
East Austin Succulents Blossoms with BigCommerce
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Summer season is in full swing, and what higher option to rejoice than so as to add to your rising plant assortment?
However for East Austin Succulents — Austin’s most various and artistic cactus and succulent nursery — trying to find uncommon and attention-grabbing vegetation is a year-round mission.
From agave to bougainvillea to Texas plumeria, EAS is residence to all kinds of distinctive air vegetation, timber, herbs and shrubs. With a working greenhouse and a retail nursery, the blossoming enterprise is a haven for plant lovers throughout Central Austin.
Rising to New Ranges
Starting in 2009, EAS has since thrived as a solely brick-and-mortar nursery, however in 2020, the crew determined it was time to go digital.
“We existed in every single place however the web, and we had a reasonably well-established fame in central Texas,” mentioned EAS’s customer support supervisor and assistant internet store supervisor, Rachel Harris. “However no one else actually knew about us, and we thought it was time to vary that.”
To assist develop the nursery’s attain, the crew constructed the East Austin Succulents webshop — which now serves plant lovers not solely in Central Texas, but additionally throughout all 50 states.
Nonetheless, with the webshop launching through the peak of the pandemic, EAS not solely needed to navigate how one can promote on-line for the primary time, however they’d additionally not too long ago closed their retail nursery and transitioned to appointment solely.
“We had been having to navigate how one can permit for orders to be fulfilled in-person by means of our internet store, but additionally how one can ship them out. We had been studying loads unexpectedly, but it surely was an enormous win as a result of we’re nonetheless right here,” mentioned Harris.
A Budding Success
In reality, the webshop didn’t simply assist EAS survive the pandemic — it was a seed that will assist the corporate develop like by no means earlier than.
“Our Instagram already had individuals who had been asking to purchase issues on-line, and all our social media has solely grown since launching on-line. Plus, our e mail e-newsletter subscriptions have grown drastically,” mentioned Pam Humphrey, EAS’s internet store supervisor.
On prime of celebrating the two-year anniversary of its webshop, different massive wins for EAS embrace turning into a Star Vendor on Etsy and a High Vendor on eBay. With the assistance of its BigCommerce retailer, EAS has solely grown and grown, establishing itself as a novel, high-quality plant nursery.
And that features the packaging and delivery of vegetation for its on-line prospects. However whereas packaging a cactus might look like a troublesome feat, Humphrey claims delivery day is her favourite day of the week.
“We ship all of the vegetation with a lot love and care,” Humphrey mentioned. “Once we pack one thing, we additionally take into consideration how somebody will unwrap it and it’ll be in its new residence. Packing is a really special occasion for all of us.”
For the Love of Crops
Indubitably, the EAS crew loves all issues vegetation. From discovering a uncommon mutation or a variegated plant they haven’t seen earlier than, to discovering child possums of their greenhouse, Humphrey and Harris agreed that working at EAS comes with no scarcity of surprises.
However the most effective components of East Austin Succulents is how they foster a group of individuals round vegetation.
Recalling an occasion with an Etsy buyer, Harris defined how the client had forgotten to order a warmth pack together with their plant buy. So, the EAS crew messaged the client and provided to ship them a warmth pack without spending a dime. However as an alternative, the client kindly provided to purchase 5 warmth packs as a “pay it ahead” for anybody else who forgot to purchase a warmth pack sooner or later.
“They didn’t have to try this,” mentioned Harris. “Nevertheless it was only a good second of plant individuals looking for different plant individuals, and in addition plant individuals looking for us.”
The Last Phrase
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