Mail Order Business Guidelines

I cruise the Garden Watchdog regularly, and often see complaints from mail order buyers about how the nurseries they are purchasing from do business. I've also seen a bit of those concerns in here.

The following link is a set of "guidelines" for mail order businesses to follow, developed jointly by the Federal Trade Commission and the Direct Marketers Association. These guidelines were written to help mail order businesses stay in compliance with Federal law.

Often, guidelines such as this are more helpful to both businesses and consumers than refering directly to the language of the law, as such legal writing can seem totally opaque to non~specialists. It is easy to read a law and then say..., uhh..., now what do I do to comply? That's what this link is:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/mailorder.htm

By reading these plain English language guidelines, you will gain a reasonable set of expectations about how mail order businesses ought to behave when you order from them. And, if they don't, you now have a tool for explaining to them what Federal law requires when doing mail order commerce.

AND NOW THE INTERESTING PART:

All rules have exceptions. And, Section 3 of the FTC's Rule 435 (MAIL OR TELEPHONE ORDER MERCHANDISE RULE), says:

"(a) This part shall not apply to: (2) Orders of seeds and growing plants."

In other words, NUSERIES AND SEED VENDORS ARE EXEMPT from these specific FTC Rules and Guidelines!

I just completed a 45 minute discussion with a staff attorney at the FTC in Washington DC, who explained that during the "Public Comment Period," prior to implementation of Rule 435 these exemptions were decided.

Here is how he recommends consumers seek redress if an "exempt vendor," (nursery) does them wrong:

1. Through the Office of the State Attorney General IN YOUR STATE, contact the Departpemt of Consumer Protection (different States have different name).

2. Be able to provide all required documentation of the transaction (credit card record, cancelled check, correspondence from the nursery, email, etc).

3. The Consumer Protection officers in YOUR STATE will contact the appropriate government department in the State where the nursery is located.

4. When sending materials to your State Offices related to your complaint, do everything in writing and send it CERTIFIED, RETURN RECEIPT snail mail. KEEP COPIES.

5. Write to your Senetors and Congressmen and DEMAND that the EXEMPTION for Nurseries and Seed Vendors in FTC Rule 435 be repealed.

Adam.
This message was edited Monday, May 5th 12:59 PM

This message was edited Monday, May 5th 1:03 PM

This message was edited Monday, May 5th 2:45 PM

Adam, I fixed it for you. It may be better to email through the helpdesk in the future. Dave, Terry, and I can't read allo of the threads, and I just happened upon your plea for help :)

Have a good day!

Trish

How interesting! And did you find out just why mail order nurseries got an exemption in the first place????

Gardeners want to know why!

A huge reason why I joined DG is the Garden Watchdog. Too many of us have been burned by unscrupulous mail order nursery companies. And they are exempt? Foul!

Well..., here are my thoughts about how best to force mail order nurseries to do business the way WE want them to:

VOTE WITH OUR MONEY!

In other words, reward scrupulous, reliable, quality companies with OUR orders, and punish evil~doers by shopping someplace else.

Now, this seems like a simple and obvious answer, but let's expand on the idea a little:

Right now, Dave's Garden has 44,292 members. Let's imagine for a moment that each member spends..., ohh..., $50.00 a year buying from mail order nurseries.

This would mean that the total mail order nursery spending by the total Dave's Garden membership is nearly $2,225,000!

THAT'S A LOT OF PURCHASING POWER.

Each dollar is a vote of confidence in the company WE send it to. It's probably more cash than the average mail order nursery sees in a year (most are very small businesses).

Imagine if the Dave's Garden membership ORGANIZED it's purchasing power (the COOPS are a form of this), making use of OUR numbers and OUR purchasing power.

WE could drive bad companies out of business. WE could help good companies expand.

IDEA FOR A POLL BOOTH QUESTION:

"How much money do you spend per year buying plants and garden supplies by phone, mail and internet?"

The potential answers would be "brackets" such as "Zero ~ $24, $25 ~ $49, $50 ~ $99, $100 ~ 149, $150 ~ More"

Maybe this survey should appear in the Garden Watchdog as well as here, and then be "merge~purged" for duplicate responses. The results might be very interesting.

Adam.

Aotearoa

Interesting as a survey but I believe there are one or two factors to take into account.

A number of the 44,000 are international members and this would reduce the amount of buying power as a tool to wield against bad service US nurseries.

It's also worth remembering that horticulture is big business. In the UK, the garden centre and nursery sectors alone are worth £3.5 billion per annum to the economy ($5.25 billion approx), I'm not including amenity horticulture, market gardeners etc, just the plant and retail garden products. As you could easily lose the UK in Texas, just imagine what those sectors are worth in the whole of the world.

I'm all for voting with my feet or keyboard but then I'm not a big spender on mail order gardening products or plants. I've found some companies that are maligned have offered me good service and vice versa. I'm also a big believer in making direct complaints or comments, a good company will come through, the poor companies don't get my business after the second time.

The Garden Watchdog does work and as it becomes larger it will be something extra for the nurseries and GCs to take note of (some already do).

Adam, it's an interesting idea. As you know, we've done (and will continue to do) survey polls based on various features of Dave's Garden, and I'll be glad to turn this one over a few times in my mind to see how it could be best "tee'd up."

