Watchdog.

Sixteen rave reviews in fifteen days?

http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/155/

I'm not saying anything smells like fish. Hey, maybe these guys are astounding and I'll give them a try.

But, I'd have trouble getting that sort of attention if I was handing out cash in Times Square. On the other hand, I'm nothing special to look at either ;~)

Adam.

Aotearoa, I see your poiunt. And, I would find it totally questionable if there werent at least two persons whom I recognize and trust their opinion.

Specially when so many critiques per posted on the same day
and they have not posted anything else before or after.

Hmmmm...makes one wonder.

I went in and looked at the site - They do the service of marking which things are not available, selection was "OK",
and prices were not sky-high but not the best either.

IMHO Bluestone Perennials has them beat.

I too, have wondered about this. Because Watchdog has been spoken of in Forbes, NJ Online, etc, I view the entries as to whether they are DG paying members.

My capitalistic nature - oh well - I better not get started......

There is a reasonable explanation. ruby42, who is also a member here, has posted on their forums, asking their members to come post on the watchdog.

http://www.perennialnursery.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19462

Dave

Let's remember that out of a membership of over 40,000 that DG has an actual PAYING subsciber list of about 1,000 (I forget the last number Dave posted). I believe, based upon real~world business experience, that this wide disparity will always be the case, though the percentages may change over time.

In example: long before I gave Dave the very few dollars he asks for in exchange for this absolutely amazing site, I was using the Watchdog for free.

I would also like to say: just because I do not know a poster's name or historical site participation, I do not immediately discount either the motivation for or content of their post. When I first started posting here people were quite gracious about accepting the musings of a newcomer.

I only posted what I did, above, because I found it by accident, and have been thinking about the broader implications and possibilities of the Watchdog itself as a service forum and tool. Somewhere, I forget where, I posted some on my notions about this (I forgot to watch the thread).

As this site gains wider recognition..., and it will snowball now for a variety of reasons..., temptations will appear in the minds of business owners. Acting on such things is a normal if unfortunate human failing. Dave, Trish, Terry (and I am certain soon others), are going to have to redouble their efforts at keeping the site "clean."

Growth is the most challenging of all business activities (don't kid yourself, this has the structure of a business), yet, having watched our fearless leaders for a while now, I feel quite comfortable saying that they are up to the task, and no doubt there are many here who have addmiration for them who will always be pleased to lend a hand.

Adam.

This is probably the reason: http://www.perennialnursery.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19462&highlight=rating

That does exp;ain the many ratings in this instance :~)

Also keep in mind that this time of year when companies are shipping plants out to fill orders there will be more entries as those orders are filled than there would be in the middle of winter.

Personally I am pessimistic enough to believe there will be some unscroupulous types that will try to use the watch dog for their ill use and opptomistic enough to believe that the good outnumber the bad by at least 100 to 1. And the 1 that abuses it will be exposed rather quickly by the 100!

Yes, and it's more like 1 in a thousand. Terry would know for sure, but it is EXTREMELY rare that we find an member abusing the watchdog for their own gain. I can only recall of one time in specific that it happened.

Dave

I hope I did not cause any problem by posting that at Hallson!!!!!

I have ordered from them 5 time's and they REALLY REALLY do have GREAT PLANT'S, and GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE TOO!!!!!!

The watchdog has had so much press due to Terry's hard work (and Dave's TOO) that I want to remind people to use it for getting all of us gardener's the low down on where to buy from and where to stay away from!

sue

Yep, no troubles at all Sue. I'm glad you made the post over there. We always encourage all companies (and customers!) to let folks know that they can rate the company.

The more the merrier!

dave

Ruby, it's okay when a happy customer is beating the drum to get other customers to add their comments about a company (we don't recommend the practice, but we don't hold it against the company if it wasn't their done at their behest, directly or indirectly.)

We do watch the trends pretty carefully; a few others have had similar "spikes" in their comments, and I routinely go surfing arond to make sure they haven't publicly dangled some "carrot" (incentive) on their website or in other forums, enticing folks leave positive comments in exchange for discounts or other freebies. (Yeah, it's happened before; fortunately, it's been rare.)

But as Adam pointed out, the more visible the Watchdog becomes, the more companies will covet a "Top Ten" spot, and the more we'll have step up our efforts to ensure (as much as humanly possible) that the comments are coming from real-life customers, and not in exchange for anything else.

We're finding more and more that customers DO read the comments, and some make it a practice to avoid those that have no ratings. Which is a shame, since some of those companies are undoubtedly are fine, reputable companies. So in a delicate balancing act, we've also encouraged these smaller, unrated companies to put the Watchdog logo and link on their site, and to let their long-time customers know they can add ratings and comments. For many of them, the Watchdog is one of the few ways they have to level the playing field against the big companies with huge marketing budgets.