Original AGA Plant Sale Proposal

[Neil Frank <nfrank@mindspring.com>]

(Presented by Neil Frank to the AGA SC committee at the NEC meeting, 1998.)

FLorida Aquatic Nurseries, the largest in Florida, has offered to provide
AGA members with hard to find aquarium plants. Art Giacosa, an AGA member
in Florida (who is also the U.S. Amano representative) offered to help. His
proposal and my comments are included below. This is for discussion at the
AGA board meeting at NEC. Please read ahead of time. If we agree with the
concept, then we can get back to FAN for additional information and a
committee can work out the details for full implementation.
 
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RETAIL SALE OF PLANTS

PROPOSAL

Objective

To provide AGA members with the opportunity to purchase aquatic plants they
would otherwise be unable to purchase.  To provide a source of revenue for
the AGA.

Procedure

A pamphlet is made available to members listing the plants that are
available.  Availibility of special or rare plants may be made via the AGA
web site or by flyer.

An interested member would send order via email or mail to a designated
person.  This person would collect the payments and forward them to the AGA
Treasurer.  In addition, this person would place an order with Florida
Aquatic Nursery (FAN).

FAN would fill the order and package plants for shipment.  A designated
member (myself) would arrange for a pick-up from FAN.  This designated
member would then repackege the plants and send them to the purchasing member.

Issues

AGA will have a large expense in paying for the advertising materials and
shipping materials.

Two members (the designated members) would be required to do ALOT of work
taking orders and shipping the plants to the individual members.  Although
I can pick up the plants from FAN, I cannot package and ship them until the
weekend as I have a full time job during the week.

AGA may have to collect retail sales taxfrom certain members.  Furthermore,
Federal and State tax returns may need to be filled.

It is difficult to ship out of the US.

Possible solutions

I don't know if it is a good idea to offer AGA members commonly available
species.  Our prices would probably be higher than what someone can buy it
retail and we may look bad if the plant arrives in bad shape.  Furthermore,
such volume would be difficult to deal with.

I think it would be more worthwhile to offer rare or hard-to-get species,
e.g. Gasser crypts.  This would justify the higher cost and would lower the
volume we would have to do.  If the plant arrives in bad shape, I think the
person would be happy to just have the rare plant and not worry too much
about its shape.

Personal note

I think this is a worthwhile project if done realistically.  In my opinion,
the people that would use it most would be the more advanced folks with an
interest in purchasing the more hard to get species.


                          COMMENTS
>Please clarify the "Two members (the designated members)" 

The two members are the Order/Payment Collector and the member in charge of
shipping.

>Weekend shipping can be done if the plants can be picked up on Friday or
>even Saturday. Need to check if FAN allows this.

Saturday morning pick up is best for me.  I understand that FEDEX is now
working on Sundays.

>Issue: our pricing. We know the species list and markup on the 200+ FAN
>plants. We do not yet know it for others like the Gasser crypts. The issue
is what to charge for the final price and if a min service charge is needed.

Definitely a price markup should be built in for our trouble and expense.
What needs to be done is an analysis of how much we think we're going to
sell and how much will be the cost of goods sold.

>I agree that we may need to come up with a relatively short list to keep
>volume reasonable, but don't you think that a sizeable markup on a stem
>plant (say charging a minimum of $5.00 for ALL plants) would naturally do
>this... but at same time would provide a locally hard to find plant to our
>members, including AGAers who are not on the INTERNET or do not know about
>mailorder plant places. 
>Also, our flyer could include an appropriate statement about 'no promisses
>on condition.'

I think that a high markup may keep sales lower than they would otherwise
be, but still think that we shouldn't sell very common plants like water
sprite.  It may be more economical to tell the non-internet people about
the mail order places.