When it comes to mail-order gardening, I "practice what I preach": I've been persuaded to try companies based on their ratings here. I vote with my fingers (keyboard in Baa's parlance.) It's safe to say I, ummm, ahem, (choke, sputter, cough) spend more than $50 a year. :-)

And of course, I leave feedback - especially positive feedback, and especially for the smaller/lesser-known companies.

To put the Watchdog in context, it began roughly 18 months ago (late November 2001, I believe.) We launched it with ~100 companies, and I added some initial comments to those I had dealt with over the years. We then scrambled to add companies (it was a BIG DEAL when we got #1000 in there!) and encourage more comments and ratings, which was at times like pulling teeth.

In 2002, we received writeups in Organic Gardening magazine, Garden Gate magazine, and several online "blurbs".

This spring, the Watchdog received the prestigious "Best of the Web" designation by Forbes magazine.

In 2002, the Watchdog received a handful of comments a week. Lately, it's been receiving more like 10-12 comments each day. In November 2002, it received ~650 hits a day on average. That number almost doubled in December, and now averages well over 2500 hits a day.

As of right now, the Watchdog has 2,666 companies and 4,089 comments. 966 companies have received at least one rating each. Several of the companies in the Top 10 included a reference to the Watchdog and the Top 10 in their 2003 catalogs.

I think it's safe to say that it is having an impact on consumers and companies alike. The exponential growth we're seeing will (hopefully) continue to have a positive influence on the industry as a whole. I hope we continue to expand it globally, as there are scads of mail-order companies around the globe that we haven't begun to tap into yet.

Baa ~~~

Very interesting points (as usual). Regional and national aspects are certainly things worth paying attention to, and are no less valuable for being located outside the US. In fact, from a purely intellectual point of view, as well as from a practical perspective, they add considerable intellectual fodder to the compost.

Here's my next round of thinking on this notion:

Internet site operators audit WHERE their clicks come from. That is, site owners, for a variety of commercial and other reasons, track which site the user was on before coming to their own company site.

Now, let's say that WE as a group (and nearly 50,000 members is a large group by any statistical metric), bought from the nursery sites WE patronize by clicking THROUGH GARDEN WATCHDOG rather than going there from Browser Favorites. This would clue nursery owners in to the fact that members of this site constitute a significant revenue potential.

This sort of data is, in fact, equivalent to buying power.

And, yes, the GROSS Dollar / Pound / Euro numbers are large, but it is net~of~net revenues (profits), that keep businesses IN business. And nearly 50,000 potential buyers could mean the difference of a couple points of margin to a spectrum of small or mid~sized firms ~~~ especially in a contracted economy.

Over all, my idea is that as a group the "collective" can focus OUR spending to obtain better conditions of doing business and thus be better served as gardeners.

My idea is not meant to replace making direct (to vendor) or indirect (Garden Watchdog, let's say) comments or complaints. These are effective in citing specific plus or minus aspects of business behavior.

My idea is to use a tool already created by Dave, Trish and Terry in an enhanced way to improve our lives as gardeners.

I appreciate your remarks.

Adam.

Adam, Terry posted while you were posting, so do scroll up above yours and check out her post - it is well representative of my thoughts as well.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread - we don't spend enough time brainstorming about the watchdog.

dave

I check the GW now before I even think about ordering plants. I will consider trying a company that is not yet rated but prefer using one that has been rated by people here whom I recognize as contributers to the Plant Data Base or forums. I do tend to be leery of ratings added by names that I do not see anywhere else on the site since I feel there is no way to know if the poster is a gardener or actually runs or owns the business they are rating. A bit cynical I suppose but so far it works for me. I also discount bad ratings that are posted by unknowns since to this cynic they could be competitors trying to discredit their rivals. The Watchdog is a good thing and is growing better all the time. It is up to all consumers to remember to "Let the buyer beware" and this watchdog allows the sellers know that we are indeed aware and watching!

I think it would be interesting to know how the Garden Watchdog and other features here at Dave's are used by the members. Are we going in after the fact to make reports (like myself) or as Zany and Terry, to check the comments?

Personally, I don't use the GW to find or look up a nursery. That's partly because there is a distinct shortage of GB/UK nurseries added (will work on that later and hope my fellow countrymen join in). While on the subject, would it be possible to unite the entries in the GW for GB and UK please?

Aotearoa

I understand what you mean about, even in a large industry, how an individual unit can be affected by a small drop in revenue.

Not sure how the 'clicks' from the GW will work other than to alert the companies to the potential customer base here, is that what you mean?

I do try to keep an eye on the comments going into the GWD. It's impossible to guarantee that every comment is unbiased and truthful; however, we have spotted (and reprimanded) company representatives who try to pat themselves on the back, and I also look for trends that suggest a company is offering their customers something in return for positive feedback.

It's hard to explain (and far from scientific), but if you watch the comments long enough, you get a sense of the "normal" rate and rhythym of ratings and comments coming into the site. Any company that suddenly gets a lot of activity gets some closer scrutiny.

A few companies have cried "foul" when a suspected competitor has left negative feedback. We investigate to the extent we can, and in a few cases, we've kicked out the feedback; in other cases we've left them to sort it out themselves.

In many respects, I feel that the GWD will be most successful when it's allowed to grow at its own steady pace, and not analyzed and scrutinized too closely. The more attention and emphasis we put on it, the more pressure there is for companies to be "in the lead", which can lead to them looking for "shortcuts" to try to get there.