At the latest since the Corona crisis, the companies from the garden industry have realised that there is no way around the digitalisation. More and more are planning to set up their own webshop. This can be accomplished amazingly fast and at little cost - as the modular concept of Olerum and Green Solutions demonstrates.

New sales channel and extended shop counter: An own webshop offers garden centres many advantages. Joining the ranks of eCommerce makes one's own business more visible, promotes efficiency and the image, strengthens the flexibility and customer loyalty through an expanded offer and 24/7 availability – and brings even more traffic to the stationary outlet.

The best practice example of Green Solutions, a software supplier that specialises on the garden industry, and Olerum, the plant shop of the Association of German Garden Centres (VDG) demonstrates how to set up a webshop within a few weeks. The two of them worked out a modular concept within a few days last year already, which enabled over 100 garden centres to install their own online trading platform within a few weeks.

An extensive dropshipping line-up, a database with contents and a module for webshop management, ordering and delivery form the basis of the shop concept. Following a modular principle, garden centres can establish their webshop to suit their needs.

Olerum.de plays a key role in the shop concept. The business model of the joint online trade of the VDG members was completely redesigned: From a webshop into a cloud-based omnichannel system. In the meantime, Olerum.de no longer sells a range of products held in stock in its own warehouse, but instead acts as a digital marketplace. The items in the webshop originate from numerous, renowned manufacturers and wholesalers from the green industry, who dispatch the goods directly to the customers as a dropshipper.

The omnichannel system developed by Olerum and Green Solutions serves as a joint digital platform, which connects garden centres and dropshipping suppliers. Garden centres that would like to set up their own webshop are integrated into this system and have access to the entire dropshipping range comprising of over 30,000 products: Plants, flower bulbs, soils, fertilisers, garden furniture, lights and grills. Prospective webshop operators can select the entire line-up or parts of the product ranges of specific dropshippers for their online trade. Furthermore, they can integrate own items into the overall product range, which are then also sold via Olerum.de. This means garden centres are at the same time both suppliers and users of the omnichannel system.

The webshop operators can fall back on the database of Green Solutions, which contains over 300,000 photos as well as product descriptions, videos, editorial articles and search machine-optimised advertising texts that partly automatically categorise the items as a source for their customer information, marketing and for the attractive placement of the products. Moreover, they can also use own content as well as optional modules for newsletters and individual vouchers.

In the scope of the omnichannel system, the shop management is automated - the operators don't have to do anything. The system takes care of developing and maintaining the product range structure, ordering processing, compiles sales pages and implements sales promotion campaigns, for example on seasonal topics like Easter or Mother's Day. Offers can be linked to a shop-the-look function here.

Thanks to the completely automated connectivity, incoming orders are directly integrated into the existing processes of the shop operator or forwarded on to the dropshipper – depending on whether the customer has purchased one of the own items or a product from the dropshipping range. The garden centre delivers own products via its system per click & collect or click & deliver. Olerum is responsible for the delivery process and customer service for items from the dropshipping range. If the operator prefers to first check over these orders again himself, a semi-automated model can also be installed.

Being integrated into the omnichannel system of Olerum and Green Solutions enables garden centres to set up their own webshop faster: As a network partner of a strong platform while still retaining one's own identity, since the webshop runs under the respective company's own name. An own IT and high, often unforeseeable costs for the development, maintenance and care of the shop are done away with. The costs are transparent and calculable, because only an entry fee and an annual lump sum of Euro 1,600 respectively are payable. A free funding check for financing the eCommerce model is offered as an additional service.