$7000/year, or $631.81/month with ShopPay. The price includes a fully merchandised Shopify Plus website + 52 weeks of managed email marketing, full customer service, and email list management.

Yes! We are able to provide Certified Shopify Online Garden Centers at lower cost because we are an enterprise customer of Shopify, which allows us to pass along enterprise pricing to our clients. Shopify Plus generally costs over $2300 per month. For $7000 annually, or $631.81 per month, we are able to provide a Shopify Plus store, a network of suppliers, customer service, and marketing.

No. Marketing is included!

No! Customer service is included!

At this time we have only one plan: available for $7000/year or $631.81/month with ShopPay.

Retailers pay A24 Consulting 10% transaction fee on the total amount of the retail sale. Credit card transaction fees are between 2.2-2.5% for transactions made on the Certified Shopify Online Garden Center Website

You might or you might not. We can help you determine whether you need assistance. The main requirement for your site is that you need a separate domain-based email address (not an alias) for your managed marketing and customer service.

If you are using a gmail, yahoo, aol, or other non-domain email for your business, and you do not have someone to help you create a domain based email and a subdomain, you will need our IT support package.

Everything else - hooking up your domain to Shopify (your store), Gorgias (the program we use to manage your customer service for online orders), and Bloomreach (the program we use to do your email marketing for you) - is included in your online store setup.

Because many local, independent businesses don't have a dedicated IT support person to help with professional email, domain records, etc. we have created a package that will allow us to help you in the most cost-effective way. This is a $499 one-time fee that will not be charged upon your yearly renewal. As a bonus, once your professional email account is set up, you'll be able to use it for your business! Questions about this? Send an email to tim@a24-consulting.com

No! You will need access to your regular website and your domain name registrar in order to validate your email sending address and add your shop link to your website, but we'll help you with that.

No. In fact, we encourage you to keep and expand your current website because you are the local knowledge experts!

No, you may keep your existing website, but your Certified Shopify Online Garden Center will be a separate Shopify store. This is due to the way the supplier catalogs are configured and the parameters and requirements of Shopify collective. Without the A24 Consulting aggregated access to Collective, most garden centers would not meet minimum sales thresholds to participate.

No. You do not need Shopify POS.

We will help you set up the native Shopify Payments functionality. All payments received will be directly deposited into your connected bank account. 

Transaction fees are automatically transferred to A24 Consulting weekly using the Shopify Bill Pay functionality.

Supplier payments are automatically forwarded to suppliers via the Shopify Collective functionality.

The Suppliers set the prices.

No, sales will be determined by the Suppliers and the A24 Consulting administration with notification given to participating IGCs for advanced in-store coordination. Sales and promotions will be limited and primarily focused around end-of-season promotions. This model is not built to provide bargains. It is built to provide top quality product and excellent, convenient service.

You will have a dedicated store phone number and email to reach your customer service representatives who will facilitate the return or refund transaction. We encourage retailers to place this information near registers for employees to easily find it.

Please email tim@a24-consulting.com We will return your email within 24 business hours Monday-Friday 10am-7pm Eastern.

They may send an email to the dedicated customer support team for your online store or call your dedicated customer support phone number for your online store for assistance placing their order.

We will work with you to customize your shop to reflect your brand colors and logo.

No, the products will be merchandised in your shop according to our carefully curated merchandise plan.

No. There is a constant rotation of products listed on the site based on seasonal appropriateness. We are working with our suppliers to activate new products for this season. We are also working closely with new suppliers to increase the product options.

At this time, we do not offer integration with your in-store catalog, nor do we offer local delivery of products from your physical store. Some garden centers are offering those options on their primary content website, while linking to their Certified Shopify Online Garden Center with a button labeled “Shop our Direct-from-Supplier Selections”.

Yes. All products available through our network of suppliers are shipped directly from the supplier to the customer’s address.

There will be a notice at the product level listing restrictions and customers in restricted zip codes will not be able to check out.

While the supplier network is national, the marketing supports your local business.

Yes! Your branding, in the form of your logo and your brand colors will be included on your website and on every email sent from your Certified Shopify Online Garden Center managed marketing account.

Yes! In fact, we encourage that! The more you share links to your shop, the more you will sell and the bigger impact your store will have on your bottom line. However, our managed marketing program is designed to give you a nice revenue bump without any work on your part once setup is complete.

The initial list of emails will come from you. Any time a new customer is directed to your Certified Shopify Online Garden Center from another site (such as social media), they will be prompted to add their email, so the email list may continue to grow.

Yes! We will help you authenticate your sending address for your Bloomreach managed marketing account.

Yes, they sure can! 

Yes and no. The weekly marketing emails will be tailored to large US regions encompassing individual garden centers. It doesn't make any sense to sell tomato plants to people in Dallas and Minneapolis at the same time, so we won't. 

We do not! You own your email addresses and we will not rent, sell, or use those email addresses for anything other than marketing to your customers for you. 

The email list associated with your Shopify online store will only be used to market your online store. Email lists are not shared between stores. At this point, there is no direct way for individual garden centers to access their email lists, but that is a function we are exploring.

No, the A24 Consulting staff (We are all horticulturists!) will be carefully planning the editorial calendar to reflect products that are timely for use in the area the emails are sent. The way you get such great pricing on managed marketing is that we are able to use technology to share the assets and the cost. The emails will be seasonally appropriate.

We have an editorial calendar you can view at any time to see the planned marketing.

No we will not send how-to info. YOU are the experts in the nuances of your area and we want you to stay in that position. The Certified Shopify Online Garden Center is primarily a managed ecommerce solution for you to extend your sales reach and not an educational platform.

Please submit their info to us at clint@a24-consulting.com. We will periodically review our supplier network to vet new suppliers.

Shopify is a large, internationally used, well-funded, well-supported and stable commerce platform that is constantly researching and building new solutions for businesses. By using their "out of the box" functionality, we save costs that we can pass along to you. We also ensure that you have the best, most functional ecommerce solution available in consumer horticulture.

Bloomreach solutions are on the cutting edge of ecommerce marketing and omnichannel experience. Their integrations with Shopify will give you the best marketing product available today. 

At this time, most likely no. Bloomreach is an enterprise level solution that is available by invitation only.

We are building this solution because we care deeply about the individual and family-owned businesses in the horticulture industry. We care about the people working in the businesses and we care about the impact those businesses have in their communities. We also have decades of experience with the challenges faced by these businesses and want to make life easier and more sustainable for garden retail owners. We want our industry to keep growing, and in order for it to do so, owning and running a garden retail business must be more profitable and easier to manage. Our ecommerce solution will provide more revenue with relatively low inputs as one way to work toward that sustainability.

We are doing this to reverse the loss of local businesses and encourage new people to join the garden retail vertical.