One of our customers has a fairly large wishlist of peonies. We have access to several of them through our wholesale vendors, but at bulk quantities anywhere from 15 to 25 to 30 to 70 plants per case.
In brainstorming, the following idea came forward as a way to purchase stock plants for Peranda, and provide screaming deals for gardeners. Please look over the following scenario and offer up any thoughts you may have. (This does not exist yet, it is just a brainstorm to open up discussion and gage interest in a concept like this.)
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-We provide a list of plants that club members may pick from, and the specific purchase logistics of each item.
- Anybody may pick a variety and initiate a club buy for that item. That person who initiates the buy is called the 'Crown Member' (as in the crown of the plant.) It is then upon the Crown Member to stir up interest and gather more members (the Root Members) to meet the required number of participants to cover the bulk cost of the item.
- All participants interact directly with Peranda. All the Crown has to do is point them to Peranda.
- All correspondence about the group buy has to make reference to the Crown's name and the plant variety name.
- Crown Members get a wholesale cost.
- Root Members get a discounted retail cost.
- Any of the Root Members may also bring in participants. The Root Members who bring their own participants into the group buy become Bud Division Members and will also get the same wholesale cost as the Crown for that buy.
- There can be any number of Bud Division Members in a buy.
- All participants may buy any number of plants in any group buy, up to the required number of purchases.
- When the required number of purchases has been reached, the buy is CLOSED. No new Root Members are allowed.
- First come first served, all participant entrance is based upon the time stamp on the email to Peranda, whether it is the Root, Crown, or Bud Division email.
- Anybody may discuss and generate purchases/participation in any possible way they can conceive of, such as online discussion forums, Facebook, Pinterest, and any all other forms of social media, friends and family, garden clubs, etc. Peranda will not be monitoring the group buys.
- Peranda will notify the Crown and Bud Divisions of the status of the buy every time a new email of participation arrives. (At least once a day, but only if new emails arrive.)
- Peranda may (haven't figured out the logistics of this part yet) post the status of all active buys on our Cubit (
http://cubits.org/Peranda/). Not sure how this part will work.
- Peranda will notify the Crown when the group buy has reached its required number of purchases. Peranda will send PayPal invoices to the participants, order the bulk items, and ship to the participants.
***EXAMPLE*** (this is NOT a real group buy)
Wholesale cost of a Peony X group buy = $6.99 for Crown and Crown Bud Members.
Discounted Retail cost for the Peony X group buy = $10.99 for Root Members.
Our Retail to our customers = $13.99
Required number of participants for Peony X = 8 (1 Crown and 7 Roots or less if any participants buy more than 1 of that variety.)
Our shipping is $7.99 + $2.00 each additional item. Purchase price $100 or greater (excluding shipping) gets free shipping.
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Again, we are attempting to make desired varieties of plants available to the community at good prices, but, up front, we are also trying to figure out how to build inventory with minimal investment. You help us stock up on plants and we help you get plants at great deals.
What do you think?
