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Turtle Island Botanicals

My friend Scott runs with this business called Turtle Island Botanicals

Scott has set up an online seed business.  He has allowed me to review his site, and open it up for brainstorming.  Please use comments to give Scott feedback and new ideas.

My first impressions is that this is a very well done and legitimate looking site.  Everything is very clean and easy to look at.  You answer all of my questions in the FAQ.  The point where it starts to scare me is when I see that I have to mail cash or check.  I’m sure you are very aware of this.

Once this site is linked to paypal I think you will be really ready to pursue the customers.  Thats right. . . you will have to pursue them.  There are a ton of gardening related sites, and you will need to get people to your island. (webpage)  Building a great island doesn’t give others the boat to get there.

In previous posts I mentioned some ideas to get quality traffic.  Lets Review:

  • Use Facebook and Twitter search to find people who mention “seeds” reach out to them using @replys, or if they are following you DM’s
  • Create a broad facebook fanpage.  For example maybe it would be called gardening.  Get people to join, and talk about why your seeds are better than others.
  • Build trust with people who take interest in your product.  Sell it
  • #BIG Tip – Send 3-4 sample seeds in an envelope with a card to those on twitter and facebook mentioning seeds.  People love free stuff.  Your product having a relatively low cost would be great for this.  Figure out how many samples you need to send out to get a yearly customer.  Someone can spend around $100 planting a garden.  Good return on the 43 cent stamp. . . or whatever they cost now.

Scott, those are just a few of my ideas.  If you have #BIG ideas for Scott, please leave a comment.

Let’s brainstorm and get this business to grow grow grow.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Brainstorm, Company Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

3 Responses to “Turtle Island Botanicals”

  1. Scott K says:
    February 4, 2010 at 12:40 pm

    Turtle Island Botanicals:
    From the home page: the text after “Culinary Spices” is cutoff, the additional text of “Herbs and Tea Seeds” is unavailable. The same is true with the text after “Rare and Unusual”, the text of “Plants and Seeds” is cutoff. (I tested using Firefox and IE 8 )

    It does look like according to the FAQ page that Paypal and Google checkout is accepted now, which is a big plus.

    I would consider adding a “starter pack” of an assortment of typical herbs, and a separate one for flowers. A similar suggestion would be to offer gift baskets around spring time for Easter or other holidays including the directions for planting, which is available upon request according to the FAQ.

    The idea of sending sample seeds is a good one, by replying to someone on twitter who mentions seeds to ask for their address to send sample seeds to, or by possibly capturing leads on the homepage of the site itself.

    One last idea to consider: what if someone were open to the idea of a subscription of seeds, on an annual basis. They could sign up for a seed subscription to lock in current prices and have seeds auto-delivered every spring, at a discount over potential rising prices.

    Reply
  2. admin says:
    February 4, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    According to Scott, the paypal system is now up and running! Good work and keep us in the loop!

    Reply
  3. Turtle Island Botanicals says:
    February 9, 2010 at 10:12 am

    You are correct Google Checkout and Paypal are now available.

    The ideas and suggestions are being considered and some have already been in the works, nearing completion.

    I have developed a blog to help keep potential customers and return customers informed with new products, specials, and helpful gardening and plant tips.

    http://turtleislandbotanicals.blogspot.com/

    Reply

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