tool stock and manage orders. These plugins also offer payment options, so your web visitors can pay with credit cards, PayPal, gift cards, etc.
- Secure certificate – do you see that padlock sign in your web browser URL bar? This shows that the website is secure, and it is safe to type out your personal details. You need site security so customers will feel confident when purchasing products.
- About page – website readers will want to know a bit about your website and why it was created. Writing a compelling about page will help to convert readers into buyers. It also promotes brand loyalty, so your customers are more likely to come back again.
- Product review integration – you need to show customer reviews on your website, whether they are individual reviews for each product or a review website plugin like TripAdvisor or Feefo.
- Social media and newsletter – keep in touch with your customers. By asking your buyers to subscribe to an email list or follow you, you can promote sales and discounts to them. If you have stock that you need to sell fast, you can let your customers know instantly!
Many of these features are typical across all e-commerce websites, so don’t worry. You’ll be able to find a theme and plugins that can do all of this quite easily.
How to Attract Website Visitors
Finally, you’ll need to get potential customers on your website. There are numerous ways to do this. The first we recommend is SEO, so start a gardening blog to talk about relevant topics. Next, set up social media and engage directly with customers on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. You might also want to consider adverts and affiliate marketing.
However you decide to promote your gardening tool site, we wish you the best luck!