Fw: AGA plant sales

["Robert P. Cashin" <rcashin@juno.com>]

Hi Everybody,

        Quite a while ago, we had a lengthy discussion about plant sales. David
Lass, who has volunteered to do the job offered this proposal on how it
would work with him doing the job. Please vote yes or no on this proposal
as it stands.

                                        Thanks, Bob.

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Villa Sunscape" <davidlass@villasunscape.com>
To: "Neil Frank" <nfrank@mindspring.com>,
         "Robert P. Cashin" <rcashin@juno.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 21:56:14 -0400
Subject: AGA plant sales
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Hi again guys -- 
When the dust clears from the PAM thing, I would like to begin the
discussion about AGA plant sales, which upon Neil's description of what
had been planned a while ago, I am willing to undertake as the person in
charge. As you (Bob) requested, here is the way I think it would work.
* Being able to do the plant sales would only be open to AGA members, and
would be advertised in the AGA section of PAM. This would, I think, be a
significant incentive for folks to join AGA. 
* The idea would be to be able to offer a good variety of "rare" plants
-- those that are not normally available at stores.
* Florida Aquatic Nurseries (FAN) has told Neil that they would be
willing to supply the plants. Neil says that they have even volunteered
to obtain rare plants from their sources, grow them out for us, and then
ship them to us. In addition there is a company in Canada whose plants I
have seen in some shops I sell fish to, and I could see if they would
sell to us. Too bad that Gasser did not have anyone continue his
business.
* The way I think the actual procedure would work is as follows:
    * To start with we do this once a quarter. Advertise it in PAM and
have deadlines of, say, 1/1, 4/1, 7/1 and 10/1.
    * We would include in PAM a listing of the plants available and the
prices (We can talk about pricing later, but from what Neil and I have
talked about it seems we can make a straight XX% markup)
    * Orders would have to be in by the four dates above, and orders
would have to be submitted by email. There would have to be a minimum
order of $XX.
    * After the order was confirmed by me (to make sure that FAN has all
the plants that were offered when the PAM went to press), I would email
back the total amount including shipping and handling.
    * The Customer would then send AGA (me) their check, which would have
to be in by the 15th of the month.
    * I would aggregate all of the orders and make a single order to FAN.
    * FAN would ship the plants to me
    * I would break them down into the orders from above., and send them
out, probably Express Mail or FedEx.
Lots of what may seem heavy lifting I can set up on my computer, and once
the program is done, the ordering and aggregating process will be simple,
as will the emailing. The only thing that will be time consuming will be
breaking down the FAN shipment into the individual orders. How much of a
hassle this is will depend on how many folks do it each quarter. 20 or 30
orders I can handle easily. If we start getting 50 or more that will be
tough. If the response is that big we may want to consider my hiring
someone to help with the breakdown and shipping ( the cost of which we
would include in our pricing, just as we would the freight from FAN to
me), or we could simply limit the number of orders we will take each
quarter.
That's where my thoughts are now. Please let me know what you think, and
what else you need me to do.
Thanks.
Lass

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